Everybody's got something to hide except for me and the Monkees!

Hello and welcome to Hoopla!

Man, what a great time to not be rich, huh? I don't have anything invested in anything at all, so this financial crisis is just passing me by...

Wheee!

Meanwhile, Robot-McCain has released this statement, making me feel much more secure about the future of our economy.

>Bleep! They have treated this economy like a casino. Bleep! They have the corruption and the access and the I tried to warn them but it is the old boy network, treated this economy like a casino. Bleep!<

Of course the one question that's on the minds of everyone on Wall Street right now is "How will the sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America and the collapse of Lehman Brothers affect the Marvel and DC solicitations for December 2008?"

Well, the good news is that, thus far, they appear to have had no real effect on them. Just take a look...

See? There's the cover to The Age of the Sentry #4, looking just as pretty as a picture (which, in fact, it is... if you want to get all technical about it). No doom and gloom about stock prices here, my friend. Not a bit of it!

Read, and grow wise...

THE AGE OF THE SENTRY #4 (of 6)

Written by JEFF PARKER & PAUL TOBIN

Penciled by NICK DRAGOTTA & RAMON ROSANAS

Cover by DAVE BULLOCK

What happens when our hero takes a good long look in the mirror...and sees The Golden Age Sentry! PLUS, It's an invasion! No---not that kind of invasion; it's a British music invasion. But the dance party grinds to a sudden halt when the Crick-Hits are kidnapped, and it's all tunnels lead to Rome as the Golden Guardian of good teams up with the Blonde Phantom journeying deep within the Earth to do battle against a seemingly unstoppable army of monsters and their rather tyrannical leader, Marvel presents a story we just had to call--- "I Wanna Hold Your Band!"32 PGS./Rated A ...$2.99

Also coming out in December from Marvel is The Wonderful World of Oz (#1 of 8). This is a sort of strange pick for me... I have no inherent love of the World of Oz, but it's being written by Eric Shanower, who's won an Eisner for his comic, Age of Bronze, and the art is by Skottie Young, who has done a lot of art for Marvel that has always left me feeling that A) His art is pretty cool but, B) It doesn't go well with mainstream superhero stuff.

Let's see if I can utilize this here world wide web that the kids are always going on about to find a sample of his work for you, okay?

That's Kazar (Marvel's Tarzan rip-off... er, I mean homage...) hanging out with Deadpool.

This next one is one of my all-time pics of Iron Man...

If I saw that thing coming my way, I would surrender with great haste. Even if I wasn't doing anything wrong at all, I'd just go ahead and surrender.

And this next one is Deadpool with a very Sienkiewicz-esque Dr. Strange...

As a general rule, Young's interior art has been far less interesting than his cover work, but I'm hoping that illustrating The Wonderful World of Oz will give him the opportunity to really cut loose and do something innovative.

We shall see...

Meanwhile, if you and/or your kids have been enjoying Tiny Titans and Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam, there's a new title from DC you'll want to put on your pull list...

SUPERGIRL: COSMIC ADVENTURES IN THE EIGHTH GRADE #1

Written by Landry Walker

Art and cover by Eric Jones

Meet Linda Lee! She's the newest kid on the block - and the planet, too! Find out how an ordinary girl from Krypton became the most extraordinary girl on Earth in the pages of this brand new monthly series. And if you think life is tough as a hero, try being in the eighth grade.On sale December 3 * 32 pg, FC, $2.50 US



This new line of books for young kids has been pretty outstanding, thus far... so kudos to The Powers That Be for putting these together AND for keeping Dan Didio away from them...

Speaking of Dan Didio... a few months back I did a column pretending that Dan Didio had been brought in to edit the Archie Comics and he was going to make them all dark and gritty... well, apparently DC has bought the rights to the Archie super-heroes and they are going to start integrating them into the DC Universe.

Now, the good news is that no one actually cares about the Archie super-heroes... I know I read a few things with them, many years ago, and I think one of them was called the Fly? I don't know. But it seems like a strange move on DC's part...

But, then, what the hell do I know?

Not a damn thing, that's what.

Anyway, there's plenty more to say, and God knows I'm just the guy to say it, but I need to start preparing for tomorrow's class... I'm loving being a professor, but the prep work you have to do for classes can be a bit overwhelming... of course, compared to a REAL job, it's pretty minimal, so I guess I shouldn't complain...

Until next time, here's a little financial tip from me to you... Buy low and sell high. Right now, everything is low. So, don't sell. And stop calling up your bank and asking if your money is still there... it is. Individual accounts are insured up to $100,000. If you have more than that in your bank account, then you can send the surplus to me until this whole thing blows over. I've got plenty of room in my bank account...

It's like an echo chamber in there...

- Paul, echo-ey

Spanish Dream

Hello and welcome to Hoopla!

I am so tired... it is amazing.

I went to bed at a normal hour last night (around midnight), but woke up at 2:30 all worried because I didn't feel completely ready to teach... today's lecture was on State Legislatures and up until a few days ago, I had no idea what those were, so I've had to do a LOT of research so that I can trick my students into thinking that I actually know something...

