Kind of late notice, but ComicsPRO -- the comics professional retail organization -- is holding an online open house tomorrow and Friday. It's open to all industry professionals, not just retailers.

Personally, I find that the more I know about ALL aspects of comics, the better able I can understand what's going on in the industry, so I can judge not only the quality of a given comics' narrative but why it might be packaged the way it is, or marketed the way it is, or how it might tie in with other business decisions, or whatever. The greater the breadth of your comics knowledge -- beyond what's on the actual page -- the more you're able to appreciate why different decisions are made. I would urge everyone in comics to attend if they're able. (Sadly, I have prior engagements. Namely, the day job.)

The panels begin at 8:00 am PDT tomorrow, and run through 2:30 pm PDT on Friday. Advance registration is required.

Yesterday's La Cucaracha by Lalo Alcaraz...

While Alcaraz is not first to call what's going on in America a civil war -- I was making direct comparisons with the 2024 movie of that name back in June -- he's the first person I've seen to be bold enough to put it in a newspaper. Frankly, I don't see how you can call it anything else at this point. The President of the United States is actively sending into cities armed troops that are capturing, and in some cases, killing innocent U.S. citizens directly against the expressly stated wishes of the states' governors. That is literally the set-up/preface to the Civil War movie; the only difference is that, in the film, Nick Offerman's version of the President ordered an air strike on civilain protestors while Trump merely posted an AI video of doing so.

That Alcaraz is calling this for what it is before any journalists largely just speaks to the failure of journalism writ large. And sadly, I suspect, his naming this for what it is will not be heeded because he's "just" a cartoonist. It's his job to exaggerate for the sake of comedy, after all. Except that's not the exaggeration. In fact, the "exaggeration" of this particular comic actually downplays things because Portland has brought in an army of giant frogs, not just one. (Fun fact: the collective noun for a group of frogs, particularly when they are working together, is indeed "army." You can also use "knot" if they are merely close to one another but not necessarily working together.) Alcaraz is not exaggerating for effect here and, to be fair, he would've created today's strip at least two, maybe three, weeks ago before the inflatable frog costumes sold out everywhere.

Will things get to a state like what was depicted in the movie last year? Maybe, maybe not. I certainly wouldn't rule it out at this point. But humorists are often the canaries in the coal mine, voicing the truths that others are too scared to speak. Alcaraz is giving everyone a warning; I suggest you all listen.

One of the things I'm very thankful to my parents for is instilling me with an insatiable curiosity. They were very keen that my brother and I became active learners (though I don't believe that particular term had been coined back then) and we didn't just spend our school days memorizing facts and figures by rote, but we were actively engaged in our own education.

To that end, my parents bought a set of World Book Encyclopedias when I was maybe three or four. (Bear in mind, this was the 1970s well before the web was a thing.) I have a vague recollection from many years later that they felt a bit taken on the deal because A) I'm sure it wasn't cheap, B) it was a traditional encyclopedia and about ten years out of date when it was published, C) it was another 5-10 years out of date when my brother and I were old enough to really use it, and D) most research projects we did for school didn't want us using an encyclopedia for reference anyway. But, while it wasn't useful in looking up something like, say, rocket technology, it did provide nice summaries/overviews of things with some historical perspective -- ancient civilizations, kings and former presidents, etc.* The books were located at the bottom of our basement stairs, and I recall not infrequently sitting on the last step and just reading up on topics that I might have a passing interest in.

"Say, who was this Saturn guy they named the planet after?"

"How do levers work?"

"What exactly is/was Stonehenge anyway?"

Things I didn't need a deep understanding or knowledge of, but still wanted a bit of the basics. That bookshelf at the bottom of the stairs eventually got built into an ersatz reference library with another set of encyclopedias we acquired from somewhere, a dictionary, a thesaurus, a book of quotations... there was a Peanuts-centric children's encyclopedia, I think. A small wall of general information.

