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Blog Entry 47 of 117 Somewhere Between Here and There

What runs through the mind of a 30 something married man with 5 kids a good job a huge comic book collection, an impressive DVD collection, nearly every movie stub from every movie he's seen since Back to the Future; topped off with a mind filled with endless movie quotes, dabbling in theology, a continuous pursuit of being a professional artist while taking a stab at being a writer? Stay Tuned...

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Fanboys and True Believers 2

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Contributed by: John Kindelan on 10/18/2007

Greetings True Believers and welcome to the second issue of Fan Boys and True Believers. Where I'll be talking about comic books, and any all things relating to it.

Here's a tidbit that non-comic collectors might not be aware of, the second issue of a comic book is usually more valuable than the first. Why you ask? When a company like Marvel or DC puts out a new book, lets say Amazing Man #1, they print a whole lot of copies to try and get a bunch of people to read the book. But because the numbers of the sales for issue one dont come back fast enough to see if the book is popular they dont print as many issue #2. If the book is popular by issue 3 they are printing more, and maybe even sometimes they'll go back and reprint issue 1, but issue 2 is usually very rare to find then and if they reprint it, its not as valuable as the first printing of it because its a reprint.

This happened to me with a book called The Outsiders by DC Comics, I started reading the book late and when i went to get the back issues so i could complete my full 'run' I couldnt find a first edition of the second issue.

There's some terminology for you for the week. Whena collector says he's trying to complete a run he means he's trying to make sure he has all the issues starting from one number to another. This does not always mean from issue 1 to current. Sometimes collectors will call a run based on the writer or artist. So you might here someone trying to complete their John Byrne 'run' of X-Men. That means they're trying to collect all the issues of X-Men that John Byrne worked on.

This week was a slow week for me personally. Every week new comics come out on Wednesdays but unless you collect EVERY title, some weeks might be lighter than others for you. This was my slow week, only 3 books. I could have gotten four but I have decided to drop a book because the story is going no where and its actually getting agrivating.

This week I got The Justice Leage of America issue #14. Written by Dwayne McDuffie and art by Ed Benes. I like Benes' art. He draws excellent anatomy and its a very 'realistic' style. (This means its not very cartoonish looking) Just like famous works of art having different styles, realism, cubism, abstract, etc.. Comics have the same thing, we have realism, abstract, cartoonish, anime or manga(Japanese) and others. Benes is a great realism artist and is very detailed with anatomy. I also like that each of the characters look different facially. Some artists just draw the same faces on different characters. The story arc going on right now in Justice League is really good as well, and you can tell its being written for guys like me 'True Believers'. The Justice League finds themselves at a new version of the 'Injustice League' led by villain Lex Luthor. Its very Superfriends style of story, and in this past issue they even did a double page splash page of the villain headquarters, the old school Legion of Doom dome in the swamp.

The heroes have been being captured by the Injustice League and in this last issue Superman, and Black Lightening made an attempt to try and save their fallen comrades. I dont want to spoil anything here so you'll have to pick it up and read it if you want to find out what happens. My big thing with this story is that one character has still not been seen, The Flash. He's my personal favorite character (the Wally West Flash). He's the R2-D2 of the Justice League, just when all the popular big name characters find themselves in trouble he shows up and saves the day.

I also picked up Mighty Avengers #5 by Brian Michael Bendis and Frank Cho. Bendis and Cho are fantastic, Cho is a realism artist as well and Bendis has brought back the art of the thought baloon; and the way he's been using it is great, its really giving you an insight to the characters and having them come across as very real people.

The third book i grabbed was the Green Arrow Black Canary Wedding Special. I had to get the reprint as the original sold out before I grabed a copy. I haven't fully read this issue yet, I'm a little worried, only having 3 books to last me for the week stinks. I'll read these three in one night and then have to wait for another week for new ones, or I'll just go pick some up that I wasnt that interested in, in the first place just to have something to read.

I read comics in a weird way though, I like to read them, enjoy the story, put them down and then go back and read them again, to see if I missed any clues towards a story line. Then I'll put it down, and then go back and read it again amd study it. I'll study the layout, the panels, the art, and see what I can learn from that artist.

Well I hope you enjoyed issue number 2, i dont think it will fly off the interent and have the same popularity, but maybe it will get visited more than number one, lets see what happens. You can pick up weekly comics at such stores like Don's Atomic Comics in Depew, thats where I get mine every Wednesday.
Until next time, Excelsior! (i'm a dork)

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