Weekly Comic Spotlight

[Perry]

I buy one DC book (BATMAN) and I do not bother reading the Channel 52 pages.

[Gilgabob]

I do read the channel 52 pages but it's never compelled me to buy a title I don't already get. I guess I mostly read it because it's there to be read.

[fudd71]

Loved the episode as always, thanks John and Drew!

I just have to chime in on the Superman Unchained discussion. I felt that fold out page was completely ridiculous. It added nothing to the story, what I mean is there seemed to be nothing that required that page to be so large. Thinking back on some other fold out pages that made sense, both the one in the final issue of Blackest Night and the Batcave from All-star Batman & Robin. Those seemed to add something and take advantage of the extra space, this one did not. I'm not sure it would have felt much different if it has just been a normal single splash page. Those previous ones also were much easier to refold. Paying an extra dollar for the hassle of trying to read that page just seemed insane to me.

[Mavey]

DC is trying a lot of different things to take advantage of the physical medium of comics so retailers don't lose customers. Things like the die-cut covers during DotF, this Superman poster, and the upcoming villains month covers. They seem to be experimenting to see how people like different things, but it is unfortunate when it raises the cost. I was a fan of the DotF covers, but idk how others responded.

I wish it didn't cost me an extra dollar, but it sounds like I liked the poster a lot more than other people. It might help that the desk where I read my comics made it easier to read than a lot of other people. I think the poster used the space well to show how small Superman was on the front, and that contrasted well with how powerful he appears on the back.

[drew]

Loved the episode as always, thanks John and Drew!

I just have to chime in on the Superman Unchained discussion. I felt that fold out page was completely ridiculous. It added nothing to the story, what I mean is there seemed to be nothing that required that page to be so large. Thinking back on some other fold out pages that made sense, both the one in the final issue of Blackest Night and the Batcave from All-star Batman & Robin. Those seemed to add something and take advantage of the extra space, this one did not. I'm not sure it would have felt much different if it has just been a normal single splash page. Those previous ones also were much easier to refold. Paying an extra dollar for the hassle of trying to read that page just seemed insane to me.

hey Fudd, thanks for the feedback, you are not alone everone seems to hate the poster...i would assume it will never return...fingers crossed

[drew]

DC is trying a lot of different things to take advantage of the physical medium of comics so retailers don't lose customers. Things like the die-cut covers during DotF, this Superman poster, and the upcoming villains month covers. They seem to be experimenting to see how people like different things, but it is unfortunate when it raises the cost. I was a fan of the DotF covers, but idk how others responded.

I wish it didn't cost me an extra dollar, but it sounds like I liked the poster a lot more than other people. It might help that the desk where I read my comics made it easier to read than a lot of other people. I think the poster used the space well to show how small Superman was on the front, and that contrasted well with how powerful he appears on the back.

i stand corrected...one person likes it

[the1captain]

Listening to this week's show. Everyone has a right to their own opinion. But considering the overall comments on this issue, how can Age of Ultron warrent a low 4 out of 5? I'm not saying you should hate the issue. But when you weight level of enjoyment you described for the issue vs all the other problems you mention, how does it get to a 4? I expected a low 3.

In the grand scheme of things I know this doesn't matter. It's just an observation

[JohnMayo]

Listening to this week's show. Everyone has a right to their own opinion. But considering the overall comments on this issue, how can Age of Ultron warrent a low 4 out of 5? I'm not saying you should hate the issue. But when you weight level of enjoyment you described for the issue vs all the other problems you mention, how does it get to a 4? I expected a low 3.

In the grand scheme of things I know this doesn't matter. It's just an observation

It was a good execution of a fun but pointless and decompressed story. For me, it was a great read even while I knew it was going to be told slowly and amount to little. I try to restrict my ratings and reviews to what is on the comic book page. In this case, what was there was enjoyable and well done. I fault Marvel editorial, not the issue or the title, for Age of Ultron being too long and pointless.

[GlenQuagmire]

Regarding Crowbar, Vibe #5 wasn't his first appearance. He was a member of the Cadre, a team of villains who went up against ... Justice League Detroit. There's been a lot of nods to that run, as you guys mentioned in the episode.

[JohnMayo]

Regarding Crowbar, Vibe #5 wasn't his first appearance. He was a member of the Cadre, a team of villains who went up against ... Justice League Detroit. There's been a lot of nods to that run, as you guys mentioned in the episode.

