As previously mentioned, we had a shindig on the 5th of May in honour of Free Comic Book Day – here are some more images from the event!
Earlier images can be found here
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More Photos from our FREE COMIC BOOK DAY Party on May 5th!
Category: Uncategorized
A Herculean Hodge-Podge of Heroic Histories and Helpful Handbooks Honourably Hoarded and Handed-Out to those Who Have A Hardy Hankering on May 23rd, 2012
Not a bad week at all on May 23rd, and we have a remarkably good number of non-fiction works coming in that are likely to be of interest for comics fans. The COMIC BOOK HISTORY OF COMICS takes a look at the medium, in comic book format, from it’s earliest beginnings to the present day with a special emphasis on the significant moments and creators who influenced the industry – by Fred Van Vente and Ryan Dunlavey who brought us ACTION PHILOSOPHERS! Andrew Loomis’ SUCCESSFUL DRAWING is a wonderful text for artists and comic fans interested in anatomy and expressive illustration. Toronto’s son and longtime LOUNGE-friend Scott Robins’ PARENT’S GUIDE TO COMICS FOR KIDS showcases the most kid-friendly entries in the market today and outlines the ingrediants that make for something that is entertaining and appropriate for younger readers. Meanwhile, as far as the ongoing periodicals are concerned, the machinations of the Parliament of Owls are still happening in DC’s Batman titles, the Avengers are still laying the smackdown, and vice versa, on the X-Men, Darth Vader gets his own title from Dark Horse Publishing, and Wil Wheaton’s character in THE GUILD gets his own spin-off comic while GODZILLA, the King of All Monsters gets his own ongoing from IDW.
ALL STAR WESTERN #9 (NIGHT OF THE OWLS) $3.99
ANDREW LOOMIS SUCCESFUL DRAWING HC $39.95
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #686 ENDS $3.99
AQUAMAN #9 $2.99
ARCHIE #633 $2.99
ASTONISHING X-MEN #50
BART SIMPSON COMICS #71 $2.99
BATMAN INCORPORATED #1 $2.99
BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT #9 (NIGHT OF THE OWLS) $2.99
CAPTAIN AMERICA #12 $3.99
CAPTAIN AMERICA AND HAWKEYE #631 $2.99
CHEW #26 (MR) $2.99
COMIC BOOK HISTORY OF COMICS GN $21.99
DEADPOOL #55 $2.99
DOMINIQUE LAVEAU VOODOO CHILD #3 (MR) $2.99
DOROTHY AND WIZARD IN OZ #7 (OF 8) $3.99
FABLES #117 (MR) $2.99
FANTASTIC FOUR #606 $2.99
FLASH #9 $2.99
FURY OF FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MEN #9 $2.99
Godzilla rumbles into his own new ongoing series from IDW this week!
GODZILLA ONGOING #1 $3.99
GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS #9 $2.99
GUILD FAWKES #1 $3.50
HERO COMICS 2012 $3.99
HULK #52 $2.99
HULK SMASH AVENGERS #4 (OF 5) $2.99
INCORRUPTIBLE #29 $3.99
IRREDEEMABLE #37 $3.99
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #638 EXILED $2.99
JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #9 $2.99
MARVEL UNIVERSE ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #2 $2.99
MARVEL ZOMBIES DESTROY #2 (OF 5) $3.99
MIGHTY THOR #14 $3.99
MIND MGMT #1 $3.99
ORCHID #7 $3.50
A PARENT’S GUIDE TO THE BEST KIDS COMICS $16.99
PROPHET #25 $2.99
RAGEMOOR #3 $3.50
SECRET AVENGERS #27 AVX $3.99
STAR WARS DARTH VADER GHOST PRISON #1 (OF 5) $3.50
SUPERMAN #9 $2.99
TIME MASTERS TP $19.99
TRUE BLOOD ONGOING #1 $3.99
ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN #12 $3.99
UNWRITTEN #37 (MR) $2.99
VAMPIRELLA #17 $3.99
VOODOO #9 $2.99
WARLORD OF MARS DEJAH THORIS #12 (MR) $3.99
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A Gargantuan Grab-Bag of Gorgeously Graven Giants of Grace and Grandeur – all for sale on May 16th, 2012
The hits just keep on coming with this week’s selection of new books, all available on May 16th, 2012. The women’s contingeant in the Bat-Books have their run-ins with The Parliament of Owls as Catwoman, Batwoman and the Birds of Prey are called upon to deal with the threat at hand. AVENGERS VERSUS X-MEN gets another chapter expanding once again into individual books to capture all the action. JUSTICE LEAGUE #9 is in and Geoff Johns and Jim Lee are back on the book! The ENDS OF THE EARTH storyline begins with a vengeance in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. Longstanding industry magazines such as BACK ISSUE, ALTER EGO and ILLUSTRATION are all fresh with a new issue on the stands (two in the case of AE!). Ramon Perez’s work continues in JOHN CARTER: GODS OF MARS. HULK SMASH AVENGERS, THE BLACK WIDOW and FURY:MAX each have a new weekly issue. We learn the secret history of the FANTASTIC FOUR in a “point one” issue this week, and SAGA, fast becoming everyone’s new favourite book, sets us up with a third issue. COME AND GET ‘EM!!!!
