Savage Dragon hits again!

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Erik Larsen, over-worked and under-rated creator of Image Comics' long running Savage Dragon has again challenged the four color media he has spent decades working in!
Since the Dragon has seen print (including all the non-Image works Mr. Larsen has done), Erik Larsen has pushed the envelope every chance he has gotten, including having a fan's character play as a focal point for an issue (Jimbo the Lobster, Savage Dragon #10), committing to a challenge with Peter David on writing Aquaman (which he easily won, in my eyes), and most recently his sponsoring of (at the time) President-elect Barack Obama.

Well, not one to sit on his duff, the exemplary creator, writer, and artist has decided that he needs to push the envelope once more, this time by rewarding loyal readers with a 100 paged issue #150! The unique and exciting reward for this issue of Savage Dragon isn't just in the hefty page count, but also within the Image box on the top of the cover, the price tag! Where many marketers would be eager to gouge their loyal reader base for increased profit (see my June 1st post, Comics Price Jump Again), Mr. Larsen provides this holy 100 page tome for a meager $5.99. This may seem like a gluttonous price hike but a simple trip through the calculator circuits will show that this book is four times larger than a regular edition of the Dragon and the price tag is less than double the price. Sounds like a boon for readers!

According to Image comics, "SAVAGE DRAGON #150 will now not only feature an extra length thirty-page lead story and the previously announced all-new back up stories with Thor, Vanguard and Chris Giarrusso's G-Man, but also the long lost origin of the Golden Age Daredevil by Charles Biro and the out of print origin of SAVAGE DRAGON."

Being a Dragon fan for nearly two decades, I cannot wait until the big 150 hits stands! Thank you Mr. Larsen for years of stories!

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Free Comic Books

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Always looking for ways to increase reader activity, Marvel Comics has set up a new program online that offers free comic books every single week!

That's right, FREE comics, every Monday! Now, Marvel die-hards will recognize this as Marvel's Free Mondays, the program that offers free DIGITAL comic books to readers for download and this is not quite a new concept, Marvel has been running their Free Mondays since as far back as May of 2008.

The downfall of this "free" stack of digital comic books is that, you actually must be a member of Marvel's Digital Comics Unlimited subscription service, which costs $59.88 (or, $4.99 a month).

Is this really a way to bring quality comics to devoted fans or merely a push to stop printing fees and save the comic industry money. More importantly, will this medium stick and are we looking at the future of comic books? We will see what the collective collector says.

Gotham suffers another earthquake

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Gotham city is seeing another quake that shakes its foundations to the core! This rumbling is hitting the bat family possibly even harder than the one that rocked the city at the end of the nineties, however as this quake isn't destroying the city but targeting the family of bats directly!
Bruce Wayne is out of the picture (thanks to Darkseid) which leaves an empty batsuit as well as an empty manor.

The Wayne presence is being filled with a look-alike to portray to Gotham that their playboy is okey-dokey, thus, enhancing the illusion that Bruce Wayne is not the Batman. This illusion is actually a bit closer to truth, now that former sidekick, Dick Grayson has taken up the cowl of the bat, shedding his own Nightwing persona.

To add to the shakiness, the conveniently included Wayne childfrom Batman 655-658 plays not just a prominent role, but a pivotal one as he takes up the red and green of the Robin. This does not bode well as Tim Drake is pushed out of his own tights and into the Red Robin personality.

With all of this, there is still room for controversy as the mantle of Batgirl is going to be filled but the woman behind the mask is not entirely clear. The answer is scheduled to be revealed in the newly relaunched Batgirl comic with covers by Phil Noto.

These certainly aren't the only rumblings going on in the world of comic books, but they are certainly gaining the most buzz in my parts!

Comics Price Jumps Again

1. When I first started buying comics, the price per book was around 75 cents, which was soon to hit a dollar.
2. By the time I was 18, there was an experiment going within the Marvel comics camp in which each of the many popular titles titles had two options; the standard paper stock with a $1.50 price or the glossy paper with a $1.95 tag. Shortly after the success of that, all titles went to $1.95.
3. A few years later, Marvel creeped the prices on their popular titles to a safe $2.25 with some of the edgier titles seeing $2.75 a book.
4. A few years back, they all hit $2.99 each.

These hikes have typically risen in times of financial hardship, either for the company or for the country. Inflation affects more than just the price of tomatoes in the grocery store, for comic companies, it hits with paper, ink, wage hikes and many other costs. The increased price has been an attempt to offset these charges in the past.
Now, with nearly ten of the popular titles in the Marvel stable jumping like the Hulk from the already high $2.99 to an astonishing $3.99, it is easy to see that an over-all price jump is in the near future and understandably so, with the poor shape of America's economy.
The unfortunate aspect of this hike is, not just the whole dollar increase, but the many times Marvel's speaker and EVP of the executive office, John Turitzen talked about "maximizing profits" and referring to Marvel as a "cash machine". Classy, Mr. Turitzen. I come from a business background and understand the need to make a profit, but I also understand the need to satisfy the customer and keep integrity within a brand, even if I'm not an Executive Vice President for a multi-million dollar organization.

With the increase in video games and other digital media, I didn't think the 4 color world could take a much harder hit...I guess I was wrong.