A Must Buy This Wednesday

The second part of the Gaiman/Kubert "Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader?" comes out on Wednsday. Finally. I hope to review the completed story sometime this week. Putting up some reviews on this damn blog is long overdue.

By the way: is it me or doesn't the above cropped panel look like it could have been drawn by Rags Morales? I know it wasn't, but I don't know that I'd bat an eye if I saw it in a Rags book.

Rags Morales Off Nightwing

Regular comment-loiterer, Ken B., was so frustrated at the news that Rags Morales might be off Nightwing and moved to Superman/Batman that he took it upon himself to try to dig up the story.

After posting the question in the Newsarama DC Forums, he got the following response from Rags himself:

Guess the cat's out of the bag.

Yeah, my last issue on Nightwing is #148, and believe me it was a bit of a surprise to me as well. We were making headway and getting the book caught up, then I got the call to help out on a Final Crisis tie-in and work on an 4 issue arc for Superman/Batman.

But don't worry about Nightwing, Don Kramer is more than capable to do the art chores and will do some killer work...as will Peter Tomasi, as usual.

As for the tie-in, I'll let DC decide when to expose that one.

I do agree that Don Kramer is a great artist, too, but it was still a shock to see DC yo-yo Rags like this. To me, a penciller being bounced from title to title is like a network moving a show all over the schedule: makes it impossible to get a serious following.

Oh...and I want to correct something I said earlier. In the previous blog about this, I said that Rags being put on the Superman/Batman title might be a demonstration of its return to glory. That would seem to be a swipe at Shane Davis. To the contrary, Davis does great work and I'm a fan. But two successive top tier artists on the book? That's a good sign.

(God help me if there was another top tier artist on right before Shane Davis that I'm forgetting)

Random Comic Book Thoughts

• Hey...maybe Heidi MacDonald and Douglas Wolk were paid Marvel consultants on the Marvel_b0y viral marketing campaign? I mean...didn't they start the whole "insult your readers and creators to generate buzz" thing with the "Jess Lemon" incident?
  
• Now that it is no longer April Fool's Day, I can tell you my true joke: the spoilers were never going to end with Monday's reveal. Full Secret Invasion #2 spoilers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu_moia-oVI
• I'll be traveling to attend a wedding and possibly a funeral this weekend, so you'll have to forgive me if I'm not around to say "I told you so" or "f*ck! they used me!" right away.
• For some reason, the retcon of a sidekick for The Wrath just happening to match the way The Wrath was done in THE BATMAN cartoon is detracting from my enjoyment of the great work Bedard and Morales are doing on their BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL arc. I wish it wasn't true, but it keeps nagging at me. If anyone involved has come out and said that it was an idea that came up independent of the cartoon development, please direct my attention to it so I can breathe easier.
• Dennis Calero was on the RON & FEZ SHOW on XM Satellite Radio Channel 202 this afternoon, plugging his upcoming appearance at NYCC and a big project he is doing at Marvel that he thinks will be announced at the convention. Wonder what it is? DC's loss for not wrapping him up when he was on Legion of Super-Heroes; his work there was very underrated. (Update: Dan Coyle says in the comments that Calero was talking about a big pitch with Fred Van Lente at the Baltimore Comic Convention)
  
• I'd really like to see Johns and Morrison collaborate on a bi-weekly half or full year alternate Earth story. Well, I'd be fine with them writing the real DCU Earth, if coordination issues wouldn't seep in. I'm struggling to figure out who I'd team to do the same over at Marvel, but Fraction would be in the equation.
  

SCHWAPP!!! Comic Review Week 25: Suicide Squad & Batman Confidential

SCHWAPP Comics Vlog Week 20

Hey Kids, Vlogs!

This week's reviews are up. I might drop some nuggets during the week, but this is the only guaranteed vlogging for the moment.

Nightwing: The second issue of the new creative team, Peter Tomasi and Rags Morales. How good is it? Well, I'm constantly checking eBay for a bronzed Tomasi keyboard, if that's any hint.



Teen Titans Year One: The second issue of yet another updating of classic stories. What does this one add? Other than amazing Kerschl art, IMs, and text messaging, the answer is: not a lot.



Justice Society & Infinity Inc: Two books. Two families. One is a functional melting pot and the other is a dysfunctional mess. View the vlog and see which one comes out best, in my estimation.