Bent Corner

Longtime comic book retailer and columnist Brian Hibbs touched upon Wizard’s recent smarmy Captain America #25 eBay activity in his most recent Tilting at Windmills column on Newsarama. Brian writes:

Finally, I think there’s some very real concern about Wizard magazine having advance knowledge of this event (and, as a print magazine, clearly they had to have that information weeks ago), and it either accidentally, or very much on purpose leaking to their sales arm, and their affiliated retail stores, giving them a clear market advantage.

Brian was able to sum up very nicely what Wizard did and why it’s so scummy. He goes on to add:

Wizard is not doing anything, that I am aware of, that is illegal. The comics aftermarket isn’t a regulated one. However, I believe it is deeply unethical to report on news and prices while at the same time selling items that can capitalize on that news and those prices.

He’s right that Wizard doesn’t seem to have done anything actually outright illegal. It’s not like Wizard did anything unethical or illegal with anything having to do with Wall Street.

What Wizard did was Insider eBaying. They used information someone at Marvel told them because they are the de facto Forth Estate of the funny book world and made some serious PayPal money from it. Scrooge McDuck would be so proud.

Wizard needs to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up. Does it want to be the pinnacle of comic book journalism or does it want to sell $4 comic books for $50 on eBay the day they come? I honestly don’t see how they can do both. Not if they want people to respect what they do or what they represent. The more this type of crap goes on, the less they seem like a credible magazine and more like the typical fleamarket vendor. Only without the grotesque body oder.

Then again, if they were looking for respect they would have hired Augie De Blieck as Editor-in-Chief and not the guy that ran FMH into the ground. Not that FMH didn’t deserve to be run into the ground.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

The other day I wrote about Wizard Universe selling hundreds of issues of Captain America #25 on eBay. It seemed as though Wizard Universe had some kind of special insight that Captain America #25 would include the death of Captain America. That’s some insight no other comic retailer seemed to have.

Wizard the magazine is a magazine about comic books. Wizard Universe is a retailer that sells comic books. Is there an information firewall between the two entities? Are there safe guards in place to ensure that the retailing side of Wizard doesn’t get an unfair advantage from the (don’t laugh) the journalistic side of Wizard?

The Daily News was the first to break the story about Captain America getting killed. It wasn’t by accident. They were privy to the fact that Captain America was going to be killed in issue #25 two whole months before it happened. What if the Daily News also sold comic books? Would that be a conflict? They don’t sell comic books, so it’s not an issue.

The difference with Wizard is that not only do they report on comics, they also sell them. By the looks of Wizard Universe’s eBay auctions for Captain America #25, someone over there had the foresight to order lots and lots of this particular issue.

I decided I would try to ask Wizard.

I contacted Wizard’s media contact Drew Seldin. In an email, I asked if in fact anyone at Wizard the magazine had prior knowledge of Captain America’s death and if anyone at Wizard the magazine passed this information over to Wizard Universe before last week. Seldin responded to my email. Instead of simply answering my question, he told me that he believed that my “ultimate goal is to attack Wizard“.

He went on to say that if he was wrong about my intentions, I could call him next week and we could discuss it. My ultimate goal was not to attack Wizard. It was to have him answer my question. By refusing to answer my question, I’m left with even stronger suspicions then I had before.

Yet another reason Wizard magazine should be avoided at all costs. Newsarama’s Vaneta Rogers talks with comic book retailers about Captain America #25. It’s an interesting read. Especially when the topic turns to how Wizard Universe, which is owned by the same company as Wizard magazine, sold hundreds of issues of Captain America #25 on eBay on Wednesday at prices from $10 to $50 an issue.

It’s as though Wizard Universe had some kind of inside information from Marvel Comics that Captain America #25 would include the death of Captain America. That’s something no other comic retailer was privy to. That Captain America was going to be killed.

Did anyone over at Wizard magazine with information concerning what was going to happen in Captain America #25 advise their counterparts at Wizard Universe to stock up on copies so they could quickly post them on eBay?

It sure seems like it.

It also seems highly unethical. I lost all respect for all things Wizard last year after Wizard World Philadelphia. I haven’t purchased any of their magazines since.

That’s the only way to explain what neo-con Andrea Mitchell is now saying about her neocon buddy Scooter Libby. That she is smoking crack and lots of it. She actually said on Chris Matthews’ Hardball that Libby should be pardoned by the President and that polls show a majority of Americans agree:

They’re going to try to really tamp this down and appeal to the polling which indicates that most people think, in fact, that he should be pardoned. Scooter Libby should be pardoned.