So, I woke up at 2:30am and I couldn't go back to sleep.. so, finally, I got up and read some more articles and planned my class some more.. and then, when I was finished with that, it still took me a long time to fall asleep... I think I finally fell asleep again a little after 5:00... and then my alarm woke me up at 6:30...

I was so unhappy to hear my alarm clock... I wanted to argue with it... to say, "Hey, you stupid alarm clock... I've only been sleeping for 90 minutes!!! Leave me alone!!! Go bother someone else!!!"

But instead I had to get up and get ready for the day...

Before waking up, though, I had a funny stress dream... I dreamed that I was in a Spanish class and we were all waiting for the teacher to show up, and then she finally did enter and she looked at me and said, "Paul, aren't you supposed to be teaching this class?"

And I was trying to act like I had everything under control.. so I told the class to open their books and I started trying to speak to them in Spanish... like, I tried to tell them "Open your books" in Spanish.. .but I don't actually know Spanish, so I couldn't do it... I said something like "Cerrar tus libros." But I wasn't sure if "cerrar" actually means "open" and the students were looking blankly at me, so I just said it again, impatiently, as if they were the stupid ones because they couldn't understand me. "CERRAR TUS LIBROS, estudiantes!"

And the students kept correcting my Spanish and then someone said, "Do you even know Spanish?" and I said, "Si. Of course I do. Si." But I couldn't think of any Spanish words other than "si." So I just kept saying that. "Si. Por su puesto, yo hablo espanol. Naturalmente."

Anyway, it wasn't a funny dream when I was dreaming it, but it seemed funny afterwards because of how the brain works...

Silly brain...

And this time it's personal...

Hello and welcome to Hoopla!

So, it's been a while, yes?

The good news is that I think I am finally, after a couple of months of extreme wackiness, ready to return to the wonderful world of writing comic book reviews that are then read by approximately three people, maybe one and half of whom actually have any interest in comic books.

The other good news is that I'm 97% finished with the whole dissertation thing... I need to revise one more sentence (seriously... that's what my Dissertation Chair told me in her email... "There's just one more sentence I think you need to revise...) and then that will be a done deal.

The other other good news is that I have purchased a computer that doesn't crash every five minutes, which means that I can work on Hoopla! from home... which will make it much easier for me to do this on a regular basis...

The other other other good news is that... hm. No, I don't suppose there is any other other other good news.

Crap.

Well, no comic book reviews today, but I've got some coming up, I promise...

In the meantime, if you're looking to be a little bit horrified by what the future has in store for us, I strongly encourage you to check out this link...

See ya soon...

- Paul

When you least expect it...


Hoopla! - The Return






Coming (relatively) soon...

Hoopla! - Episode 13: Comics I will not be buying

Hello and welcome to Hoopla!



Today I'm going to do something a little different and instead of talking about comics that I'm looking forward to buying, I'm gonna do a column about comics that I'm looking forward to not buying... comics that give off such a rank odor that the act of seeing them on the shelves and purposefully, deliberately, adamantly NOT buying them will give me a cheap thrill, the likes of which have not been seen since that one time that I'm not going to tell you about because it's a very naughty story.

First up: Legion of Super-Heroes #46. I was very excited when Jim Shooter returned to this title. He was one of the original writers of Legion of Super-Heroes back in the late 1960s and early 1970s and the idea of him returning to that series some 40 years later seemed potentially very cool.

Alas, it was not cool.

Through the magic of not being able to cancel my pre-orders, I ended up reading three of these things, and they were pretty awful. More than anything, it felt like a mish-mash of boring, "been there, done that" kinds of sub-plots without any core. For example, Lightning Lad is the new leader and so we keep seeing him walking around with six or seven floating telephones (it's set in the far future, so telephones hover around your face as you talk) and dealing with bureaucratic nonsense.

Not funny.

Supposed to be funny, but not funny.

And extra-especially not funny because the obvious question that comes to mind is, "Why doesn't the leader of the galaxy's most famous super-hero team hire a receptionist to deal with that stuff?"

Pretty much all of the sub-plots were like that. Princess Projectra is no longer a princess and so there were repeated scenes of people not using her title and saying, "After all, you're no longer a princess" and her getting really angry and punching them in the face.

Not funny. Not interesting.

Anyway, I particularly enjoyed the solicitation for the September issue of Legion of Super-Heroes because the text is as follows:

THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #46

Written by Jim Shooter

Art and cover by Francis Manapul & Livesay

Chameleon’s hand is amputated! The menacing Intruder Planet is revealed as the source of the Alien Life-Eradicators! A longtime Legionnaire takes the first step down the path of darkness! Plus, the heartbreaking end of the oldest relationship in the history of the Legion! On sale September 24 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

Okay, so first problem... "the menacing Intruder Planet is revealed as the source of the Alien Life-Eradicators."



Well, yes. It has been revealed. Right there in the solicitation text.



Next problem: The menacing Intruder Planet!!!



Um... no.



Next problem: The Alien Life-Eradicators!!!



Clearly, Jim Shooter is an idea-generating machine, the likes of which have not been seen since Alan Moore and Grant Morrison.



