Comic Book Resources

If Morrison started writing Wonder Woman, I would pick it up in a second. Unfortunately, he would be off of it in just about a year and it would go back to the comic it is now.

I second that—Morrison on Wonder Woman would be so unbelievably interesting how could any comic reader not give it a go? I am sure many would cry foul–but it would sure sell books. I have read WW intermittently over the years..recently hopping back on JMS and promptly hopping off again. Dreck!

Canada Reads missed a chance to redefine what “novels” can be. What surprised me is how Essex County was eliminated simply because it doesn’t have enough words to be called a novel. How very snobbish of the CBC–oh wait–it is the CBC. Reminds me of how the brilliant writer Alice Munro is given short shrift simply because she writes short-stories. Munro should be the first Canadian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, but never will because she writes short stories. Genre snobbery is unbelievable in the literary world–seemingly they forget the history of the novel and how at one time novels were considered “feminine pursuits” instead of the more masculine genre of poetry. Did I say ridiculous? Essex County is the best Canadian (English) novel written in the last ten years. Period.

Does anyone really think Border’s will ever recover, especially in this depressed economy?

Bookstores, bricks and mortar shops are dead. The irony is that these big box bookstores pushed much of the niche stores out of business and now the big box stores are finished too. It will take another 5-10 years (I think this may be generous) to see the last of them go–but go they will with the Boomers who shop there. As the Boomers die many stores are going to die with them. I do however see a return of smaller niche market stores.

Clearly, even Marvel knows that when it comes to Jack Kirby, a jury of his peers is nearly impossible. He was quite peerless.

@Marc C – I’d love to hear your comments 10 years from now when book stores are still everywhere

given what he has done with batman would love to see what Grant would do if let lose on wonder woman worse thing he could have her winding up giving supes and bats a run for their money sales wise. Boarders might as well just stop stalling file the papers then beg Barnes and Nobles to buy its carcass.

I will always support my independent local bookseller and I believe that many others will too.

It will be a niche market, catering for the cultured elite that would like to make a bookbuying experience a shared experience, and confluence of new ideas, and generally a \ communal affair – as opposed to the digital moronocracy that sit on their asses and point-and-click their purchasing, lonely hearts out.

Personally, I don’t mind if all the big book stores go away. To me, it’s just too hard to pick a good book out of a place like that. If I go to the library and pick a random book and I don’t like it, I just take it back and I lose nothing. But paying cover price on a book that may or may not be good is too expensive. Hopefully once all the big book stores are gone, more smaller ones will open. At a smaller store, I can actually expect to get some good reading suggestions. At the big stores I’m always overwhelmed with no real help from employees. So I guess my big complaint about big book stores is just the lack of interaction. I need a book salesperson I can see over and over again so they can get to know what I like and I can know what they like.

Although Jeff Lemire’s Essex County was eliminated in the first day of debate for Canada Reads, it topped the Canada Reads 2011 People’s Choice Poll with a staggering 53.15 percent of the votes.

So a committee of celebrities – none of whom have a literary background – appointed by a committee, not only doesn’t fully understand what they are reading, but is out of touch with what people who read actually think?

I’m SHOCKED.

Of course, the funny thing is that, without bookstores, Blarg isn’t going to find anything at his library.
Because bookstore sales keep books coming out in print, and books going into libraries.
Where do people think books come from? The Friggin Book Fairy?

One of two things is going to happen in ten years –
1) The collapse of prepaid authorship (publishing houses being unable to issue advances to
authors, or market books, leaving everything coming out of self-publishing). This is really going
to hurt the educational field, as there’ll be an inability to obtain backlist titles as well.

2) Complete shift to point-of-distribution printing, wherein publishing houses shift the entirety
of printing to local retail houses, which print-to-order, or distribute electronically based on
immediate, prepaid customer demand. This will selectively hurt the educational field, based
on territorially exclusive PTO/POD contracts issued by the remaining consolidated publishers, which
will require selecting the proper vendor for the printed work.

Before anyone jumps on the “Print is dead” bandwagon, consider the following:
Antiques Roadshow recently evaluated a printed book from the 1600s at around $3000, due to
scarcity and age. A Gutenberg Bible goes for considerably more at auction.
What’s the value of your copy of Tick Tock on your Kindle, when the hardware fails and Amazon
goes out of business in twenty years (due to nobody producing books to sell) ?