Dave's Comicbook Capsules Et Cetera
Intermittent Picks and Pans of Comics and Related Media

Standard Disclaimers: Please set appropriate followups. Recommendation does
not factor in price. Not all books will have arrived in your area this month.
An archive can be found on my homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants
Well, that was interesting, in a "mild fear for my safety" way.

Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): Nothing this
month, a lot of good but nothing that jumped out at me.

In this installment: Adventure Finders Book 3 Chapter 10, Amethyst
Princess of Gemworld, Diana: Princess of the Amazons, The Dragon Prince:
Bloodmoon Huntress, Way of the Househusband vol 8, Happy Kanako's Killer Life
vol 5, The 7 Deadly Sins, The Forgotten Blade, Black Adam #3 (of 12), Moon
Knight #11 and #14, Blue Flame #9, Vampirella/Dracula Unholy #6 (of 6),
Draculina #5 (of 6), Vampirella Year One #2 (of 6), Entropy #1 (of 6), My
Little Pony #4, Transformers: Last Bot Standing #4 (of 4), Transformers
Shattered Glass II #1 (of 5).

This month has been weird, my old store's new owner has apparently been
trying to drive off comics customers in favor of just gaming, and actually
threw me out of the store over a rather minor point (and I'm reportedly not
the only one). So I'm getting set up with a new store, which actually had
several comics that the old store claimed to be unable to find at cover
price, but there's always glitches when starting a pull (and the new store
prefers to not deal with publishers who have horrible lateness issues, like
Heavy Metal and most Vault books). Oh, and I've decided Spectreman Heroes
isn't worth the effort to chase down. LCS jerked my new store around for
most of the month, and Diamond simply didn't ship most of the August 31
order.

Current Wait List (books either Diamond didn't ship or my store failed
to order): Black Adam #3, Entropy #1, Vampirella Year One #2

"Other Media" Capsules:

Things that are comics-related but not necessarily comics (i.e.
comics-based movies like Iron Man or Hulk), or that aren't going to be
available via comic shops (like comic pack-ins with DVDs) will go in this
section when I have any to mention. They may not be as timely as comic
reviews, especially if I decide to review novels that take me a week or two
(or ten) to get around to.

Nothing this month, but I'm enjoying She-Hulk so far.

Digital Content:

Unless I find a really compelling reason to do so (such as a lack of
regular comics), I won't be turning this into a webcomic review column.
Rather, stuff in this section will generally be full books available for
reading online or for download, usually for pay.

Adventure Finders Book 3 Chapter 10: Patreon - Well, that escalated
quickly. Neshallin's mysterious patron has been something of a Boom Tomorrow
sword of Damocles since her introduction, and this issue is all about the
thread breaking and the sword plunging into someone's head. Many heads and
many swords. In fact, it's a MUCH bigger reveal than I'd been expecting, and
could be considered the dramatic climax of the entire series. Recommended.
$1/month on Patreon.

Trades:

Trade paperbacks, collections, graphic novels, pocket manga, whatever.
If it's bigger than a "floppy" it goes here.

Amethyst Princess of Gemworld: DC - So, one of the un-staffed tables at
the local con had copies of DC FCBD-type stuff, and I grabbed the preview of
Diana: Princess of the Amazons. I liked it enough to go pick up the full
book, and while I was at that section of B&N I grabbed Amethyst. The opening
feels like it was inspired by Star vs. the Forces of Evil, a bratty and
boundary-pushing young Amethyst gets exiled to Earth as punishment for acting
out. However, unlike Star, she quickly forgets that she ever lived anywhere
but Earth, due to the lack of magic interfering with her memories...look,
it's a plot device. After a few years living with her "Aunt" (her royal
minder), she's pulled back to Gemworld to save it from a giant monster that
is both the literal and figurative product of her younger self's flaws, and
she slowly regains her powers and memories while her Earthling best friend is
along for the ride (to be fair, at the time the rescue portal arrived, they
both thought they were Earthlings, so). Amethyst has been rebooted an awful
lot for a character who was first created in the 80s, but this is an
interesting re-imagining. Unfortunately, DC has a pretty crappy track record
with these YA books in terms of followup. Yeah, these origin stories
(Primer, Anti/Hero, etc) are complete stories, but each hints at further
adventures that we never get. So, a book the ends on a tone of "But I've
still got a long way to go," feels like a tease, and I can't find any
indication that there's going to be a second volume. So...in isolation, it's
good and I'd recommend it. But it has that "#1 with no #2 ever" cloud
hanging over it that dampens my enjoyment. $9.99/$13.50Cn