ADVENTURE TIME #4 $3.99
ALTER EGO #108 $8.95
ALTER EGO #109 $8.95
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ENDS OF EARTH #1 $3.99
ARE YOU MY MOTHER A COMIC DRAMA HC $22.00
AVENGERS #26 AVX $3.99
AVENGERS ACADEMY #30 AVX $2.99
AVENGERS BLACK WIDOW STRIKES #2 (OF 3) $2.99
AVENGERS VS X-MEN #4 (OF 12) AVX $3.99
AVX VS #2 (OF 6) $3.99
BACK ISSUE #56 $ 8.95
BATWOMAN #9 $2.99
BIRDS OF PREY #9 (NIGHT OF THE OWLS) $ 2.99
BLUE BEETLE #9 $2.99
BPRD HELL ON EARTH DEVILS ENGINE #1 (OF 3) $3.50
CAPTAIN ATOM #9 $2.99
CASPER FRIENDLY GHOST 60TH ANNIV HC $ 9.95
CATWOMAN #9 (NIGHT OF THE OWLS) $2.99
CONAN THE BARBARIAN #4 $3.50
DANCER #1 $3.50
DAREDEVIL #13 $2.99
FANTASTIC FOUR #605.1 $2.99
FURY MAX #2 (MR) $3.99
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #9 $2.99
HELLBLAZER #291 (MR) $2.99
HULK SMASH AVENGERS #3 (OF 5) $2.99
ILLUSTRATION MAGAZINE #37 $15.00
INCREDIBLE HULK #7.1 $2.99
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #517 $3.99
JOHN CARTER GODS OF MARS #3 (OF 5) $2.99
JUSTICE LEAGUE #9 $3.99
LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #9 $2.99
MANHATTAN PROJECTS #3 $3.50
MARVEL HEROIC RPG BASIC GAME [BACK IN STOCK! ] $19.99
NEW MUTANTS #42 EXILED $2.99
NIGHTWING #9 (NIGHT OF THE OWLS) $2.99
RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #9 (NIGHT OF THE OWLS) $2.99
SAGA #3 (MR) $2.99
SAUCER COUNTRY #3 (MR) $ 2.99
SECRET SERVICE #2 (OF 7) (MR) $2.99
SHADE #8 (OF 12) $ 2.99
SHADOW #2 $3.99
SIMPSONS COMICS #190 $2.99
STAR WARS DAWN O/T JEDI FORCE STORM #4 $3.50
SUPERGIRL #9 $2.99
THIEF OF THIEVES #1 3RD PTG $2.99
THUNDERBOLTS #174 $2.99
UNCANNY X-MEN #12 AVX $3.99
VENOM #18 $2.99
WINTER SOLDIER #5 $2.99
WONDER WOMAN #9 $2.99
X-FACTOR #236 $2.99
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We get all kinds of cool visitors here at The Comic Book Lounge + Gallery!
