The Unholy Dragon

So DC announced today they're leaving Diamond. This is huge with massive repercussions and a lot of unanswered questions. One big issue is shipping. It's been noted that Lunar/UCS have pricier shipping than Diamond. The UK/Europe are especially hosed though...neither distributor has plans to set up local shipping hubs, so the cost of comics+shipping is going to exceed cover price, doubling at least the cost of any DC Comics sold there. Retaliation is also going to be a thing. On a small scale, I wonder if DST stops producing DC merch. Or further, if Diamond stops distributing toys and merch featuring DC Characters at all. Moreover, will Diamond cancel its contracts with Midtown and DCBS to retaliate for the loss of DC income and likewise to encourage shops to purchase heavier amounts of Marvel/Image/Dark Horse/Etc. since the two biggest can't anymore. On top of all that, Bleeding Cool is reporting that this is part of a AT&T purchase shakeup with the intent to phase out physical copy single issue comics in favour of digital serialization and a focus on graphic novels moving forward. Lots of aspects to this one.

Rebirth Red Hood is shockingly good, honestly. The whole Ric Grayson thing is weird to me because I like a lot of the ideas driving it, but don't know how I feel about what I've seen of the execution. Planning to read from the start through the Gray Son arc this week to judge for myself.

What's the size like on that? I've been staring at it at work for months. Also the JL Batman figure is a few years old but was an exclusive for DC Nation members and thus functionally US only. Thankfully it's finally getting an international release.

I love statues but they're definitely pricey. I primarily collect the Batman Black & White line. Got between a dozen and 20 right now, can't remember the exact amount. Bigger statues I'm fussier on, but I have a decent few. At some point I gotta actually photograph my nonsense again. I did so at my previous house but it's been a while and I have more now (though not everything from the last place is on display)

Tom Lyle has passed away from a brain aneurysm at 66. As someone growing up reading comics in the 90s, his work defined a lot of my formative books. Co-created Spoiler and the Scarlet Spider and worked on early Robin minis, Maximum Carnage, Clone Saga stuff, and I always loved Mutant X. Real shame. 66 is too young to go.

Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Journal has reportedly passed away. Only 51. Hell of a shame. He left quite a mark on comics journalism and will be missed.

Got my review in! If anything comes up for a bonus, I'll run it by as well.

Watched my movie last night so I should have a review in by day's end.

Joker is getting a whole mess of social media criticism leading to Todd Phillips now banning press from the world premiere, which he's further getting blasted for since his whole "Sneaking an art movie in the backdoor of a comic movie." approach would theoretically hold up to criticism. Everyone I know who saw it on the festival circuit says it sucks, fwiw. I'll probably end up seeing it in theaters due to both my nerd curiousity and my desire for WB to do this kind of art focused approach with other DC properties and creative teams but yeesh this looks like a mess.

For those who wanted the Daredevil: Born Again Artist's Edition, but couldn't justify the money or space, the Artisan Edition dropped this week and it's basically got all the art goods you want, just at a larger than usual but not original page art size for $50 USD instead of the $100-150 the full size Artist Edition's go for. Big recommendation. Seeing the overlay processes is particularly fun.

My first choice isn't on Netflix anymore so I'm trying to think up an alternative. This is complicated because, as a Canuckian, I may not have the same Netflix options. Within the next hour or so I should have one for you. EDIT: Sent.

I'm in. Haven't done this in a few years, very excited.

Honestly even if Dark Knight: Golden Child sucks writing wise, I'll buy anything with Rafael Grampa's art. Dude is fantastic.

Lower middle of the pack. I'll take it. Thanks for running this as always S.K.o.S. I have a great time every year even though my performance can rarely be described as 'great' to match. I'm curious: You using Excel to scorekeep? You may have gone into this prior but doing HR has got me really into spreadsheets.

The HC is due out in December for $50 US MSRP. So around X-men #3 I think.

I'm fine with a Batman sub out, though I do think it's a little soon after Superheavy it's always an interesting ride. Rich also reporting that the plan was to have Alfred's death to be a fakeout, but due to the response it's now going to be permanent (as much as these things ever are). Not a fan of that call, not least because of the implication that the two results are interchange in terms of story impact.

They're both 12 issue minis, which in 2019 assures them 6 more issues than a lot of ongoings.

Annihilation: Scourge coming in November. Matt Rosenberg writing, stars the Fantastic Four, Richard Rider Nova, Beta Ray Bill, and the Silver Surfer. I'm hyped.

Honestly this isn't the stage of the game where I want to be going up the charts. SO CLOSE TO LAST! SO CLOSE!

Honestly the problem they have is that the Anderson films ARE in the spirit of the Resident Evil games. Sure the characters get remixed and Milla gets tossed into the middle, but the games are buckwild meta plot and crazy visual monsters that turn toward even weirder sci-fi nonsense. RE 1/2 felt scary at the time because they were pretty tough on resource management and forced you to flee a lot. Gamers weren't used to that so there was genuine tension in playing that. After what? 25 years now? Other games have done that better (including late entry RE7) so the originals may have less scare value. But even if not, anyone who looks at the plot of the RE franchise and doesn't play them would have to admit Anderson's take is pretty accurate. There's a reason 4-6 leaned heavier into action with survival elements. Anyway, tl;dr I think a lot of the dissonance comes from the difference between playing as the lead in RE and watching a film with the same nonsense in play.

Knocked out Final Girls by Riley Sager. It was solid. Good thriller qualities, an interesting premise, and did a great job pacing reveals to keep you guessing until the end. Probably 50 to 100 pages of...not padding exactly, but repetitious settings/scenarios. Like a TV budget film that only has five sets and has to work around that. Still a solid time and worth the read on the whole.

He's Omega level but most of it is used to keep the techno organic virus at bay. X-Man is Cable sans virus and we just got a glimpse of what level he rolls at.

Sony just pulled Spider-man from the MCU going forward. Disney wanted half the profits and Sony told them to piss off. Gonna be interesting to see how they deal with that.

Nope, but the animation they use plus Lana Del Rey's cover of Season of the Witch is pretty good.

Birds of Prey going back for reshoots...with entirely new action sequences, choreographed and overseen by John Wick series director Chad Stahelski. Oh hell yeah.