by KC Carlson

Well, Christmas is over! Hope you had a great holiday season!

Of course, in the real world, the holidays are still several months away! But in the wacky world of comic book advance ordering, pretty much all of the industry’s major wares have already been offered up. Since the last three months have been SO packed with goodness, this month’s offerings pale a bit in comparison. Still, there’s plenty of great stuff if you dig around a bit, so here are my picks, along with a bit of commentary here and there since I haven’t had much chance to talk about current comics lately. On to it…

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by KC Carlson

Long-time comics writer and editor Mark Waid said something interesting on Twitter the other day:

“Annnnd today was the day I stopped reading super-hero comics. One that I won’t name finally broke me. Collection stops as of now. No joke.”

He went on to clarify, as others responded to him:

“It’s not one bad comic. It’s the unbearably last in a long string of bad comics.”

“…It’s been building. I didn’t say they were all bad. I said I’ve reached a limit.”

“…I LOVE comics. And I LOVE super-heroes. And I’ll keep writing ‘em. But there is a new, recent cynicism to many of them that I find exhausting and mean-spirited and uninspiring and life-denying.”

“Lotta good super-hero comics out there. Grant’s stuff. Bru’s stuff. Fraction’s Iron Man. Etc. My issue is much deeper than that.”

Reactions ran the gamut of outright anger (from those who thought Waid was somehow betraying the cause of superhero comics, I guess) to endless speculation on what comic it was that set him off (ultimately pointless, except for further gossip fodder) to a lot of folks silently (or not so) agreeing with him.

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by Roger Ash & KC Carlson

Hi! In case you’re wondering where we’ve been (c’mon, play along), we just spent a wonderful weekend at Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC. Convention organizer Shelton Drum put together one heck of a show that had something for everyone. If you’ve only been to conventions with a big publisher presence, you’d be in for a surprise at Heroes. There was everything from web comics, superheroes, to autobiographical comics. The only large publishers who had booths at the convention were Boom and IDW. There was still a DC and Marvel presence at the show through panels and creators, but this isn’t a publisher-centric show.

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by Josh Crawley

In honor of New Avengers #61 shipping this week, I’d like to talk about Mark Waid’s first run on The Flash.

I know that seems like an odd leap to make, but I don’t want to spoil anything.

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Mark Waid is one of the most popular writers in comics today. Among his many credits are memorable runs on DC’s The Brave & The Bold and Flash, and Marvel’s Fantastic Four and Captain America. Currently, he’s one of the writers on Amazing Spider-Man and he’s the Editor-In-Chief at Boom! Studios where he writes new adventures of Pixar’s The Incredibles as well as several creator-owned books. This month, he chronicles the new adventures of Stephen Strange, formerly Dr. Strange, in Marvel’s Strange. Westfield’s Roger Ash recently got in touch with Waid to learn more about this mini-series.

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