To & From the Comic Shop

the goon!

2009-03-16T09:39:00.000-07:00

if you know me you know i love the Dark Horse comic created by Eric Powell known as the Goon. it has been picked up to be turned into an animated film and there are some updates! i am super excited! first at the prospects of a Goon movie and second at the prospects of a CGI animated film or hell any animated film generated with darker more adult themes that is not made or targeted for children. i cant stand that animation has to pander to kids in america. they figured this out in japan years ago [ and no i do not mean any of that bullshit anime porn crap...i cant stand hentai or cartoons doin it (tho ill give some of the people credit for makin money offa poor saps who just wanna watch cartoons have sex )...even the sex in the classic Ninja Scroll film always freaked me out a bit... ] but i digress...i am just super psyched to see this image today! i cant wait!...now all i need is Oddworld Inhabitants to get their shit together and get me my Abe's Oddysee movie out there and i will be in heaven!

this book

2009-03-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

this book gets looked at all the freakin' time! i has a velcro closer thing on the slipcase so i can hear you open it! i can see you flip thru it! i know all of you creepy men have an Asian Fetish cause you are drawn to the book that sits next to a buncha really great books but you never pick them up...you have to pick of this book! the book itself is kinda like a whore...and all of you have touched it...ps no one ever buys it

hey look...someone on the innernette knows me enough to mention me

2009-02-18T14:37:00.000-08:00

so my good friends over @ geekadelphia.com saw fit to mention my other good friend over @ cubeecraft.com today and at the same time throw in a reference to me and the shop! total sweet deal all around! [ you may have to look closely to find my ref but it's there!...i'm the *'s explanation at the bottom...and i too agree w/ Tim on attractive women reading comics...we seem them every week! it's not just smelly/fat dudes and kids anymore! don't get me wrong. those characters still do buy comics on a regular basis and are usually all around nice and good people [ except for when a kid peed its' pants in the shop a week or so ago...more on that another time ] but the myth of the girl in the shop has been proven to be just that a myth!...heck the guys from geekadelphia are guilty of bringing them in from time to time as well!

follow geekadelphia on twitter
geekadelpia
or tim
or eric [another guy from the geek]
or ben
follow cubeecraft on twitter too!

my mind gets lost in Ardgour

2009-02-17T22:30:00.001-08:00

from time to time

WAAAAAAAAAAY TO LONG- Overheard in the Comic Shop!

2009-02-12T10:15:00.000-08:00

and welcome back to Overhead in the Comic Shop...[ i recently fell off the face of the blogosphere, i guess u call it, when the computer here at the comic book store died a few weeks back and have been struggling to get myself back into the innernette like i was at one point
(here's a pic of the hole where the computer was not while it was dead)
...it's kinda like workin out everyday and then takin a few weeks off and bein lazy and building your steam back up into the mood to work out again (i am also in the process of doin this very task)]...but anyway here's a new overheard in the comic shop that just happened no longer ago than it took me to write this paragraph [ if you can call this a paragraph ]...

Old Lady buying Spider-man #583 [ yes we still sell that damn book at least once a day ]:
"could i have a plastic bag to carry it?"
me:
" yea sure you can."
Old Lady who loves Obama in Spider-man comics [ she wouldn't buy the Bio Comic form IDW ]:
"cause i have a cane and need the plastic bag to carry it."

wtf!? you can't carry it in a paper bag because you have a cane?...i know plastic bags have handles ... but seriously...just hold the paper bag?...and i right or am i being an asshole?

new president.