Of course, for something more in-depth or detailed, we used the local libraries. Both our own town's and the one from the next city over that was about two or three times the size.
But one thing we noticed was that Dad wasn't checking out any of the books on magic. He is a professional magician and had a bunch of books on the topic, so why didn't he use the libraries more for that? Well, because his interest was too specific for a general purpose library. That is, his level of interest was deep enough that a public library wouldn't carry any resources he wasn't already familiar with. His own personal collection of magic books was far more expansive than what would be available to the general public.

See, the reason for that is that public libraries serve the public. Seems obvious enough, right? But what that means is that their material is geared for the widest possible audience. And not just in any field or genre, but across the board. So they're going to have a tendency to be wide, but not very deep. Where they had our home reference library at an advantage was that they were much wider than ours. But on the subject of magic, ours went much deeper.

One of the problems libraries face, then, is that the internet allows anyone with a connection to be both wider AND deeper. Which is why they're largely switched to a model that revolves less around carrying books and more around helping to direct people to specific information. Particularly when it comes to convoluted and confusing online databases, this can be enormously helpful.

That is, of course, if the full details of what you're looking up are available somewhere you can get to them. We're still at a point where not everything is available online (for both legal and resource reasons) so it's not uncommon for the best source to be the one you actually get your hands on. And some of these books/printed matter never made it into libraries in the first place. I know I have more than a few books that are decades out of print, and only had small print runs to begin with. They're just not available at all unless you manage to score a personal copy someone's selling on eBay.

I bring all this up in relation to building your own collection of comics and books about comics. Does it make sense for you -- either from a financial or an available space perspective -- to buy and store the books you do? If you want to read a copy of Maus just to see what the fuss is about, it probably makes more sense to just borrow a copy from your library. If you want to get a self-published magazine that chronicles the life and comics works of Bill Mantlo, maybe that makes more sense to purchase.

Naturally, you can make your collection/library into anything you want. I'm just positing the suggestion that you take some time to think about what you want it to look like before you realize that you've bought 10,000 comics and have no intention of reading them again any time soon.

* Yes, the entries on those topics would obviously have been very white-washed, but I didn't know that when I was ten. As far as I was concerned, adults who were in positions of authority were honest and responsible people. Even the vaguest hints that they might not relay the whole truth all the time wouldn't strike me until I was maybe thirteen.

Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

Kleefeld on Comics: Invisible Differences Review
https://ift.tt/wKFJ79Y

Kleefeld on Comics: Marketing Comics in the 21st Century Redux
https://ift.tt/AFdQ42w

Kleefeld on Comics: Before the FF Action Figures
https://ift.tt/ZAK7v5a

Kleefeld on Comics: Diamond Kills Humanoids
https://ift.tt/z1u8sM7

Kleefeld on Comics: Why I Don't Do More Golden Age Research
https://ift.tt/MeYVyd0

I recently picked up and began reading America's Greatest Comics Facsimile Edition #1 from PS Artbooks. Like many other facsimile edition comics, it tries to reprint the original comic as faithfully as possible, digitally restoring the art from weathered and yellowing copies. This one, like the other PS Artbooks reprints I've seen, does a good job of balancing the art clean-up with representing what an actual comic would've looked like new. That is, the artifacts in the comic that came about because of time or wear and tear (color fading, tears, etc.) are erased, but many of the issues present when it was printed (misregistration, inconsistent coverage over large areas, etc.) are left in place.

But this specific reprint isn't what I want to talk about.

The issue has taken me over a week to get through, despite being only 100 pages of pretty simple stories, none of which are longer than 20 pages. The plots are not complex, there's not a whole lot of characterization; I don't think any single story took more than (conservatively) ten minutes to get through. If I sat down and read the entire book cover-to-cover in one sitting, it wouldn't take me much longer than an hour. But, see, here's the thing: I can't read this entire thing cover-to-cover in one sitting.

It's something I've run into not infrequently before with Golden Age comics. Whether it's a facsimilie edition like this or part of a larger trade paperback or something on microfiche or an actual, honest-to-goodness original issue, it's hard for me to read through them for any length of time because... well, the polite thing to say is that they're all very much of their time. It'd probably be more accurate to say that they're bad.