Diana: Princess of the Amazons: DC - This one, at least, I know is
getting a followup, but it's a Trinity character so that's not terribly
surprising. Corporate publishing may be willing to try new things, but will
only COMMIT to known quantities. Anyway, like most of the other YA books DC
has been putting out, this stars a young hero who'd map to tweenaged or very
early teenager if Amazons weren't immortal and stuff. It's set before Diana
grew up to become Wonder Woman, at some indeterminate point in the past,
isolated on Paradise Island. It doesn't have to really connect to anything
outside or commit to which version of Wonder Woman this Diana will grow up
into, because that's a long way off. And that, right there, is the core
conflict of this book: adulthood is a long way off for Diana. She's the only
child in a society that has long since forgotten its own childhood. So, in
desperation, Diana decides to make a friend. Out of clay, because hey,
that's the only way anyone's been born on Paradise Island. To her surprise,
it works, and most of the story after that is a sort of Pandora-inspired
thing, except the sculpted girl is trying to get the living one to open the
box of all evils. The final resolution makes sense in terms of how the clay
girl thing worked, and does address one of Diana's concerns (that she isn't a
"real" Amazon), but enough is left unfixed that there's room for the sequel
books to not have to undo the resolution just to have conflict again.
Recommended. $9.99/$13.50Cn

The Dragon Prince: Bloodmoon Huntress: Graphix/Scholastic - Hey, let's
go three in a row for "when they were a kid" protagonist stories! This is a
prequel, telling of the events that led Rayla to become an assassin. It
starts the day her parents went off to guard the Dragon Queen and her egg,
leaving her with her uncle and his husband, so Rayla has a lot of abandonment
issues and "duty vs. family" conflicts to work through on top of her eventual
discover that one of her in loco parentis figures is a Moonshadow Assassin.
I mean, in the cartoon we first meet her AS a Moonshadow Assassin, so her
personal arc resolution isn't too much of a surprise, it's all about the
journey to that point. There are a few times it feels a bit abrupt, but they
only had one book to work with and kids DO sometimes pivot on a dime. The
Bloodmoon Huntress is a new addition to the lore, showing that humans don't
have the market corners on unethical and horrifying magic. That is a good
addition to the setting, because while the cartoon did try to show that using
Dark Magic didn't automatically make you horrible (just, you know, eventually
make you horrible), it's easier to accept that the bad guys aren't 100% bad
when the good guys aren't 100% good. (Yeah, a lot of the elves are
condescending jerks who have decided that the best thing to do with a human
is ignore them, and the second best is kill them, but they've generally not
been seen as evil except for the one Star-aspected elf behind the mirror.)
Recommended. $12.99/$16.99Cn/#7.99UK

Way of the Househusband vol 8: Viz - This volume adds a new recurring
character in the form of the sister of the crepe-making ex-Yakuza, plus
another new character I kinda hope recurs (a lady cop who teaches a community
self-defense class and proves more than capable of handling a couple of
retired Yakuza). No strong theme to the issue, but most of the chapters are
strong. What makes this volume notable, however, is a bonus Crime Catch
Policure manga (Chapter XX), a bit of play within a play. I'm not sure where
Oono wanted this to fall on the parody to homage spectrum, but it does
largely play fair with the magical girl tropes (albeit intentionally
violating one of the usual rules). Recommended. $12.99/$17.99Cn/#9.99UK

Happy Kanako's Killer Life vol 5: Seven Seas Entertainment - Having had
romance end very badly, Kanako is now ready to have a Girls' Night Out with
new acquaintances from her field. Yeah, that's gonna end badly too. The
various other romantic and "might be romantic if people weren't so dense
and/or tsundere" entanglements do get some movement...and you guessed it,
gonna end badly. Badly may or may not include bullets, but that's pretty
much always a possibility in Kanako's career. Meanwhile, Kanako's talent for
invisibility may or may not be verging on mystical. Recommended.
$14.99/$18.99Cn

On Saturday, September 3, 2022 at 8:48:00 PM UTC-6, Dave Van Domelen wrote:

> Well, that was interesting, in a "mild fear for my safety" way.

You can't just say that and then not explain it!
> This month has been weird, my old store's new owner has apparently been
> trying to drive off comics customers in favor of just gaming, and actually
> threw me out of the store over a rather minor point (and I'm reportedly not
> the only one).

Details, please. Also, I didn't think anybody actually threw people out of stores any longer. That's crazy.

Zob (imagining the Simpsons meme with Moe tossing Barney out of the bar, only for him to show up right behind Moe again)

In article <9b0dfd19-8fa4-41e0-be51-946eb6ca7cc5n@googlegroups.com>,
Zobovor <zmfts@aol.com> wrote:
>On Saturday, September 3, 2022 at 8:48:00 PM UTC-6, Dave Van Domelen wrote:
>
>> Well, that was interesting, in a "mild fear for my safety" way.
>
>You can't just say that and then not explain it!
>
>> This month has been weird, my old store's new owner has apparently been
>> trying to drive off comics customers in favor of just gaming, and actually
>> threw me out of the store over a rather minor point (and I'm reportedly not
>> the only one).
>
>Details, please. Also, I didn't think anybody actually threw people out
>of stores any longer. That's crazy.

