For the uninitiated, comic books are solicited to the stores two months in advance of the shipping dates. Thus, in December, it's time for comic shop owners to order books for February. An additional wrinkle is that cover dates for comics are usually two months ahead of shipping dates, so in December, comic book stores are ordering books with a cover date of April that will be shipping in February! On Tuesday I got my first look at the full previews for DC Comics, yesterday I managed to get the full text file for all of Previews Magazine, so now I can do most of my order.
Hubby-Eric wants to cut back a lot on our order to save money for more important things (like the mortgage, and food). So first order of business was determining which books we could drop, or which are being cancelled soon. It was an easy decision to jettison Avengers, since I'm not enjoying it much and I also don't want to support Marvel right now, either. Plus, it's about to enter a new storyarc. Buh-Bye Avengers! Spectre, Titans, and Young Justice are all on death row, with Titans last issue being solicited in this previews (and the other two will have their last issue in March). That will save us some cash, but we'll finish out all three series.
On the list for buying for sure: Aquaman and Usagi Yojimbo. I think if everything else had to be cancelled, I'd still be getting those. Hubby-Eric is a Green Lantern fan, so Green Lantern for sure. And he's also a JSA fan, so JSA for sure. I'm also a big fan of Peter David's Supergirl, and I don't intend to drop that book. Birds of Prey has been disappointing lately, but I still like the book, so it stays on.
Despite everything, Green Arrow has stayed on our list, and it's a resolicitation this month, so we've already paid for it. It stays. A note: Most comic book fans don't pay two months in advance. We do, to support our store and control our comic book budget. Justice League Adventures and Gotham Adventures are both strong books that stand apart from the normal DCU, so we get them. Power Company is a great book, so it stays.
On the bubble are JLA and Hawkman. JLA we probably won't drop because it will always have either a Green Lantern or Aquaman himself in it. It just works out that way. Hawkman... well, we'll have to see about Hawkman.
That leads us to the DC minis and one-shots.
First up for our review is Birds of Prey: Catwoman/Batgirl. While I'm interested in the concept, I'm not sure I'm interested enough to buy a two-issue prestige series at $6 a pop. I'm not particularly thrilled by the writer or the artist, so this is a maybe.
The return of Astro City is a no-brainer. We've been waiting a long time for this, so all five issues will be bought, no problema! We'll also be getting the second part of JLA/The Spectre: Soul War.
Two Elseworlds: the second part of Superman & Batman: Generations III, and a sequel to JSA: The Liberty File called JSA: The Unholy Three. The JSA Elseworld is a two-parter, so not a problem.
Moving on to Image Comics, we'll be getting the fantastic Age of Bronze by Eric Shanower, of course. I think that one goes up with Aquaman, Usagi Yojimbo, and Green Lantern as a must have. We'll also keep getting Powers, despite the over-reliance on profanity in the dialogue.
And on to Marvel Comics! Amazing Spider-Man is on the list until JMS stops writing it. At that point we'll drop it. We won't be adding any new Marvel while the no overprint policy continues, so even if JMS moves to another Spider-Man book, we won't be getting it. We'll also continue to get The Truth.
Crossgen books we've been getting are Ruse and Way of the Rat. I still prefer getting my books monthly, but it's a comfort to know that if I wanted to, I could wait and buy just the trades of these every few months.
Other books for this month are Thieves & Kings and Crossovers (which we did decide to try out, four genres sharing one bathroom is just too cool to resist). And that's pretty much it. A very small list for us.
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