Pull List

Pre-ordering, as I often hear, is your friend. The glory of pre-ordering is that whichever comic shop you order from may go ahead and order an extra copy if you order one. This past Wednesday, for example, I received a copy of God the Dyslexic Dog 2. It is quite possible, since there was one interested party, there may be two (and with a name like that). So, yeah, pre-order.

The joy of the pull list is largely the weekly anticipation. Monday, after 5, Diamond releases the shipping lists, and then for the next two weeks you have a real idea of what is coming out. I find that solicitations are fun because you can see months down the road, but so rarely do those shipping dates seem to really last (and it's much too far away to care).

This week I grabbed issue 2 of God the Dyslexic Dog. Interesting comic. At the beginning of time, the great poet, almost as a joke, says "let there be light." And then there is creation. It has a lot of things that remind me of Morrison's writing. It deals with elements of the Mayan calendar and the countdown to the end of time. The dog that is one of the main characters was the great poet's pet, but sadly he has no memory of anything that is going on.

It is kind of slow, but I'm interested in seeing what happens next. It has the horrible posibility of becoming crap quickly, but I am somewhat confident it will not.

Losers is continuing on strongly, and it is an interesting read. I find Andy Diggle very entertaining, I am loving Adam Strange, and his run on Swamp Thing was the final reason I needed to fork over the money for Alan Moore's run. It is a fun read, but I can't wait for it to be over. I want the conclusion. The problem I have noticed with a lot of new series, specifically Vertigo series, I love them and I want them to be completed. I like knowing there is a definitive end. 100 Bullets is on the countdown to 100, and I love it. Losers is the same way. It is made well for the monthly format, as there are often the cliffhanger endings that keep you excited about the book, but I want to know how long there is until the conclusion.

Speaking of Swamp Thing, 13 is continuing the slow demise. It's good, but it's not great, and it needs to be great. Andy Diggle did it well, but I can kind of foresee the end that was probably how people looked at the series after Alan Moore left, and how it just is ok, but never quite as good (similar to the lull after Morrison's run on Animal Man). I don't know why Vertigo series have done this so much lately, but there is a lot more less successful series than successful. Preacher ended after 66, Transmet after 60, Sandman 75. And those are excellent runs. Most, now, have to finish up after 12-20 issues. Whatever they had, they need to get it back. (Trigger, a 1984-esque series is ending with #8. The most recent Vertigo ongoing to fail.)

Then I caved. I bought Identity Crisis, and GL: Rebirth, as Countdown has made me a DC Hero Junkie. Identity Crisis was well written. I enjyoed reading it, but the story was just strange. It kind of worked sometimes, and was just trite and trying to be too realistic other times. It's an interesting difference from Seaguy, which was obvious superheroics. Metzer writes well, but it has the same issue I had with Marvel Knights 4. It is well written. The stories are kind of silly, but the good writing pulls me back. So we'll see.