2009-01-20T16:20:00.001-08:00

check the internet it will tell you more than i can. we got a new president.what else do you want me to say? im super psyched but im sure it has been blogged to death...sooooooo i am choosing to blog about this picture today. facebook is full of bullshit "hey you should know this person" things...and well sometimes i click on them. and today i did. essentially i should know this guy who is being super cool wearing a shocker t-shirt and giving the shocker...but i cant seem to get past how much i hate/love that he is wearing the shocker t-shirt while giving the aforementioned super cool hand sign.
i dunno if it's just me or what but i can't stand this sign. i think i had a good chuckle about it the day i heard about it who knows how many years ago but then it kinda stopped there. the chuckle turned to annoyance and then that just turned into whatever that level is just below total hatred [it's still in the range of super annoying...while spider-man #583 is way above total hatred]...it's just a dumb handsign you say. well yes it is. but it has become the dumb hand sign that has come to stand for and be associated with so many douchebags that i come across in my life...and the fact that Dane Cook's ["comedian"] hand sign [why the fuck does a stand up comedian need a hand sign in beyond me] is so similar just adds to my hatred for both things...as both have become symbols for those douchebags...
but this now brings me back to my love for the fact that this guy thought he was so awesome that night that he was wearing a shocker shirt and doing the shocker...i cant get enough of America and Americans in this sense. it's just something i love about people in general...and something that friends of mine have trouble getting their heads around how i refer to both douche and non douche people as sweet...ah people...ah the internet. thank you.
oh ps new president.
THANKS TO SPIDER-MAN FOR STOPPING THE CHAMELEON BEFORE HE COULD TAKE THE OATH OF OFFICE AND BECOME PRESIDENT...it's not like 12Noon doesn't make you the president automatically...

in other news

2009-01-17T10:03:00.000-08:00

•it's DAMN COLD OUT THERE!
•Ruairi and Keith are in town tonight.
•Street Fighter Alpha 3's Zangief has pissed me off so he will be goin' down soon!
•im gonna be part of the geekadphia.com podcasts soon! [laugh at my ability not to speak as much as you laugh at my horrible writing here]
•anyone have Battle Star Galactica DVDs i could borrow to catch up on the show...i never saw any of it...ever.
•i hate my shitty thumb.

suddenly...

2009-01-17T08:59:00.001-08:00

ah shit man...

2009-01-16T10:11:00.001-08:00

so i know im not breaking any news here but it came to my attention this morning [after i spent a few hours bullshitting around on the net and answering questions aboutspider-man #583...again] that one of my favorite american painters died in his sleep last night...
Andrew Wyeth, son of Treasure Island Illustrator N.C. Wyeth [amongst the other sweet things he painted the treasure island images are my favorite...Blind Pew is amazing ] died in his sleep at the age of 91. i wont do the reporting so if you wanna read the article click here

everything ive read today about his death always references his painting Christina's World...which, yea, is a nice piece and super famous. i love how people always talk about it as some romantic idea of a girl lost in her imagination, dorothy-esque, kinda thing and then always have to talk about [like me right now] how she was just horribly disabled and had probably even peed herself in this picture as she was trying to drag herself home etc...but that painting is just alright... i tend like so many of his other pieces waaaay better anyway. ive included his portrait of Dr. Syn [if you know nothing of the character read the wiki] who i actually fell in love with, both in story and in painting because of my father. I actually have to blame my father for introducing me to Wyeth probably when i was in 3rd or 4th grade too. He had worked with the Brandywine Conservancy and Art Museum doing their insurance stuff...and thus was involved with a bunch of things Wyeth...all in my mind much more romanticized as well.
i was very happy to go to the Wyeth Retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art not too many years ago...i cannot remember when that was [these last 4 years are a blur i a lot of ways...and not even from the drinking...heh...just changes] but i do remember the close to 4 hours i spent looking at his art and how amazing it all was. such attention to craft. awesome brush strokes. the fact that he painted things as he wanted sometimes...ie removing windows on the farmhouse and such...so sweet. the fact that one sweet piece with buzzards flying over a field was lost to time for a while cause he flipped the board over and set up his sons toy train set on the reverse just blew my mind. And finally seeing Dr Syn in real life was amazing. my friend sam said today that he lived "a full life" and this is very very true. 91 is a long time to be kickin around here in south eastern pa [heh] and to be able to paint such sweet paintings that actually have been appreciated in his own lifetime seems to me to be a great accomplishment in and of itself.
if you didnt make it to the show @ the PMA try to see his pieces whenever and wherever you can. i recommend them highly. today is a sad day for my little art world.

overheard in the comic shop!

