Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...
Here's the thing... it's 2025. Selling comics has always been a rough business, but you absolutely cannot keep going deeper into the 21st century without a quick and accurate point of sale system to keep track of orders, invoices, deliveries, and all the other mundane crap that has to be taken care of in a shop. As a business owner, you don't have time to deal with all that personally and you can't afford to pay even the most meager of salaries to someone to do that manually. It essentially has to be run electronically.
Comic Knowledge is hardly the first such system, but this one is coming at a critical time. With Diamond falling apart, and publishers now going through a variety of different distributors, managing orders is suddenly immensely more challenging. For all the problems Diamond had before, its monopoly status at least meant that everything was in one place for the retailer. Now they've got to deal with different ordering processes and systems, and while, yes, you could probably set up a spreadsheet to handle things, that would become wildly inefficient after only a few months. You can technically put an veritable infinite number of sheets in a single Excel document, the app was never really designed for that volume of data. Having a single system like Comic Knowledge seems to be presenting will absolutely cut down on the amount of organization and work a retailer will need to perform just to keep up with the barest minimum of doing their job.
Add into this the payment processing -- until now, it's always been a completely separate setup almost entirely divorced from the actual sales -- and the possibility of having customers quickly and easily add/drop to their pull lists? That seems like a retailer's dreams! (It shouldn't be. This all should've been in place decades ago, but here we are.)
Clearly, there's going to be some upfront costs involved. Even if the hardware is offerred for free, just learning a new system is going to take time and will no doubt have many glitches and errors as it starts to roll out. Just because of... you know, technology... it's going to start getting installed in the field and we're going to hear a round of issues that retailers are having with it. But as they get accustomed to this new system, I expect it will make their businesses MUCH more manageable (and ideally more profitable!) in the long run.
This might sound like a boring, business-y nothing burger to your average comics reader, but if this does even half of what they're saying, it will be a game-changer for any retailer who starts using it!
Lee Falk is, of course, known for some of the most famous adventure comic strips from the early part of the 20th century. The Phantom is probably his best-known creation, but Mandrake the Magician runs a close second. It's Mandrake who really set the stage (if you'll excuse the pun) for so many magician characters, from Ibis to Zatara and, by extension, Zatanna. But Mandrake was first, appearing in 1934. Some comic historians consider him comics' first superhero. (I don't want to get into that debate, though!)
In both his Phantom and Mandrake stories, Falk largely focused on adventure. The stories had a very pulp feel to them, and concentrated more on the propelling the story forward with action, moreso than characterization or drama. In Mandrake, Falk was assisted by artist Phil Davis essentially from the start
So I was surprised to stumble across this Mandrake comic strip from 1939...
Lee Falk, action/adventure writer, did a gag strip. In a five-year old comic that had been firmly established as a not-a-gag-strip. I'm just left scratching my head on what prompted the sudden change for this one strip. Anyone else ever see examples of Falk's attempts at gag strips like this?
In both his Phantom and Mandrake stories, Falk largely focused on adventure. The stories had a very pulp feel to them, and concentrated more on the propelling the story forward with action, moreso than characterization or drama. In Mandrake, Falk was assisted by artist Phil Davis essentially from the start
So I was surprised to stumble across this Mandrake comic strip from 1939...
Lee Falk, action/adventure writer, did a gag strip. In a five-year old comic that had been firmly established as a not-a-gag-strip. I'm just left scratching my head on what prompted the sudden change for this one strip. Anyone else ever see examples of Falk's attempts at gag strips like this?
This (sadly) still relevant cartoon and the text below (with my emphases) is borrowed from The Opper Project.
In a year when a Republican president is actively trying to get the population killed, and his biggest sychophants are aggressively promoting AI at the explicit expense of actual human workers,
it's hard not to see the menacing threat between labor and capital. I might have to buy some stock in pitchfork manufacturers.
Creator: W.A. Rogers
Publication: Harper's Weekly Vol. 45, No. 2319
Publication Date: June 1, 1901
Description: One of the broad effects of industrialization was the new rivalry between workers and managers, or as it was phrased at the time, labor and capital. The powers of factory owners and managers increased as industrialization proceeded. Workers experienced long hour, low pay, and job insecurity but could do little about these conditions. Labor gained strength, however, as more and more workers joined together in unions. The political scene became more favorable to labor once Theodore Roosevelt took office following the assassination of Republican President (and friend of capital) William McKinley in September 1901.