Just had a visit from RAID studio member Meghan Carter who’s excellent web comics work can be found right here!
Check it out, folks!
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Easter Weekend Hours
Friday April 6th — CLOSED
Saturday April 7th — REGULAR HOURS 12-7
Sunday April 8th — CLOSED
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No BATMAN love on television, but apparently we’re getting a GREEN ARROW pilot intended for prime time…
…which is not, in and of itself, a bad thing at all. GA was always treated a something of a Batman knock-off in his earliest appearances,and was definitely treated as a surrogate Batman in his appearances on SMALLVILLE. BATMAN is as hot as ever but the WB seems to be a little shy in allowing Bruce Wayne et al to grace our presences on the home version of the wide-screen.
LOUNGErs interested in following GA’s TV progress are invited to check out a site devoted to just that at http://www.greenarrowtv.com
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THE COMIC BOOK LOUNGE isn’t LOST in SPACE!!
In fact, you can find us there quite easily!
Those of you who may have missed our Grand Opening party are advised to check out InnerSPACE tonight at 6 PM or tomorrow (March 28th) at 9:30 AM to see how they cover the festivities and their interview with Mighty Mike Del Mundo. For more information check out http://www.spacecast.com/ or your local listings!
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X-O Manowar battles his way into the Lounge on May 2nd!
I make no bones about the fact that I’m a huge fan of the original X-O Manowar comic series published by Valiant Comics back in the early 1992. With creators like Jim Shooter, Bob Layton and Barry Windsor-Smith involved in the original it was a fun book with it’s interesting concept of what would happen if you gave a barbarian warrior an advanced suit of alien armor and set him loose in corporate America post-Wall Street (a what if Conan was given the power of Iron Man scenario). While the original X-O series ended a mere four years later with issue 68 (with a great send-off by Layton and Jackson “Butch” Guice), there was a follow-up series when the Valiant line relaunched as Acclaim comics. While writer Kurt Busiek did the best with what he had to work with, the series limped along for 21 issues with a modern guy in a suit of alien armor premise.
Thankfully, when the new guys relaunching Valiant Comics for a new generation got together to figure out which character should headline their line, they specifically targetted Aric of Dacia, the original X-O Manowar as their headliner and then when about recruiting some great creative talents to put the series together.
Here’s the solicit for #1:
The all-new Valiant Universe kicks off with a landmark, oversized # 1 issue of X-O Manowar by New York Times-bestselling author Robert Venditti (The Surrogates, The Homeland Directive) and Eisner Award-winning artist Cary Nord (Conan)! Born into battle, Aric of Dacia — heir to the throne of the Visigoth people — has never known peace. After a brutal encounter with a mysterious enemy known as The Vine leaves him a prisoner on an alien world, the only hope Aric has of returning to his family and saving them from slavery is to seize a weapon of incalculable destruction and become X-O Manowar!
- Price: $3.99
- Rating: T+
- Pages: 40
- On Sale: May 2, 2012
The first issue comes in two editions – one is the regular cover by ESAD RIBIC, and there’s the PULL BOX variant cover by CARY NORD. The thing about the PULL BOX variant is that you have to actually pre-order the book with your retailer to get a copy. We know you are going to want the Nord variant, so speak up and let us know!
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The Lounge abides…
Wasn’t it wonderful to see the sun this weekend and enjoy the warm weather? We spent a good chunk of the weekend rearranging the look of the Lounge to prepare for Friday night’s Grand Opening Party. You would hardly recognize the place!
In a bold and shocking move we now have back issue comics in stock at the Lounge. They are still being priced but we will have everything ready for the Grand Opening celebrations this coming weekend. Lots of great books from the 70s, 80s and beyond.