2009-01-15T11:04:00.000-08:00

yet another lovely thursday hits us square in the face today...and today's overheard in the comic shop is gonna be different...

everyone ever who has called in the last few days:
"do you have the new spider-man comic?"
but then there was this one guy:
"do you have this new comic called 21? it's about Roberto Clemente."
me:
"uh lemme check"
guy again:
"you can use google to check just search for 21 graphic novel"
me:
"yea thats what i am doing now actually."
time passes...no more than 30 seconds counted using mississippis...then
guy:
"what did you use to search?"
me:
"google?!"
guy:
"no...what words did you search?"
me:
"twenty one, well the numbers 2 and 1 and then the words graphic novel..." give guy a look of disbelief..."i found it. it is called 21 colon the story of Roberto Clemente."
guy:
"yea thats it. [mentions something about the music playing on the webpage since i am on the webpage at the time]. you are on the webpage." [cause he knows the music is part of the page]
me:
"it says right here on the webpage that it's not out til march 2009."
guy:
"really?"
me:
"it says it right there on the webpage."

ugh...
this made me feel better

and today this pop'd up as well!

2009-01-14T16:15:00.000-08:00

new gorillaz! [it's a link...click it!]

this...was better than i thought.

2009-01-14T14:14:00.000-08:00

and guess what...no shitty obama guest spot!

one more reason to HATE

2009-01-14T14:12:00.000-08:00

yes. this is just one more reason for me to get angry...both at the apparent need to use Obama to sell shit [in this case comics] to people who are only gonna buy your shit [in this case comics] because he is on the cover!
i mean who really buys this shit [in this case i mean Youngblood!]

my god! COMICS!

2009-01-13T18:08:00.001-08:00

so you may have realized i hate a certain comic book that will be hitting the shelves tomorrow morning as you go out and grab your comics...this so called team up is gonna be sold out here @ Brave New Worlds but we will have the second printing that does not look like this:
now if that cover isn't enough to be baffled by here are some spoiler laden excerpts of dialog from this sought after gem...one spoiler is MAJOR:

"hiya, prez-elect! loved ya in the debates!" [spidey as he swings in]

"it was...uhh...Barasket Oballma..." [an impostor does not know Obama's basketball nickname]

"here that, chameleon? the president-elect here just appointed me...the secretary of shuttin' you up!" [punch to face!...oops the chameleon was the impostor...told ya it was major]

oh and i didn't even get to how bad the art is in this story...

now that i am done talking trash on this book...that quite honestly i do not read [like many of the people who are gonna be trying their damnedest to get their hands on in a little over 15hrs or so...from when i write this] i will point you in the direction of someone who makes some good points as to why this book and other things of its' ilk suck...or have just gotten plain on my nerves! and hey she quotes me so it cant be all that bad...or can it...i think i may have been drunk at the time of that conversation...anyway

on to the book that should be getting more hype...well at least i think so...if the return of Barry Allen earlier this past year [shit it is 09 now isnt it...] was big enough news to make it into all of the newspapers and morning tv "news" shows so that dc comics readers had their Wednesday's ruined for them before the big mouthed guy at their local comic shop could ruin it for them [every shop has one], then i think that the issue where something as big as what happens here within this book should have people calling me to get their hands on it...but alas it may be overshadowed by the red-n-blue spidey meeting the "prez-elect" on innaug...er innagur...that day he gets sworn in...than the "day evil won" as has been attached to this book from the get go...i dunno...for the money Final Crisis #6 Change(s) everything while the amazing Spider-man meets Barrack Obama just bored me...

this!

