Kindle first thoughts

When the new WiFi Kindles were announced last month, I placed an order for one. I’ve been slowly transitioning from dead tree editions to electronic books for a while now (all but comics, which I’m still buying analogue style for now). Physically owning objects is more of a hassle than it’s worth to be honest, I’d rather have stuff electronically.

All in, it came to $165.56 (exchange, taxes, shipping, and duty).  When it arrived I was amazed by the packaging, and the size of the thing.

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Comics previews for October 2010

Bruce Wayne the Road Home

It’s August, so if you’re like me, you’re planning for your son’s birthday, your anniversary, your own birthday, and your wife’s birthday…which all fall in October.

No?  Just me then?  Okay, well then you’re probably thinking about the wonderful new comics that will be released in October (which we need to get pre-orders for in at All New Comics really quickly).

Here’s a bunch of stuff that looks really good for October 2010. Read more

Where were the comics at Comicon?

The New Guardians

San Diego ComicCon happened last weekend, and while there was a ton of really great movie and TV news, comic stories were pretty lacking.

The big two players, Marvel and DC didn’t announce ANYTHING big this weekend. No major Green Lantern stories, no big Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, or Thor stories…not even a big Spider-Man story.  Marvel’s big story was a single slide with the CrossGen sigil (the company which was bought from bankruptcy by Marvel’s parent company Disney a few years back).

The indies didn’t fare much better other than Oni Press who used the buzz created by Scott Pilgrim to introduce the world to the rest of their titles.

So what would I expect to come out of the world’s biggest comic convention?  Read on fair reader, and I will Monday morning quarterback this bad boy for you.

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New Comics for September 2010

Aqualad makes his debut in Brightest Day #10

It’s the middle of summer, so of course, our minds wander to the month of September, when we go back to school, back to work, traffic gets busier, and a ton of new comics come out.  This is my monthly look at the Diamond Previews catalogue. If you’re a subscriber at All New Comics, make sure you visit the Subscriptions area to update your subscriptions before Monday July 26th.

Dark Horse has a new Terminator series starring Kyle Reese in 1984 during the first Terminator movie.  Written by Zack Whedon (brother of Joss) Terminator 1984 reads like a collection of storyboards for lost scenes from the Terminator movies (according to Comic Book Resources). Speaking of all things Whedonesque, Serenity The Shepherd’s Tale is a 56pg hardcover one-shot that finally reveals Shepherd Book’s past…written by Joss and Zack Whedon.  For something a little different, give Eric Powell’s (of The Goon fame) new book Billy The Kid’s Old Timey Oddities and the Ghastly Fiend of London a shot, it’s a 4 issue mini-series with Goon backups!

DC Comics gets things started with a series of Army-related one-shots including Our Army At War, Weird War Tales (by Canada’s own Darwyn Cooke), Our Fighting Forces, G.I. Combat, and Star Spangled War Stories. Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s long awaited graphic novel New Teen Titans: Games finally gets published in a 144pg Hardcover.  Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray take on The Freedom Fighters in a new ongoing series.  Grant Morrison’s awesome work on Batman continues to get collected in Batman & Robin Batman vs Robin Deluxe Edition HC (collecting issues 7-12 of Batman and Robin) with art by Canadian superstar Cameron Stewart among others.  Also check out the new hardcover edition of Legion of Super-Heroes The Great Darkness Saga Deluxe Edition HC (collecting issues 284-296 of LOSH and Annual #1), and Gotham City Sirens: Songs of the Sirens HC (collecting issues 8-14 of the series)

Vertigo brings us How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less HC, writer/artist Sarah Glidden’s travel memoir of her trip through Israel.  Fables gets another collection with Fables The Deluxe Edition Volume 2 HC, collecting issues 11-18 and Fables The Last Castle from the Eisner award winning series

Marvel brings us a bunch of good stuff.  Captain America Patriot, a 4 issue mini-series from Karl Kesel and Mitch Breitweiser.  Heroic Age 1 Month to Live, a 5 issue weekly series following Dennis Skyes, who has one month to live, and super-powers to change the world.  Alex Ross and Christos Gage bring us a new Invaders series

Simone Bianchi draws Thor as you’ve never seen him before in Thor: For Asgard, a 7 issue mini-series which sees Thor trying to return Asgard to glory.

The X-Titles get another shake-up, as X-Men Curse of the Mutants gets into gear with 2 one-shots (Smoke and Blood, and X-Men Vs Vampires).  Wolverine: The Road to Hell begins a big change for Wolverine and his clan of clones/sons, and murderers.  Wolverine himself gets a new #1 (if you get the current Wolverine series, we’ll continue you with this one), X-21 gets a new ongoing series, and Wolverine’s son Daken: Dark Wolverine gets a new ongoing series.  Be sure to catch up on your X-Men lore with X-Men: Second Coming HC, it’s a deluxe oversized hardcover clocking in at 344 pages, collecting the entire Second Coming epic.