Okay, so near the start of the year, my old shop owner decided he'd had
enough of being a small business owner, and sold it to someone else. I had
some bad vibes off the new owner, but figured if he could be professional
about things it'd be okay (I did start updating my own copy of my pull list
in case I had to bail). A few months passed, and things seemed to be
settling down after the distributors massively shafted him by refusing to
honor the previous owner's orders. I tried to be a supportive customer
throughout the growing pains (and some issues related to the physical
location).
At the start of August, the owner announced he'd found one of the back
issues Diamond had simply not shipped them earlier (Moon Knight #11), but it
would cost me double cover price. Note, he never asked if I wanted it badly
enough to pay extra, he just dropped it on me. When I expressed reluctance,
he said, in the tone of someone playing a trap card, "Your pull is cancelled,
you can pick up your books on Wednesday like everyone else." He strutted
away as if he'd won a great victory over a long-time foe or something. I
replied with something like, "Well, if I can't have a pull here, I'll go set
one up at another store."
THAT is when he got violent and abusive, refusing to even let me buy the
books I did want, and saying he'd beat me up if I didn't get out of his store
immediately. Called me a "fucking thirteenth-grade teacher" in what he
probably thought was a devastating insult.
I later heard that I'm not the only person to get his pull cancelled
arbitrarily, but I'm apparently the only one to get threatened. Since I did
my best to be a Good Customer, he probably just hated me for demographic and
political reasons, plus all the hassles of the store had him looking for a
target (since blowing up at the distributors or at the city was something
even he must've known was a Bad Idea).
Technically, I could have had him up on charges for threatening to beat
me up, but the odds are too good he's buddies with one or more of the more
punisher-skulled cops in town, and I didn't see that ending well for me.

Dave Van Domelen, hasn't been subject to vandalism or stalking or cop
hassles, so the guy probably felt throwing him out was sufficient.

On Monday, September 5, 2022 at 11:55:08 AM UTC-6, Dave Van Domelen wrote:

> THAT is when he got violent and abusive, refusing to even let me buy the
> books I did want, and saying he'd beat me up if I didn't get out of his store
> immediately.

That is not cool at all. I hope you never give him your money again.

Zob (it would be a real shame if somebody posted a bad Yelp review and sank his business)

> THAT is when he got violent and abusive, refusing to even let me buy the
> books I did want, and saying he'd beat me up if I didn't get out of his store
> immediately. Called me a "fucking thirteenth-grade teacher" in what he
> probably thought was a devastating insult.

This is America. Learning is for losers. Ignorance is bliss and we're entitled to the pursuit of happiness. The only country where "try-hard" is considered an insult.

> I later heard that I'm not the only person to get his pull cancelled
> arbitrarily, but I'm apparently the only one to get threatened. Since I did
> my best to be a Good Customer, he probably just hated me for demographic and
> political reasons,

I'm so sick and tired of the discrimination against Transformers fans. It's robophobic and it's wrong.

> Dave Van Domelen, hasn't been subject to vandalism or stalking or cop
> hassles, so the guy probably felt throwing him out was sufficient.

If you see a Saleen Mustang wandering ominously near your neighborhood with a decal reading "to punish and enslave", then I'd suggest you run as fast as you can to the nearest Camaro dealership.

Dave Van Domelen <dvandom@eyrie.org> wrote:
> In article <9b0dfd19-8fa4-41e0-be51-946eb6ca7cc5n@googlegroups.com>,
> Zobovor <zmfts@aol.com> wrote:
>> On Saturday, September 3, 2022 at 8:48:00 PM UTC-6, Dave Van Domelen wrote:
>>
>>> Well, that was interesting, in a "mild fear for my safety" way.

> THAT is when he got violent and abusive, refusing to even let me buy the
> books I did want, and saying he'd beat me up if I didn't get out of his store
> immediately. Called me a "fucking thirteenth-grade teacher" in what he
> probably thought was a devastating insult.

He repeated 12th grade?

> I later heard that I'm not the only person to get his pull cancelled
> arbitrarily, but I'm apparently the only one to get threatened. Since I did
> my best to be a Good Customer, he probably just hated me for demographic and
> political reasons,

Making his business unfriendly to a chunk of the population (people of
Dutch ancestry?) seems like a bad idea for a comic shop. Does anyone go to
comics shops who isn’t basically either a comics-gater or
my-little-pony-lover, with some overlapping mainstream stuff? That seems
like a spot where you want to tread a fine line as a shop owner.

And even if he wants to shift more to gaming… it’s basically the same
thing.

Set his business on fire.