News for the Week of March 25, 2009
Rick’s Writin’s
As my brain seems to be pudding this morning, I would write a short and
sweet what's coming in and let Paula pick up the slack this week, but
I also know that Paula was out late last night playing with Amanda and
probably won't write squat either. Therefore, it is up to me...the best
store bought pudding there is in my opinion, has to be Trader Joe's Belgian
Chocolate. That stuff is like a gourmet darker, but not dark, chocolate
bar, only it's thick creamy pudding. The BEST! Watched President Obama
on Jay Leno this past week. It was a good interview, with Jay doing a
very nice job. Now though, I'm even more convinced that NBC's decision
to run Jay Leno out five times a week at ten o'clock next fall is a big
mistake for them. I'd bet my last dollar that the ratings that Jay generates
over the week will average at least 25% less than NBC now gets with more
traditional shows and programming. The other networks, including cable,
will schedule the ten o'clock hour very competitively, with good shows.
Also, NBC is going to have to drop some shows such as possibly Medium,
Life, Chuck, Heroes, and others to make room for five nights of Leno.
These are good shows with decent ratings and a varied audience. In return,
NBC will get an older, less desirable (advertising wise) audience, that
will mean less advertising revenue. Granted, Leno will cost much less
to produce than scripted shows, but Leno himself wasn't cheap to keep.
I'll bet that before the year is out, NBC will be trying to figure out
how to get out of this situation and save face. It'll be the biggest TV
story of the Fall 2009 season, mark my words. Other shows on the bubble
right now, as this is the time of year the word starts to get out about
show renewals: Terminator: Sarah Conner Chronicles, Dollhouse, Kings (already),
and Chuck. There's plenty of others, but no definite info. Looks like
Life will be canceled, as was Life on Mars, both shows I liked. Monk is
stopping after this summer too. All in all, maybe I'll be watching less
TV come summertime. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
If you thought there couldn't be any more X titles from Marvel after last
week's eight, you'd be mistaken. Five more this week, headed up by the
X-Force/ Cable Messiah War Prologue one-shot. A follow-up to the Messiah
Complex story that ran last year through the "X" books, this
one deals with a mutant baby, a disappearing Cable, "THE FUTURE"
and X-Force being sent to straighten it all out. Look for more parts of
the story in Cable #13 and X-Force #14 in the next couple weeks. Two "X"
minis conclude: X-Infernus (#4 of 4) and X-Men Kingbreaker (#4 of 4),
and also Life and Times of Bishop (#2 of 3) and a one-shot X-Men Sword
of Braddocks. That's a lot of "X". Some of you out there are
hot for the Thunderbolts (#130) this week, the second part of the "Magnum
Opus" cross-over story with Deadpool, which is in turn part of the
Dark Reign story, as is this week's New Avengers (#51), featuring Dr.
Strange, and Ms. Marvel (#37).
On the DC side, Batman: Battle for the Cowl: Commissioner Gordon features
Batman's steadfast pal dealing with the fact that Batman isn't around
anymore. Meanwhile, the Commissioner's daughter, and my original comic
girlfriend Barbara "Batgirl" Gordon, now Oracle, starts her
own three issue mini series. Hopefully, this mini lays the groundwork
for a new Birds of Prey set up or some other interesting roll in the DC
Universe for Babs. Finally, we're getting in the next batch of DC lead
figures, including Green Lantern, Flash and Robin. These UK imports are
very well done, and come with a magazine on your hero. We've received
Batman, Superman and Joker already, so check them out. Nice stuff. Til'
next week...
Paula’s Picks
Tear Update: 4
Spring is just around the corner! Now’s the time for spring cleaning
and organizing. We just moved the computer room upstairs yesterday. What
a chore! And dangerous too! We used to have an extra bed up there. We
got rid of it, but not before it had a chance to try to take me out with
it. We have stairs with a couple of landings, so it’s easier to
lower big things down to the hallway below, than walk them down the stairs.
I didn’t realize Barry was doing that and went to help him walk
it down. When I came out of the hallway, a mattress was flying at my head!
So, it felt really great when we dropped it off at the Goodwill! Take
that, mattress!
The Great Fables Crossover is getting closer. Jack of Fables #32 comes
out this week. It wraps up the current story “Jack’s Big Book
of War” and leads into the new mini-series the Literals.
Amazing Spider-Man #589 comes out this week. With the long delay between
the last couple of issues, I was starting to wonder if Spidey had gone
back to a regular monthly schedule, but it looks like its back to 3 times
a month!
We’re getting some more of Baltimore or The Steadfast Tin Soldier
and the Vampire. This is a regular prose novel written by Mike Mignola
and Christopher Golden with illustrations by Mike Mignola. It’s
about a soldier, Baltimore, which awakens a vampire during World War I.
He calls upon three friends to help him in his battle. While they wait
for Baltimore, they share the stories of their fantastic adventures. Christopher
Golden has written quite a few Hellboy novels, teaming up with Mignola
is a no brainer. I’ll definitely be picking one of these up for
myself.
Rick mentioned last week how our pull system will be more specific. We
will have a list for everyone that has a hold box of new titles offered
in Previews the week after it comes out. I'll have both a print version
and an email version for everyone. Also, for those of you that send us
specific lists every week based on the emails, we'll need your requests
by the end of the day on Monday so that we'll have time to get them in
the system.