Don't misunderstand -- I'm not slagging off on any of the creators who were working on comics back then. Comic books, as an industry, was brand new. Despite the broad form of comics (i.e. sequential art) having been around for centuries, the notion of comic books as both an art form and an industry unto itself only really started in the mid-1930s. When Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, and a lot of those other early characters debuted, things were very much still in a "well, let's just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" stage. Publishers were hiring anyone who could string a couple words together to write, and anyone who could draw something vaguely more nuanced than a stick figure to draw. And while there were indeed talented individuals who came to the medium, it was a medium that no one had quite figured out yet. And it didn't help that everyone who was getting hired had virtually no experience. Jack Kirby was only twenty years old when he started working at the Eisner-Iger shop. Will Eisner was only a few months older himself. The "old man" of that group was Lou Fine -- he was all of twenty-two.

All of which meant that no one knew what worked or didn't work in comic books yet, and even the most talented people had almost no experience yet. So the comics back then were... bad. Overly simplistic plots "written" by the artists who were just making up the story as they went along. (Air quotes on "written" because none of it was planned, not because the artists weren't developing the stories. The stories were "written" in much the same way improve theater is.) Not to mention that everyone was working on obscene deadlines, often using crap materials. That anything at all memorable got published was nothing short of miraculous.

But those gems, while held up in high regard today, were rare. Creators were churning out a LOT of crap to get to those gems. I mean, sure, Action Comics #1 had the debut of Superman but the Tex Thomson story is garbage. "The Adventures of Marco Polo" story is surprisingly dull. Chuck Dawson, Scoop Scanlon, and Pep Morgan are entirely forgettable. There's a reason why kids in 1938 were asking for the comic with Superman in it when they scanned the new issues' covers and Action Comics #2 didn't show anything noteworthy.

Which is why it's taken me over a week to get through a single comic book. I'd get through the Captain Marvel story and with its lack of characterization and plot holes big enough to drive a tank through, I had to set the book aside for a bit. I tackled the Spy Smasher story the next night; that one was worse. The Minute Man story; worse still. Don't even get me started on the Bulletman story! Sprinkle in some blatant sexism throughout the whole thing, add in a few painfully racist caricatures, and you've got something that I really can't deal with for more than 10-15 minute bursts. Even trying to force myself through it strictly as an intellectual exercise.

That's a large part of why I don't do more Golden Age research than I do. I definitely want to learn about the foundations of the medium so I can better understand how/why it developed the way it did, but I don't have a thesis paper or anything riding on it, so I have no problem setting these types of comics aside frequently to cleanse my comics palette.

It seems that Humanoids Publishing has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. In Chapter 11 bankruptcy -- which is what Diamond has filed under -- the idea is that, if you can get all the creditors to take only a percentage of what is actually owed them, then you can still run the business profitably. Marvel Comics actually filed under Chapter 11 back in 1996; they were able to restructure their debt payments and... well, you can easily see where they are today. Filing under Chapter 11 is, of course, no guarantee you can become profitable again, but just that you convinced a judge that you theoretically can do it. Chapter 7, though, is basically saying that's the end of the line; that no matter what you do, there is no chance you run the business and turn a profit. No amount of restructuring of debt, no amount of corporate reorganization, no buckling down is going to right things. All you can do is basically sell off whatever stuff you've got left, and let your debtors fight out how much money each one of them gets from that.

Obviously, Diamond's own bankruptcy earlier this year prompted all sorts of problems throughout the comics industry. Problems that, frankly, could have been much worse if several of the larger publishers hadn't switched distributors over the past 3-4 years. But we all knew there was going to be a ripple effect from Diamond's bankruptcy. Publishers would have problems distributing their books, and retailers would have trouble getting new shipments in to sell to readers. I haven't heard of any retailers closing because of this, but I've certainly heard plenty about several smaller publishers running into financial problems because Dimaond has held on to existing stock that should have been returned, and hasn't paid publishers for books they've already sold.