What's really amazing is that no one ever thought to use those awesome names before... The menacing Intruder Planet!!! The Alien Life-Eradicators!!!



Jim Shooter... stop! It's too much excitement...



Next Problem: The fact that Chameleon's hand gets amputated--and that that's considered a selling point of the issue--is bizarre and inappropriate, but then this is a DC comic and if there's one thing you can count on in a DC comic in the Dan Didio era, it's the maiming of characters.



Anyway, Chameleon is a shape-shifter, so does it actually matter if his hand gets amputated? Can't he just assume the shape of a thing that isn't missing a hand?



But my favorite stupid thing about this solicitation is that we're told that all this stuff is going to happen... we've got amputated hands and Alien Life-Eradicators and heartbreaking ends of old relationships... and then this is the cover they came up with to convey all this action and drama...

Ultra Boy is reading something while he drinks some coffee. Three poorly drawn characters, presumably evil, approach him.

And there's a muffin.

Speaking of the DC love of maiming characters, check out the solicitation for Green Lantern Corp #28...

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #28

Written by Peter J. Tomasi

Art by Luke Ross & Fabio Laguna

Cover by Rodolfo Migliari

As Kyle and Guy deal with personal issues on Oa, several Lanterns search for whoever’s been gruesomely removing the eyes of their relatives. Meanwhile, the Guardian known as Scar summons Lantern Saarek for a mission that will lead directly into The Blackest Night.On sale September 10 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

Excuse me... could you say that again? I didn't quite hear you...



"...on Oa, several Lanterns search for whoever’s been gruesomely removing the eyes of their relatives."





Hm.



Well, that sounds like a very... interesting idea for a story.



Nicely done, DC.



And, back to the subject of new characters with appallingly stupid names, we have this...



DC SPECIAL: CYBORG #5

Written by Mark Sable

Art by Carlos Magno & Jonathan Glapion

Cover by Mike McKone

Meet The Phantom Limbs, an elite team of wounded soldiers saved by Cyborg's technology. The catch? The only way they can keep their new limbs is by killing for the mercenary Mr. Orr. Will Vic be able to save them from this Faustian bargain – or will they kill him first?On sale September 17 • 5 of 6, 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US





Ooh... the Phantom Limbs! And this is their very first appearance!!!



See what I'm saying here? DC comics. Amputated hands. The gruesome removal of eyeballs. A team of wounded soldiers who must kill in order to keep their new, artificial limbs.



It's almost like... a pattern, of some sort.



A hard to define... just barely on the periphery of my awareness kind of pattern...







So, there's that.



Oh, one more thing I thought looked kind of funny...





THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #17

Written by Marv Wolfman

Art and cover by Phil Winslade

Supergirl and Raven team up to save San Francisco from a new super villain with deep roots in the DC Universe!On sale September 17 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US



Now, I'd be hard-pressed to think up a less intriguing team-up than Raven and Supergirl, and Marv Wolfman hasn't written a decent story since the mid to late 1980s, but my favorite thing about this is the cover... for sheer goofiness, it's hard to beat this...

I don't know why, exactly, but that floating head absolutely cracks me up. That and the fact that Supergirl is making the international symbol for "La-la-la-la-la-la!!! I can't hear you!!! I'm not listening!!! La-la-la-la-la-la!!!"


--------


Marvel's solicitations for September aren't nearly as comical, with one glaring exception...


IMMORTAL IRON FIST: ORSON RANDALL AND THE DEATH QUEEN OFCALIFORNIA
Written by Duane Swierczynski
Art by GIUSEPPE CAMUNCOLI
Cover by KAARE ANDREWS
The minute he saw the dame, Orson Randall knew he was in for a heap of hurt -- all in. But he wouldn’t be the hard-boiled hero he was if he didn’t go sniffing after trouble. Hero? Randall stopped the laugh in his throat. Drowned it in a slug of bourbon. Randall’s no hero. 1920s Los Angeles just ain’t the time or the place for a guy like that. Ain’t the time or place for the Immortal Iron Fist. Orson Randall’s just trying to figure the angle. And if he has to unload his .45s to do it, so much the better. Orson Randall’s just in it for the skirt. 48 PGS./Rated T+ ...$3.99


At first, I thought it was supposed to be funny. Y'know, sort of a satirical take on the old "film noir" kind of "pulp fiction"-y kind of thing.


But I don't think it's supposed to be funny.


I think maybe... just maybe... it's supposed to sound cool.

Hero? Randall stopped the laugh in his throat. Drowned it in a slug of bourbon. Randall’s no hero.




Ain’t the time or place for the Immortal Iron Fist. Orson Randall’s just trying to figure the angle. And if he has to unload his .45s to do it, so much the better.




Orson Randall’s just in it for the skirt.


And, my personal favorite...



The minute he saw the dame, Orson Randall knew he was in for a heap of hurt -- all in.



What does that even mean??? "All in." Is that some new thing that the kids say?


-------------

Anyway, enough of my wise-guy shenanigans... I need to get back to work on my dissertation... all in.


Until next time, here's hoping that the menacing Intruder Planet doesn't intrude on you and your footloose and fancy free ways...


Paul, all in