Its been about 10 years since I have done this. The first thing I have noticed is...no Previews!
I learned about 2 weeks ago my LCS has canceled his Diamond account. As someone who has ordered all off his comics from Previews for about 30 years. This was quite a shock. I\ve also worked there before, and I understand his problems. Hell, they haven't even had a sales associate in over 10 years.
So, all of the books will be between Penguin, Lunar, etc. Anything that is Diamond only he is trying to work out. A new dynamic for me for sure. I do understand his frustrastion. Shorted on comics, damaged comics, and just being left in limbo.
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Those three top panels in the cover are very Steranko.
Funny you should say that: They ARE by Steranko. The fourth panel is by George Tuska, the fifth Neal Adams, the sixth Wally Wood. I can't ID the last one.
Back in the '90s, I went to a lot of comic book shows (that is, gatherings where vendors sold their wares, as opposed to "conventions" which featured celebrity guests). I always enjoyed monster comics when i was a kid, so just so I wouldn't go home empty-handed from these shows, if I didn't find anything else to buy, I would always fish a stack of Monsters on the Prowl or Where Creatures Roam or Where Monsters Dwell or something from out of the dollar boxes. (Now I have many of these stories in handsome hardcover editions.) But I always turned my nose up at Tower of Shadows because they weren't reprints, but new. (From #6 each issue featured only one new tale backed by reprints, but I didn't know that then. The title changed to Creatures on the Loose with #10.) Now I find myself very much looking forward to it.
Tower had some great artists, and some mediocre ones, and some lame ones. I think the first story was by Steranko, so it got a great start. Since it was Code-approved, though, the stories didn't really rise beyond the level of concurrent House of Mystery.
Diamond didn't ship last week, at least not in time to be put on the shelf. Diamond didn't ship on time this week, either; in fact, the Diamond boxes did arrive today, but too late to be put on the shelves. That means they'll be on the shelves next Wednesday. But I was expecting to see last week's books today, and I didn't. Does that mean two weeks worth of comics were in those boxes? Hell, I don't know. What are you asking me for? Guess I'll find out next week.
My shop has been on time throughout this fiasco, because my LCS owner drives down to Diamond's Olive Branch (Miss.) warehouse and picks up his boxes every Tuesday (and puts them out before opening Wednesday). It's probably the only shop in the country that hasn't been affected. It's the first time in my lifetime that living in Memphis has conferred any advantage.
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