I had completely forgotten about the Cadre but now that you mention them, I do recall them. I think you are 100% correct. Thanks for mentioning that. As you say, yet another nod to the JLDetroit era.

[fudd71]

Great episode as always gentlemen!

I must say John you seem to have found the gold in Pandora long before I did. I hated that book when I read it, but came around to really enjoy it after having read Justice League 22.

I was also glad to see I wasn't the only one confused by and thought Catalyst Comix had way too many words. I read a few very positive reviews and was starting to think I was crazy. I like to think of myself as a Joe Casey fan but it has been a rough few months, I didn't like this, I gave up on the Bounce after the first issue, I am still reading Sex but it is mediocre at best.

[JohnMayo]

I was also glad to see I wasn't the only one confused by and thought Catalyst Comix had way too many words.

I've read a fair amount about writing in general and writing for comics specifically. One of the common pieces of advice for writing for comics is to keep the word count reasonably low. That way there is room for the art and figuring out how/where to place the dialogue balloons is easier. I'd love to know the word count for Catalyst Comix per panel, per page and total. I'm very curious how it compares to average comics. It struck me as being multiple times as wordy as some comics and that really prevented me from getting into the story.

[comicm]

I personally don't mind a lot of words but Catalyst Comix #1 had a lot of unnecessary words that add nothing to the story. I thought for sure I was going to like this after you reviewed it because I have different tastes but I also have to say I was extremely disappointed. I am currently enjoying Sex from Image Comics and am usually a fan of Joe Casey but I had to force my way through this book. I have poked around the reviews and glad to see that some people liked it but it definitely left my not wanting to read anymore. I usually love everything.

[jonah]

I've read a fair amount about writing in general and writing for comics specifically. One of the common pieces of advice for writing for comics is to keep the word count reasonably low. That way there is room for the art and figuring out how/where to place the dialogue balloons is easier. I'd love to know the word count for Catalyst Comix per panel, per page and total. I'm very curious how it compares to average comics. It struck me as being multiple times as wordy as some comics and that really prevented me from getting into the story.

Okay, after hearing your harsh (for you) review of this book I went out and bought it to satisfy my own curiosity (Digital copy: an aside, Dark Horse's app needs work). Didn't work for me on any level. Understood what story he was trying to tell but the method chosen was poor in my opinion. Way too much exposition about what was occurring on the page. So I did the word, panel, and page count and came up with the following numbers.

Total story pages = 28 (14 for story one, 7 each for the next two stories)
Total panels = 141.5 (the 0.5 thrown in because I couldn't resolve an insert to dialog mix)
Total Words = 3636 (1639 of dialog, 1997 of captions)
Breakdowns: 130 words per page, 26 words per panel. Story 1 = 1431 words; Story 2 = 1159 words, Story 3 = 1046 words.

More than 50% of the dialog took place in the last story.

So I went looking for guidelines concerning words per panel, per page, etc and came across the following specifically for Dark Horse : http://images.darkhorse.com/darkhorse08 ... tguide.pdf
and also this from a warren ellis interview where he references Stan Lee's guidance. http://rodcorp.typepad.com/rodcorp/2007 ... k_war.html

Doesn't look like panel/page were ignored but the number of words per dialog box were. Badly in some cases.

So I think I'm going to go back and do some counts on some other stories and see what reveals itself. I'll either post them back here or start and new post at some point.

My own rambling concerning the book. I like wordy books when used .. correctly. I don't follow authors, typically, so I had to go back and look up Joe Casey's body of work. I noted he wrote Marvel's 8 issue mini-series "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" which I remember enjoying very much. So I assume he varies his writing style given the project or perhaps a different editor. Catalyst was not an enjoyable book. I didn't mind reading it but it goes right to the 'read and forget' stack.

[JohnMayo]

I've read and loved some comics in the past that were very dense with text but all of that text felt like it needed to be there. Catalyst Comix #1 was wordy in the sense that a lot of the text felt like it didn't need to be there and that text and art weren't really supporting each other.

If people read it and love it, great. I'm glad the review prompted you to check out the title. Sorry it didn't work for you either.

Thanks for the word counts. I'm very curious how that stack up to other titles like Batman which is crazy popular right now and Astro City which is a fairly story dense title.