Yeah, I’ve been busy the last day or two, so I haven’t gotten around to writing up my FallCon report, but I’ll try to get it out ASAP (including pics). Still, there was something that caught my attention at a table – Peter Krause’s table, which he sadly wasn’t at both times I stopped by, with Power of Shazam #40 on it. It doesn’t compete with The Spectre riding a dinosaur made of flames, but still I think it’s neat. And what is featured on this cover and the interiors?

Mary Marvel shooting a big ray gun at Mr. Mind inside the white house.

Remind me again why they made her evil? Also, I love the ominous hummmm.

So, while I did attend FallCon in Minnesota today, I sadly forgot my camera. But that’s fine, since it’s a two-day Con and I’ll be happy to show myself hob-knobbing (or, as it happens, just standing there next to a creator and asking someone nearby to take a picture) with some stars of the comic industry as well as giving some thoughts on a few indy creations that I acquired there, since I need to promote other Indy creators just as much as I need to promote THAT BOOK THAT’S NOW AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD AT A PALTRY $0.72 called Revolution of the Mask.

However, while I was scouring the back-issue boxes for some new fodder for the blog (yeah, I know, I’ve been lax in my reviews as of late), I happened upon a couple of things. The first was the start of the Spider-Man Clone Saga (which I have subsequently decided to collect in its entirety), and this happy comic:

Spider-Man #351 was the very first comic I ever remember reading as a little kid. It features Spider-Man and Nova fighting against a robot that was mystically created by the Norse Trickster God and has three heads and six arms and Spider-Man originally defeated it when he had cosmic powers.

And only in comics can I write a sentence like that.

Issue 1 of Revolution of the Mask, my e-comic released through Brain Scan Studios, is finally being released! The first of a 12-issue maxiseries, I’ll let the official solicit set the stage:

After a Final War that decimated the planet, Earth’s population now exists as ‘The All.’ Individuality is irrelevant and everyone belongs to everyone else. However, a revolution is coming – not of murder and mayhem, but of capes and costumes. This is the Revolution of the Mask. This issue: Designation Gamma-117 knows there’s something wrong with the world, but only someone Wonderful can tell him what it is.

Revolution of the Mask will be available in e-book format on Oct 1st. Visit the Brain Scan Studios website for more information.

So, yeah, needless to say I’m excited that it’s finally out. Hopefully it’ll enjoy more success than that poorly-drawn superhero webcomic I write for. Seriously, who draws that? …oh, wait…

So, I tend not to post on a few things coming out as new news, either because of apathy or because other people tend to communicate my thoughts more effectively. One such debacle is DC’s recent fiasco with an issue of All-Star Batman and Robin (or, as long-time readers of the blog may remember it, “That book written in Idiot Pentameter”) where Frank Miller wrote out the swear words “so that the editor could space them correctly” and then black bars got put under them. In a printing error due to the different shades of black on the computer screen, the words ended-up being perfectly visible behind the black bars when printed. DC fixed the error, but not before issues had already shipped out with the swearing, including the use of the C-word.

Now the reason why I bring this up is because according to a statement made by DC on Newsarama, DC is instituting a new review policy of their books after their printed to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again, as well as not using the actual swear words beneath black bars again like that.

Well why the heck weren’t they doing this in the first place?! Are you telling me that at comics companies, people just print the books up and no one picks one up and takes a look to make sure the pages weren’t put on backwards or something?! Maybe this explains ASBAR in its entirety – no one actually paid attention to what Miller was doing and never picked up the book because they were too busy reading the awesomeness of Blue Beetle.

Furthermore, they were using the actual swear words “for correct spacing?” Oh, that’s complete horse crap. It’s four freaking little letters. One could easily have written “cant” or “dann” under the bars and had the same effect. And whatever happened to just using ampersands and pound signs for swearing? It worked for Judd Winick’s Outsiders.

Of course, while it’s certainly DC’s screw-up, I think blame for all this eventually comes back to Frank Miller for feeling the need to include this crap in a Batman book in the first place.

…And proof positive that, to the shock of the world, Chuck Austen CAN write a good book:

From Exiles #27