This year’s surprise superhero hit Kick Ass gets a comic sequel in Kick Ass 2, with the original team of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr reuniting.

Image brings us Skullkickers, a new fantasy action comedy in the tradition of Army of Darkness.  Robert Kirkman brings Invincible’s Science Dog to a one-shot of his own, and the very popular Liquid City gets a sequel in the Liquid City Volume 2 OGN, 312pgs of terrific stories by creators from Southeast Asia.

Other publishers:

Archie’s marriage gets collected in a really great looking slipcased edition (200pgs of goodness for only $24.95) in the Archie Marries Slipcased HC.  From Archaia Entertainment, David Petersen returns to the world of Mouse Guard with Mouse Guard The Black Axe, Bongo Studios brings us Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #16, Aspen brings us Lady Mechanika. Some of Grant Morrison’s early work gets collected in Grant Morrison’s Vampirella SC, and early Vampi comics get collected in the Vampirella Archives Volume 1 HC.  The Best American Comics 2010, a collection of the finest independant comics of the year is guest edited this year by Neil Gaiman.

The big list is below after the jump.

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Why Comic Shops Can’t Afford Larger Discounts

Comics, every kid's best friend

I recently sent out a survey (here is the survey, and here are the results), and one of the choices I let people choose was “give a larger discount”. I also suggested we might start a referral program, and the overwhelming choice there was “give a % discount on my subscriptions”.

Unfortunately I don’t think it’s possible to do either one of those things, but let me explain why I am not ridiculously rich from my comics empire. Read more

iSwitched or How I Moved to a Mac

My MacBook

I have been using some flavour of Windows since version 1.2, but before that, I used DOS. I played with OS2 once upon a time, I’ve had dalliances with Atari, Commodore, Unix, Red Hat, Lindows, Tivo, Ubuntu, and yes for a time I played with Macs as far back as the OS8 days. At TSN we had an eMac for doing testing, and I pretty much loathed that machine because while it was pretty as all heck, it spent a LOT of time with a beach ball whirling (there is a myth out there that Mac’s don’t crash…they do, however their crashes are prettier than blue screens of death). Read more

Toronto ComiCon has come and gone

Pete at the All New Comics table at the Toronto ComiCON

It’s been a week and a half since I returned from the Toronto ComiCon, but I just haven’t had a chance to write about it so far.

It was a fun show, not quite as busy as last year, but we still ended up doing alright due to a very different product mix that Peter brought this year.  We had a spectacular spot, right inside the doors on the left hand side, which really helped folks find us.  We had six of our customers pick their stuff up at the show, and ran into a couple others who decided last minute to drop by. Plus I got to see my old college buddy Don, who came by. Read more

New Comics for August 2010

Yes, his name is really Al

Wow, this summer is just flying by. We saw some of you at the Toronto ComiCon the first weekend in June, and we hope that we’ll see more of you come out to the big August show in Toronto (not only is it Canada’s largest comic show, but it’s North America’s 3rd largest comic show).  More details as we get closer to the date.

Update on the new site
Beta Testers, we got a little busy last month with the show, and I didn’t get a chance to send out that email, but watch your inbox this week. Not already a beta tester? Sign up today!

What’s New in Subscriptions?

Check out the entire list on the site right now, but here’s what we think looks interesting. Read more

The Lost Finale

Lost Season 6

Lost was a phenomenon, it was one of the rare shows which refused to dumb itself down for the audience. It built a deep mythology, and had an incredible back, front, and side story. While the show faltered a little bit in the second and third seasons, it rebounded quite amazingly in the fourth season, and was riveting until its final episode on March 23rd.

This was a show that we looked forward to every week, and with six years of questions remaining, there was no way that every question could be answered in any meaningful way. The sixth season had a lot of answers, and while there are still plenty of things which are left to our imaginations, I think overall the finale was quite satisfying, and something that the more I think on it, the more I enjoyed it.

Here there be spoilers, so if you haven’t watched it yet…well that’s your own darned fault.

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Book Review: Horns

Joe Hill Horns

Joe Hill has given me hope. It’s been years since I’ve actually finished a fiction book.  I read quite a bit, but most of it is non-fiction, gripping things like Re-Work, Rocket Surgery Made Easy, Web Analytics; An Hour A Day, and the absolutely spellbinding Sharepoint Server 2007 Best Practices!

Horns is the best book I’ve read in a long time. I honestly can’t remember the last book I enjoyed as much as this one. Read more