2009-01-13T10:49:00.001-08:00

i dont really understand why but i know im all for it!
this was sent to my by Keith...purveyor of fine links...

the boss sent me an email

2009-01-10T13:45:00.000-08:00

and this was inside

then i went here

http://crystalheadvodka.com/#

now i need this!

overheard in the comic shop

2009-01-09T10:33:00.000-08:00

its been a while for this and i know its not thursday and all that but whatever...heres the first overheard in the comic shop of 2009!

a person walked into the shop one time with great determination and said:
"do you have yatzee...er i mean scrabble?"
i wanted to laugh so hard at them.

if that one wasnt good enough for ya try this double shot on for size:

a south philly plumber type walks in wearing his plumber tshirt and says to me upon seeing a copy of Frank Miller's 300 on the shelf:
"that was a good movie that three hunnert. you think they are ever gonna make a sequel?!"
::: sigh :::

ok not enough for ya? heres another one:

girl to her friend in the shop looking at comics on the great wall:
"here's a fact: all black [female] superheros look like Halle Berry."

see look

ok. back to selling comics.

im officially annoyed by this.

2009-01-09T10:26:00.000-08:00

i am officially annoyed by this comic and its not even out yet:

all people are doing is calling for copies of it. seriously marvel...i was already annoyed with the Colbert issues...

See You Next Year!

2008-12-31T14:21:00.000-08:00

2008 ends tonight. 2009 begins tonight. THE FUTURE IS NOW

oh and a fat kid for good measure

OK. god damned holidays messing everything up

2008-12-30T17:05:00.000-08:00

w/ xmas come and gone and 2009 just about a day away i finally come back to this here blog...i know i know i missed overheard and the comic shop last week. i hate to inform you i will be missing it this week as well...that will be new years day here in @ To & From the Comic Shop and i will have to be To the Comic Shop that day...meaning i get to be the hungover monkey selling all the people of philadelphia comics! yay!

www.bravenewworldscomics.com
and shameless plug for the store over...
in preparation for the new year most of today was spent gathering booze to make my friends and myself good n drunk to start off this new year. the only lame thing 'bout this whole thing is the fact that i have to be semi functional for jan 1st 2009...oh well. let's see how that pans out.

since there is all of this lame holiday delays and such i have a lot of time here at the shop where i feel like no one will be shopping for comics [except for the day of the sale...lets hope] AND since i already have all of the comics coming out on Friday [yea new comics on friday is kinda lame] i plan on reading every damn one of them before they are "out"...HA! good game right? thought so. i've already got one under my belt.
in other news i got a nice digital camera for xmas. still a point and shoot but i am not complaining in anyway! the damn thing is beautiful and ive yet to take more that prolly 30 pictures with it yet but stay tuned...as i will post some here im sure
heres one now [from a walk to or from]:

Overheard In The Comic Shop!

2008-12-18T10:01:00.000-08:00

goldernit i suck at blogging.

Here we go with another overheard in the comic shop"
young kid from NYC, in shop on a field trip to Philly, asks me
"do people ever come in here and drop like $500 on comics?"

i say
"yup."

he says
"dang man they could hire a stripper with that money. that's what those people need...no offense if you like this stuff..."

there ya go. words of apparent wisdom from an NYC teen.

and now a picture for no good reason.

baseball chewie!

2008-12-13T10:48:00.001-08:00

this is all i have to offer today.

Overheard In The Comic Shop!