Publication: Harper's Weekly Vol. 45, No. 2319
Publication Date: June 1, 1901
Description: One of the broad effects of industrialization was the new rivalry between workers and managers, or as it was phrased at the time, labor and capital. The powers of factory owners and managers increased as industrialization proceeded. Workers experienced long hour, low pay, and job insecurity but could do little about these conditions. Labor gained strength, however, as more and more workers joined together in unions. The political scene became more favorable to labor once Theodore Roosevelt took office following the assassination of Republican President (and friend of capital) William McKinley in September 1901.
Let's start by looking at Saturday's installment of Red & Rover...
If you're unfamiliar, Red has had a crush on Marcia Brady since he first saw The Brady Bunch in the October 9, 2000 strip. Red & Rover nominally hovers in an ill-defined period around the late 1960s/early 1970s, but given the number of Brady references over the years, most of the strip takes place in the 1970s. The show debuted in September 1969 and ran through March 1974.
Not surprisingly, very few details about specific episodes are ever mentioned. Presumably to keep the comic from getting too specific in being dated. However, as you can see above, Red explicitly calls out one of the episodes by name. "Brace Yourself" debuted in the show's first season, originally airing on February 13, 1970. This means that everything in the strip between October 9, 2000 and this past Saturday -- virtually the entire quarter century run -- takes place over a little less than five months.
"But, Sean," you protest, "couldn't Red have been watching the show in re-runs?"
That's a fair point. But when you look more closely, it doesn't offer much more time. The show ended it's first season on March 20, 1970 and was re-run over the summer until the new season began in September 1970. But that was then the pattern for the course of the show: a new season would start in September, new episodes would run through through March, and then the season would repeat over the summer. Syndication of the show didn't begin until after the show ended in 1975. Now, there were also daytime reruns beginning in 1973, but at 11:30am on weekdays, it seems highly unlikely that Red would be able to catch those since he'd be in school. So if Red happened to miss the original airing of the episode, his next chance would've been (assuming the reruns were broadcast in the same order) July 3, 1970.
Meaning that only adds about four, maybe five months to the overall timline of the strip. Still noticeably less than a year since that 2000 strip when Red first saw Marcia.
Of course, a Red & Rover strip from 2003 references A Very Brady Christmas which didn't air until 1988, so then the real question becomes: what is time anyway? 🤷
If you're unfamiliar, Red has had a crush on Marcia Brady since he first saw The Brady Bunch in the October 9, 2000 strip. Red & Rover nominally hovers in an ill-defined period around the late 1960s/early 1970s, but given the number of Brady references over the years, most of the strip takes place in the 1970s. The show debuted in September 1969 and ran through March 1974.
Not surprisingly, very few details about specific episodes are ever mentioned. Presumably to keep the comic from getting too specific in being dated. However, as you can see above, Red explicitly calls out one of the episodes by name. "Brace Yourself" debuted in the show's first season, originally airing on February 13, 1970. This means that everything in the strip between October 9, 2000 and this past Saturday -- virtually the entire quarter century run -- takes place over a little less than five months.
"But, Sean," you protest, "couldn't Red have been watching the show in re-runs?"
That's a fair point. But when you look more closely, it doesn't offer much more time. The show ended it's first season on March 20, 1970 and was re-run over the summer until the new season began in September 1970. But that was then the pattern for the course of the show: a new season would start in September, new episodes would run through through March, and then the season would repeat over the summer. Syndication of the show didn't begin until after the show ended in 1975. Now, there were also daytime reruns beginning in 1973, but at 11:30am on weekdays, it seems highly unlikely that Red would be able to catch those since he'd be in school. So if Red happened to miss the original airing of the episode, his next chance would've been (assuming the reruns were broadcast in the same order) July 3, 1970.
Meaning that only adds about four, maybe five months to the overall timline of the strip. Still noticeably less than a year since that 2000 strip when Red first saw Marcia.
