Born to a destitute existence,
J.Hues quickly rose to the prominent level of uncomfortably poor. His real name
is shrouded in secrecy but if you ask him he might tell you it's Jason Hughes
(Dammit!).
Nothing much happened until he
graduated from college with a completely useless degree in English, and then...
nothing much continued to happen. Subsequently, J.Hues found himself working
at a toy store. Later, through some strange accident he fell sideways into the
IT field and has been trapped there ever since.
To keep his sanity, he writes:
novels, poems, comics, grocery lists, checks (too many checks), fake doctor's
notes... Maybe someday he'll get paid for all this.
A genius in his own mind, J.Hues
uses various grammatical no-nos to mask his complete and total inability to
craft a single genuine or unique idea. He's never happy unless he is blathering
on with his own obnoxious opinions and ideas. Wait, are you still reading this?
Read the damn column already!
“If your time runs out, you can’t push the restart button.” --me (getting all sentimental)
ROUND 1
Why does Diamond insist on letting Marvel run their company. Diamond announced new terms of sale, which for a fledgling retailer like myself actually REDUCES my discounts, only after Marvel developed their own new terms of sale. And now, in further response to the new Marvel terms, Diamond has officially canned that staple of the comics industry: The Diamond Top 300 Initial Orders list, or as I like to call it, the most meaningless and useless list ever devised, and I’ve read a lot of lists. No longer will we have to guage sales based on incomplete data that favored Marvel’s no overprint no reprint policy (a policy which effectively FORCED retailers to raise their initial orders on Marvel books, and in many cases lower their initial orders on other publishers, because they knew they could always reorder later).
It’s the end of an era folks. Now, we’re going to have to live with an accurate representation of the total sales for a given month on comic shop product. Accurate! Total Sales! Do you hear this madness. Quite frankly, with retailers now having to deal with actual statistics and numbers that mean something, I predict that at least half of them will promptly declare bankruptcy, close their doors and go quietly into oblivion. I’m considering it myself.
What’s next? Box office estimates that represent actual box office receipts in a given weekend? Bestseller lists for books and CDs and videos that are based on sales of those books and CDs and videos? Has the whole world gone mad? How can an industry function this way? Why can’t we determine the #1 movie of the week based solely on internet-based pre-ordered tickets?
Oh, meaningless Initial Orders Top 300 Chart. How I will miss you.
ROUND 2
Speaking of Diamond, the new Previews that hits today has the first two new Disney offerings. The shenanigans begin again with the continuations of two callic series in June, and two more in September. As we keep demanding comics for that elusive audience that isn’t reading comics, Gemstone is really producing here.
These comics are all in the popular smaller manga trade size, and each is double-sized. Reasonably priced at $6.95 for 64 pages (remember that kids are paying up to $10.00 for these manga collections in the bookstores) these books are the perfect tools for attracting new and younger readers.
Walt Disney’s Comic and Stories #634 and Uncle Scrooge #319 both ship June 17th and monthly thereafter. On September 9th, they are joined by Donald Duck #308 and Mickey Mouse and Friends #257. All four will be monthly all-ages fun. The Disney books have proven their staying power over the years.
If these are ordered abysmally, then no one is allowed to whine and bitch anymore about how there isn’t anything in mainstream American comics to appeal to younger readers.
ROUND 3
I’m not usually one to run around tooting the horns of other sites, but when someone else does exactly what I was planning to do, and then does it way better than I would have ever bothered to do it, I can put up with it. After all, it can perpetuate my unending laziness. I was going to break down a comparison of the two Top 300 charts and see what may be different about the new charts, but then I saw that Matt Brady over at Newsarama did it already. So much for my theory that all brilliant ideas started with me.
You can (and you really should) read all about it by following the following link to the following page and then hoping that you have no trouble following the following lo-o-o-ong article following the differences between the two charts. The link is following this next declarative.
I AM (or at least I should be classified as) A GOD!
If you’re having trouble following that, go ahead and skip to the following Round. I promise that it will be easier to… ahem… follow.
ROUND 4
The power is moving to the Sigil! The hot success of the eighties has prompted MV Creations to move from Image to CGE. Why? Well, I was going to ask MV Creations President Val Staples about it but then a rerun of What’s Happening came on television and the next thing you know it was Sanford & Son, Gimme A Break, Diff’rent Strokes and Taxi and there just wasn’t enough time to track him down. As such, I have concocted an interview, with myself filling in for the esteemed Mr. Staples.
j.hues:So, CrossGen, eh? Image piss you off?
Val Staples: Oh not at all. We have a very cordial relationship with Image. Okay, truth be told they pissed me off. They said we were going to have to have a Masters of the Universe / Witchblade crossover within the first year of the series. It just seemed really stupid. I mean how different can two properties be?
jh: And so you picked up camp and now you’re going to be dealing with CGE. Why CGE? Why not just go solo?
VS: Because we’re too cheap to go solo. And Mr. Alessi dumped a pile of cash in my lap.
jh: Really?
VS: No, not really. But since Ian Feller is listening in on this interview to approve everything I say and make sure I’m following the company line, I thought I’d make his boss out to be a great guy.
jh: uh…
VS: Let’s just say I didn’t read the entire contract. They had this one part that was microscopic, but Ian told me their electron microscope was at the shop that day and that it was really no big deal. So I signed. And now…
jh: … okay … ?
VS: They took her! They took her god damn them, and now I’ll never see her again until—
At this point the phone disconnected. Not sure what any of that means, but I sure hope it doesn’t delay the premiere of Dragon’s Lair. I must’ve blown $10,000.00 in quarters on that bad boy down at the arcade!
ROUND 5
In other news, there’s a major war going on in the world involving my country, the United Kingdom and a little place called Iraq. I have tons of thoughts and opinions about that but none of them are really all that funny. Except that it still makes me laugh when they have Saddam Hussein on South Park. And that I’m so used to the way he looks on South Park that when I saw him in some of the more recent statements he’s made, I thought he looked really old.
How’s that for controversial cutting edge commentary.
K.O.
disclaimer: the opinions expressed in this column don’t necessarily represent those expressed by any sane and rational adult; they barely represent the views of the author and they barely resemble coherency as it is; nevertheless this column is chock full of satire and parody (as protected by laws protecting such things) and as such don’t sue me. look at it this way, this is all for fun, don’t believe a word of it (even if it is true), don’t take it too seriously, and if you do take it, take it all with a grain of salt—better yet have the truck back up to your house.
