We had a wonderful Free Comic Book Day once again this year. I took my daughter and son to a local shop, arriving about an hour after they'd opened. It was busy but not overwhelming, and staff were helpfully handing out small flyers explaining the various discount levels of the sale. The kids headed right for the all-ages section and started searching through the comics to pick out a couple to buy. My son settled on Green Lantern: The Animated Series #1 right away while my daughter browsed through pretty much every comic before deciding on Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #702. We also grabbed a bunch of graphic novels, including several out-of-print volumes from the much-missed Johnny DC digest line. (I hope the recent DC Nation all-ages comics app starts offering some of the wonderful Justice League Unlimited series as my kids love those comics and we missed out on most of the issues.)
We then headed over to the toys section and my kids debated which action figures they wanted to get. Luckily, my daughter found a bin I'd completely missed that had dozens of unboxed figures for much less than the "mint-in-box" figures. Even better, my daughter was able to find two superheroine figures she wanted -- She-Hulk (who they kept calling Hulk-Girl or Hulk-Woman) and Wonder Girl. After years of never being able to find good female superhero figures at Target or Toys 'R' Us, this felt like a minor miracle. We picked out a couple other toys, including a gift for a friend's birthday we were heading to that afternoon, and headed to the register.
There was a short line but it moved quickly. As you approached the register, staff members were handing out bundles of free comics and we got both packets, all ages and older readers. We also received a copy of the hardcover Archia anthology, which looks absolutely gorgeous. We paid for our loot and headed home to sift through all the comics.
We went to the same store last year, but for some reason this year's experience made much more of an impression on me. Part of it was walking in and seeing all the kids in the store with their parents. I can't think of another time I've seen so many kids in a comic book store. And the "event" feel of the day (FCBD + sale + crowds of happy customers interacting) definitely made the experience one you couldn't replicate online, so FCBD succeeded in making me reconsider the value of brick-and-mortar stores. Plus, there is something different about simply being able to browse and touch the objects you're considering -- especially when there's that rush of finding a treasure you weren't expecting!
Thanks very much to the staff at Hot Comics for making our Free Comic Book Day such a pleasant experience, and thanks for all the free comics!!
Monday, May 7, 2012
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Hey, Kids: No Nudity!!
See if you can spot the differences between the following two comic book pages (the first is from the print version of Marvel's Free Comic Book Day offering, Avengers: Age of Ultron Point One; the second is from the digital version of the same story, available for free from Comixology as Avengers Vol. 4 #12.1):
It's subtle, but if you look closely, you can see that in the top version, Marvel went back and drew in Spider-Woman's costume so she wouldn't appear naked throughout the scene as she did when the story was originally published. (This also necessitated small changes in some dialogue, such as the in the fifth panel where "I'll take my clothes now!!" became "Hello!!" and on the following page where "You guys actually kidnapped me and took my clothes?" became simply "You guys actually kidnapped me?")
Not all panels were changed, however, so we're still left with several non sequitur scenes at the end of Jessica Drew wrapped in a large blanket, apparently shivering:
I'm assuming Marvel made these changes because they were uncomfortable with the idea of young kids coming to FCBD and walking out with copies of a comic where a super-heroine is stripped naked; thrown down on a cold, hard floor; and interrogated by two creepy male super-villains. Which makes you wonder why the scene was written as it was in the first place: What exactly is gained by removing the heroine's costume (other than creepy fan-service)? Or if you argue that the nudity is integral to the scene as originally written (because of course bad guys would strip-search any hero they capture to make sure they don't have any tracking devices or other gadgets embedded in their costumes -- happens all the time whenever the Wizard captures the Human Torch, for example), then perhaps this particular comic wasn't the best for Marvel to pick for FCBD. Why not something that would be appropriate for all ages, such as an issue of the old Marvel Adventures: The Avengers series, or a brand-new story from the just-launched The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes cartoon tie-in?
(I'll add that Marvel should have chosen something else Avengers-related to offer to a curious, uninitiated public because this comic just isn't very good: There's clunky dialogue, plot inconsistencies, heroes acting not very heroically (Tony Stark's whiny defeatism at the end), and no real story, just a teaser for some event "coming soon.")
Finally, if Marvel had to choose this specific comic for some reason, they could have at least made the art edits more interesting by borrowing a page from that other censored FCBD comic, The Censored Howard Cruse, and covering up all of Spider-Woman's naughty bits with plenty of well-placed black bars:
See? Problem solved!!
It's subtle, but if you look closely, you can see that in the top version, Marvel went back and drew in Spider-Woman's costume so she wouldn't appear naked throughout the scene as she did when the story was originally published. (This also necessitated small changes in some dialogue, such as the in the fifth panel where "I'll take my clothes now!!" became "Hello!!" and on the following page where "You guys actually kidnapped me and took my clothes?" became simply "You guys actually kidnapped me?")
Not all panels were changed, however, so we're still left with several non sequitur scenes at the end of Jessica Drew wrapped in a large blanket, apparently shivering:
I'm assuming Marvel made these changes because they were uncomfortable with the idea of young kids coming to FCBD and walking out with copies of a comic where a super-heroine is stripped naked; thrown down on a cold, hard floor; and interrogated by two creepy male super-villains. Which makes you wonder why the scene was written as it was in the first place: What exactly is gained by removing the heroine's costume (other than creepy fan-service)? Or if you argue that the nudity is integral to the scene as originally written (because of course bad guys would strip-search any hero they capture to make sure they don't have any tracking devices or other gadgets embedded in their costumes -- happens all the time whenever the Wizard captures the Human Torch, for example), then perhaps this particular comic wasn't the best for Marvel to pick for FCBD. Why not something that would be appropriate for all ages, such as an issue of the old Marvel Adventures: The Avengers series, or a brand-new story from the just-launched The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes cartoon tie-in?
(I'll add that Marvel should have chosen something else Avengers-related to offer to a curious, uninitiated public because this comic just isn't very good: There's clunky dialogue, plot inconsistencies, heroes acting not very heroically (Tony Stark's whiny defeatism at the end), and no real story, just a teaser for some event "coming soon.")
Finally, if Marvel had to choose this specific comic for some reason, they could have at least made the art edits more interesting by borrowing a page from that other censored FCBD comic, The Censored Howard Cruse, and covering up all of Spider-Woman's naughty bits with plenty of well-placed black bars:
See? Problem solved!!
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