Finally, Our orders for May must be placed by Thursday night, so please send your lists (if you haven’t already done so) to info@comicbooklounge.com as soon as you can to make sure we place your special order items like books, t-shirts, toys, statues, etc. They are due one week earlier than usual this month. http://www.previewsworld.com/support/previews_docs/orderforms/archive/2012/MAR12_COF.txt
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Review: AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS – adapted by I N J CULBARD
Most comic adaptations seem to miss something significant about H. P. Lovecraft when they try to translate him to the medium, tending to be more concerned with formless masses of roiling extra-dimensional tentacle monsters (see ref: any comic book adaptations of Lovecraft in the 80s & 90s) and losing the weird blend of paranoiac size and a pulverizing fear of the unknown that is at the heart of the Lovecraft Mythos. When I. N. J. Culbard was presented on the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast as someone who had recently produced an adaptation of Lovecraft’s final novel AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS, I had my doubts as to whether or not he could pull it off. He certainly knew the story and Lovecraft’s work very well. He also had some very interesting research points to add to the show. Nevertheless, even most of the best comic-book writers with the best of intentions of paying homage to The Old Man of Providence, seem to somehow fall short of delivering the punch of the work in its purest form. Writers like Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis, and Alan Moore, seem to miss the mark with Lovecraft when they play with the toys he left behind for his successors. This is especially disappointing when it comes to Moore, whom one would have wanted to be much better at Lovecraftian fiction. As cleverly icky as relating the womb to Cthulhu’s deep-sea den and sex to the spawning of monsters is (something HPL might have agreed with, even as he turned his nose up at its frankness of concept), Moore’s recent NEONOMICON is largely unrecognizable as either good Mythos writing or even good writing when it compares to other comics the author has already given us (and Moore was ready more than once to swipe an image or two from HPL’s bag of tricks in pieces that go back as far as his original run on SWAMP THING). This is why, out of many many adaptations of Lovecraft that I’ve read over the years, AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS as adapted by I.N.J. Culbard, is a singularly special graphic novel that deserves a lot more attention than it has gotten, and one that I can strongly recommend as being a great example of what makes the Mythos tick.
Adopting a vaguelyHergé-like cartooniness and knowing when to quote Lovecraft and when to paraphrase him, Culbard takes us along with that sorry expedition to Antarctica and manages to convey the sense of wonder and audacity of explorers like Shakleton, Byrd and Scott that originally attracted Lovecraft himself to the subject matter. What starts off as a historic trip to the centre of an unexplored continent turns into a story about a great moment in paleobiology combined with a Jack The Ripper styled forensic serial killing thrown in as well. Throughout all of the story’s twists and turns, Culbard, an animation director who has adapted other works into graphic novel form by writers such as Oscar Wilde and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, deftly manages to capture the expansiveness of Lovecraft’s prose at no cost to the storytelling itself.
He also has a strong enough sense of Lovecraft’s work to bring the most recognizable elements of HPL’s style to play. Yes, there are monsters. At least one of the many alien species of monsters with non-humanoid forms show an all too human ability with scalpels and taste for vivisection. Yes, there is violence – something that the people who confuse the weaker, wordier, early work of Lovecraft with the stronger work the writer produced near the latter half of his career might find hard to believe. It’s all there, here, as it was all there in the original novel by HPL. Before too long the Necronomicon is consulted, and, ultimately, we see nothing less cosmic than the rise and fall of pre-human Earth, the formation of Pangaea, the true origin of humanity, and a cameo from Great Cthulhu himself, in his house in R’Lyeh, moodily dreaming and waiting for the stars to come right.
What is most interesting is how some of the regulars in the LOUNGE have responded to Culbard’s deceptively friendly art style and ease of storytelling. One of them, someone who is decidedly not interested in most of the Lovecraft-iana that I’ve already brought into THE LOUNGE in our month or so of being open (he openly ridiculed my dice game and stuffed Lovecraft tentacle!), read AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS and really enjoyed it, saying that it was the least like any Lovecraft things that he had read in comics up to date. He also said that he understood why I was so into the stuff if the good stuff was like this graphic adaptation. If someone who usually hates Lovecraft likes the piece as much as someone like myself (who can’t get enough of the good stuff ), one knows that the creator has done his work and that it’s certainly worth a look. I can almost guarantee that it’s worth your while.
Joe’s Rating: 8 out of 10 for masterfully getting it right while still keeping it interesting.
Currently available at THE COMIC BOOK LOUNGE & GALLERY for $14.95.
Comic Book Lounge + Gallery 