The news I was anticipating the most actually came out two days ago. Karen Berger used to be the editor of Vertigo comics at DC. She was responsible for bringing Sandman, Fables, Preacher, V for Vendetta, Y: The Last Man, and more top-tier comics into this world.
She left Vertigo a few years ago, and the imprint has been effectively dead ever since. It was previously announced that she was going to start her own label over at Dark Horse. Well, the details have finally emerged.
Definitely going to be reading at least the first issues of all of these to see what’s what. Hopefully they can produce some legendary comics like we saw from the heyday of Vertigo. Saga and Descender at Image need some healthy competition.
I think I have some East of West, but I have quite a large amount of Jonathan Hickman books I have not read. I once bought two copies of “A Red Mass for Mars” because I didn’t realize I already owned it. I’m sure I’ll get to it.
I’m sure Lazarus is great also, because Rucka is a very trusted name. I just don’t have time to read all the books I’m already buying, so I’m reluctant to add more.
The point is, Image is printing the hot books right now. With Marvel and DC even further entrenched in the underwear pervert category, and IDW retreating to the other nerd licenses (Star Trek, Ghostbusters, TMNT, Transformers, GI Joe, MLP, etc.), I’m very glad to see Dark Horse get it on with some new original stuff. I haven’t bought a Dark Horse book in so long that wasn’t either a manga or a Hellboy library edition.
That said, I’m really looking forward to the next Hellboy library edition in the fall. I wish they would do the same for BPRD and some of the more obscure Hellboy characters like Abe Sapien and Lobster Johnson.
The Sonic comic is one of those things that is a bigger deal than people realize. Generations of kids up with Sonic being a comic character first and a video game character second. Recently some people have been trying to give it more credit and attention, but now it’s done for. I’m guessing SEGA will give the license to another publisher (IDW?).
What’s more important is what this means for Archie Comics. They made a lot of money on this thing. Is it going to hurt them in the wallet to lose this license?
Imagine a book that’s popular because it was included in a lootcrate, aimed at the kind of person who would pay for lootcrate.
Imagine a book that embodies that guy you’re stuck behind at a convention who continuously spouts non-contextual nerd quotes. “The cake is a lie!” “The Spice must flow!” “BUT I TOOK AN ARROW TO THE KNEE”.
Imagine a book that has the romance of a pasty white that guy nerd fulfilling every fantasy because his obsessive knowledge of basic nerd culture makes him a god.
Ok, gonna try to TL;DR: this one as much as possible.
This guy named Ernest Cline wrote a book called Ready Player One. I have read it in its entirety. The book is about a poor kid in a cyber-dystopian future. He becomes the ultimate hero thanks to his obsessive fandom of all retro nerdy things. His perfect memorization of the first edition D&D module “Tomb of Horrors” specifically saves the world. It is the ultimate nerd fantasy.
This book is very popular among many mainstream nerds. The kind of people who buy lootcrates and like waiting in lines at SDCC are the people who fucking love the shit out of this. It is the pinnacle of nerd pandering. The ultimate of all fanservice that has ever existed. This book’s existence and popularity has widened this rift in our community to a great extent. Dividing yet again these simple nerds who enjoy pandering from the ones wise enough to see through the darkness that has come before.
Steven Spielberg is adapting this book into a movie, and the trailer was released at SDCC. This has renewed the war and brought it to it’s greatest peak. We haven’t seen a split of this nature since Star Wars/Star Trek, Mac/PC, or Nintendo/SEGA. I will say that it is actually possible that by straying far from the source material Spielberg could make a good movie out of a bad book. It’s possible. I just won’t be betting on it, and definitely won’t be paying to find out.