I also mentioned, back in June, that I was seeing concrete evidence that some publishers effectively halted production of everything while they looked for an alternate distributor to Diamond. They certainly didn't want to keep sending material to Diamond when Diamond wasn't paying what it already owed them. And while I've heard stories of several publishers running into cash flow issues because of these problems, I hadn't heard of a publisher actually shutting down because Diamond hadn't paid them yet.

I might be wrong -- there has been an absolute fire hose of comics industry news since January -- so I might have missed something, but I believe Humanoids is the first publlisher formally closing because of Diamond's issues. Not only is this severely unfortunate for all the employees of Humanoids, but everyone who touched their books. And that is the real devastation of Diamond's bankruptcy... that it's started a number of dominoes, none of which will fall favorably for anyone.

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I was putting together a set of custom action figures to represent the Fantastic Four from before they got their powers. I finished my original plan up last night, so I thought that in lieu of an actual blog post I'd share the result (see photo at right) and offer some quick recipes on the exceptionally off chance that someone is interested to replicate any of these.

• Reed Richards -- The base figure is Indiana Jones (Cairo) from 2023. I removed the gun belt and the bit of untucked shirt. The undershirt is just a small u-shape that I 3D printed and glued around his neck and then just painted that and his base torso white. The head is a Peter Parker one. I bought it by itself online, and I haven't been able to track down the specific figure it's from. It looks to share the same sculpt as the one from the 2019 Spider-Man / Kraven two-pack but it obviously lacks the 'battle damage' paint scheme. The watch is pulled from VF-1 Wolfpack (see below).
• Ben Grimm -- The figure is literally just Ramen Toys' VF-1 Wolfpack from their Aces of Aviation line. (I think this came out in 2024?) The only thing I did was remove the "G-Suit."
• Sue Storm -- The base figure is MJ from 2024's Spider-Man: No Way Home line. The head is from the Marvel Legends Red Onslaught series Sharon Carter from 2016. The head naturally sits way too high on the neck by default, so I had to Dremel out the inside of the head a bit to get it to sit lower.
• Johnny Storm -- The base figure is Peter Parker from the Peter Parker / Ned Leeds two-pack from 2022. The head is from the Luke Skywalker (50th Anniversary) Power of the Force series from 2020. In this case, the neck ball was far too large for the hole in the head, so I trimmed down the ball.
• Alyssa Moy -- This is a 2024 Marvel Legends Bloodstorm with a pair of generic Legends female hands, and a 3D printed resin head of Lara Croft. I purchased the head because I don't believe my 3D printer has the fidelity to pull off a face very well. This is clearly the heaviest paint job of any of the figures here. I believe the only parts of the figure I didn't paint were the arms and boots. Ideally, I should probably have swapped the legs for ones that did not have pants seams and wrinkles sculpted into them, but I just try not to look at her knees very much and carry on.
• Victor Von Doom -- The base here is a Falcon / Winter Solider Baron Zemo figure with the coat and shirt painted shades of green. The hands are extras, painted a flesh tone, from the Dum Dum Dugan / Nick Fury Jr. / Sharon Carter 3-pack from 2024. I 3d printed the head myself from a generic mummy design and gave it a very light wash with some black paint that had been heavily diluted with thinner.
• The library -- This is the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Sunnydale High Library playset from a decade ago. The table, armor, candlesticks, and most of the loose books were 3D printed by me. The brain-in-a-jar was mostly 3D printed by me, but the bell jar portion was intended to be a "dome pendant" that I removed the original base and hook from. The remaining 'artifacts' around the room were just scrounged accessories from other figures I already had.

As you can see, most of the figures didn't require a whole lot of actual customization, so things went pretty quickly. I also have an idea for how to do a Nathaniel Richards figure -- based mostly on his 1990s appearances. I've go tthe base figure primed, and I'm currently waiting on some silver paint to do his armor. He wasn't part of my original plan, so I've got it mentally separated as a different project than this one, despite one basically being an extension of the other! He might prove to make the library area too crowded anyway, so we'll see if he still gets included here.

In any event, that's what I've been working on the past couple weeks behind the scenes. If anyone is encouraged to make versions of these figures yourself, I'd love to see them -- I don't doubt they easily surpass my attempts here!