2008-12-11T09:40:00.001-08:00

well its thursday yet again. i may have been a bit quiet this week [ for some reason last week when i felt like there was more going on i got more "blogging" done than this week...but hell im so far behind in comics reading this week im sad to say i sell them for a living ]
but all of that aside heres the 2nd installment of Overheard in the Comic Shop! [ thunderous applause from the audience of none ]:
(im gonna set the scene for you)
it was late on a wednesday evening...last 5 min or so. no customers. im breaking down the cardboard boxes for disposal and in walks a german tourist [ we get a lot of tourists due to our local near the tourism areas of Philly ] he then said to me in broken german/english:

"hello. i am from germany and i need your help!"

gotta love that shite! the best setup for a sweet 90s action/scifi/historical/thriller if there ever was one!

yesterday on my way in

2008-12-06T09:42:00.000-08:00

yesterday morning the protesters were back. they stand out front of the building next door and protest. i dunno what...their signs have too much shit written on them to make it even worth my time reading. but while i was opening the shop i noticed the one guy was particularly lazy when it comes to his protesting style...he had his sign hangin on the dumpster that they stand next to! i got mad at this...and well i just plain hate the construction next door more and more everyday...it has been happening since august!

Overheard In The Comic Shop!

2008-12-04T15:09:00.000-08:00

welcome to what i hope will be an every Thursday sorta thing here. bits and pieces of things i overhear while working in a comic shop...things from questions to just that annoying little piece of a conversation that you hear that sticks and either makes you laugh or just drives you nuts for days a la Lewis Black. as a bonus i will give you the one that i heard while writing this. so here goes...the very first OHitCS [ i doubt that will stick ] is

•really nerdy middle aged man to his weird small lady friend:
"who's Bettie Page?"

and since that one was a gimme heres the one i had planned for a while.

•a small child walks over to a comic called "The 99" and says to his mom:
"This is about Islam, right?"

needless to say that kinda broke my brain just a little bit cause it caught me so off guard.
that will be it for me today.
might do a blurb about a comic tomorrow.

last nite!

2008-12-03T12:06:00.000-08:00

i got outta work early last night [ we switched the hours up a bit this week due to the new comics comin out tomorrow this week ] and as i was running errands back and forth on arch street i noticed some action going on over at the Betsy Ross...the action was some vans unloading things and people milling around. those people were wearing TAPS gear! frickin Ghost Hunters was like 5 feet from me. but of course i pussed out and didnt say anything to anyone. sigh.

things look good for that guy

2008-12-02T09:32:00.001-08:00

he got another wheelchair?! NICE! within the last year n a half or so i've come to see some sweet characters on the street. some of them are...hell most of them are recurring characters who all seem to have some little niche that they have come to own all their own. one of those guys was the backwards wheelchair guy.
as the name would make you believe he's a homeless guy who's got himself a wheelchair and he rolls himself along backwards by pushing it with his feet. while he's not strictly limited to the push method...i have seen him use the "forward foot crawl method" to scoot his way past the store. he seems to have a large territory too! i've seen him as far north on 2nd street as green street but i think he makes old city his home.
recently i noticed he no longer had a wheelchair but a baby stroller for carrying his belongings. this came after i had seen him with a missing pair of front wheelchair wheels as he walked behind his now wheelbarrow like contraption. i figured the wheels were lost in a spat for territory w/ another fellow nomad and then it was abandoned upon discovery of the sweet ass child stroller.
but today as i walked up to the shop from the shitty coffee guy just north of here [really a great place that sells everything super cheap!] i walked past the backwards wheelchair guy backing from arch street onto the sidewalk on 2nd! he's got wheels again! i will be looking forward to seeing him roll by the shop again and on the lookout in other areas of the city for him in adventures!

let's start this off

2008-11-29T15:10:00.000-08:00

Since i spend a lot of time at the comic shop and things happen to me either on my way to the shop or on my way from the comic shop i figured i would you this blog in tandem with any twitter updates i may have out there to just write little things from time to time. i don't promise to have correct spelling or grammar or anything of that sorta ilk here in this blog. i mean it is inside the innernette somewhere and well who really cares how nice i keep things. but that is getting off track. look for updates mostly on saturdays when im at the shop all day long. i have some ideas to have things from time to time for days of the week and such but lets see if i can keep up this whole blog thing.