Of course, a Red & Rover strip from 2003 references A Very Brady Christmas which didn't air until 1988, so then the real question becomes: what is time anyway? 🤷
In order to make sure I'm not missing any of those old stories, since there really aren't very many of them and they're scattered wildly throughout the characters' sixty-plus year history, I'm checking against various lists and websites online. So far, all of the ones that I couldn't remember offhand were all very small and ultimately inconsequential, but you never know when you'll come across a gem. But in reading through these sites, I've noticed two things. First, the vast majority of these people don't cite any sources. They'll say, "Here's what happened" or "This is why things are like this" but they don't point to where this was actually said in the comics. They'll frequently have a picture from the story in question, but just don't tell you where it's from. Which is obviously a problem for my current research but also undermines the writer's credibility. Are they explaining what actually happened, or are they putting their own spin on things, or have they just wildly misinterpretted the story? There's no real way you can check.
Second, and as something of an extension of the first bit, they don't care about continuity. These articles will frequently talk about events from the past 5-10 years, but most everything beyond that is a crapshoot. They talk about the more recent developments as if they were wholly new and not built on the foundations of a story from forty years ago. Oh, they'll make reference to some character first appearing a few decades ago, but there'll be no context. Is this current story/character following along in the same vein as before, or have they been totally reimagined for one reason or another, keeping little more than the original name? Everything outside of the past few years is ancient history, and only worth mentioning in the most oblique, tangental way possible.
This is the direct result of Marvel deliberately spending the past twenty years eschewing continuity. I've complained here before about how the last Marvel comics I really enjoyed were the ones that embraced old school continuity, and I've seen almost nothing like those in two decades. I don't say this to slag on Marvel; I get why they made the change. Beginning in the 1990s, continuity was being used as a crutch and it actually acted as an impediment to new readers. By scrapping continuity for a perpetual now and making every post-origin story irrelevant, a new reader can pick up effectively any new book and get a pretty good handle on what's going on.
Of course, this concept is countered by the continued use of company-wide crossovers (the latest issue of Fantastic Four was impossible to follow for several pages because it tied directly to this "One World Under Doom" storyline that I've not bothered with). In fact, the "nothing will ever be the same" crossovers means nothing since there's no continuity anyway. As soon as the crossover is finished, everyone picks back up with their current now and the big crossover isn't mentioned again.
What strikes me as ironic about all this, too, is that back when continuity was important, comic writers and editors would themselves cite past issues. Spider-Man might come across Hobgoblin in Amazing Spider-Man and quip, "Didn't I just fight you?" and there'd be a caption box that said, "Yes, he did! Check out Web of Spider-Man Annual #3!" This was useful to devoted readers who wanted to read that story, of course, but problematic because it was difficult to find those stories in the days before the internet and healthy reprint programs. You had to physically find an original copy of that exact issue in a comic shop or maybe at a small convention. (There were no such thing as "large" conventions! Back then, even San Diego Comic-Con was topping out at around 6,000 attendees.)
Now, though, when you've got the internet readily accessible on your phone and you can look up dozens of places to buy a copy with a couple clicks, or check out all the places it's been reprinted, or get a digital copy to read immediately -- now that you have all those options to take advantage of those caption box annotations, they're no longer provided. When handling and figuring out continuity is easier than it's ever been, that's when Marvel (and DC from what I can tell; I don't read much from them to confirm first-hand though) decide they're going to just chuck continuity to the curb. EVEN AS their movie franchise has spent the same two decades showing how continuity can, when handled well, be attractive to all audiences, not just nerds like myself.
This rant came about because I just read YET ANOTHER piece claiming that Marvel has reduced the age gap between Reed and Sue Richards when there is literally nothing in the comics to even suggest, much less state that. The fans who are writing these pieces are likely in the 20s and 30s, after Marvel stopped focusing on continuity, and the result is that they're basically presenting their own head-canon as fact, despite being repeatedly and regularly contradicted by the actual stories. Since all that matters is the perpetual now, though, they can claim whatever they like so long as it doesn't contract whatever the current 5-6 issue storyline is. Marvel decided to forgo continuity to be more inviting to readers, but they've since trained those readers to not care what happens outside of 'right now.' It's their right to do that, of course, but it's why the only Marvel comic I read any more is Fantastic Four -- the fewest number of titles I've gotten since 1987.
Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...