Like Bush has ever worried what most people think. Look Andrea, I’m going to now tell you something that Chris Matthews or Tim Russert will never say to your heavily worked on face.

Please put that glass pipe down.

CNN conducted a poll that showed nearly 70% of the American people are against the President pardoning Libby. Just what poll were you referring too? Your plastic surgeon asking you and your husband what you two think doesn’t count.

Sheri and I went to see the family movie 300. Normally I don’t care for movies that try to cater to the entire family. They usually end up appealing equally to no one. This movie was different.

It was truly great.

I lack the ability as a wordsmith to describe just how much I enjoyed this movie. It tells the story of the Battle of Thermopylae, where King Leonidas and 300 of his best Spartans fought against the creepy Xerxes and his massive and equally creepy Persian army. Take my word for it. It’s not as boring as I probably made it sound.

It’s based on the comic book by Frank Miller. I never read the comic. I did flip through it once at Waldenbooks while waiting for Sheri to finish shopping over across the way at Old Navy.

I should note that even though the film was billed as a family movie, it could at times be horrifically violent. In fact, it was pretty much always violent. Not only was it visually violent, it was audibly violent too. The sound of blood splatter was heard continually throughout the movie.

The visuals of this movie were breathtaking. Most, if not all, of the movie was made with actors filmed in front of a green screen. Everything was then added digitally. I don’t know what life was like in ancient Sparta. From the looks of this movie, I would have to guess that the men spent a great deal of time doing sit-ups. Lots and lots of sit-ups. When not doing sit-ups, they must have been doing scrunches.

Even the old men had well defined six-packs.

The U.S. Mint has issued a press release concerning reports that some of the 300 million George Washington Presidential $1 coins made don’t have the words, “In God We Trust” and “E Pluribus Unum,” on the edges like they are supposed to. They claim it was a mistake. They claim it wasn’t intentional.

I’m not buying it. I think they meant to do it.

It creates publicity for the new coin. The U.S. Mint wants to get people behind the new coin. They want people to want to use the new $1 coin. Like Cheap Trick said in 1978 from the Budokanin - I Want You To Want Me.

The U.S. Mint wants you to want the new $1 coin. They really do.

What better way to get people excited about these coins then to have a super über rare version? Better yet, it even capitalizes on the whole messy separation of church and state argument. Some people will get all agitated and worked up over an atheist version of the $1 coin. The only way they could have whipped up more controversy would have been to make some of the coins with a gay version of George Washington teaching a group of Boy Scouts how to make a campfire.

A gay campfire.

This isn’t the first time a “mistake” has come from the U.S. Mint. Some of the Wisconsin Quarters featured an ear of corn that had an extra piece of husk. When the mistake was first noticed, coins were going for over $300 on eBay. I didn’t even know they grew corn in Wisconsin and I’ve been there a bunch of times.

Link

Update: Scott from the Coin Collecting Blog and a fellow Marylander linked to a really good FAQ on the atheist version of the Presidential $1 coins.

A guy goes to the recent New York City Comic-Con and commissions comic book artist Brian Bolland to do an old school Batwoman sketch. The price Brian Bolland charged said fan was $150 dollars. The actual sketch only measures four by three inches.

A suicide bomber hit an American convoy in eastern Afghanistan with an explosives-packed minivan and militants then fired gunfire from several directions. American forces returned fire in defense of the attack. 16 Afghan civilians were killed and another 25 people were wounded.

Several wounded Afghans said they were shot by U.S. forces fleeing the scene. One U.S. soldier was injured in the attack.

The incident is supposedly under investigation. What’s not very clear is who exactly killed the Afghan civilians. Finding out what really happened may be next to impossible. This from the AP article:

U.S. soldiers at the scene deleted photos taken by a freelance photographer working for The Associated Press and video taken by a freelancer working for AP Television News. Neither the photographer nor the cameraman witnessed the suicide attack or the subsequent gunfire. It wasn’t immediately known why the soldiers deleted the photos and videos. The U.S. military didn’t immediately comment on the matter.

The freelance photographer, Rahmat Gul, said he took photos of a four-wheel drive vehicle with four bodies that had been shot to death inside.

An American soldier then took Gul’s camera and deleted the photos. Gul said he later received permission to take photos from another soldier, but that the first soldier came back and angrily told him to delete the photos again. Gul said the soldier raised his fist as if he was going to strike Gul but that he didn’t.

How are we the American people supposed to know what is happening if reporters are forcibly having their photos destroyed?

I personally have a hard time believing my personal freedoms depend on my government invading and occupying two different countries. Did any of those 16 dead or 25 wounded Afghan civilians had anything to do with the terror attacks on 9-11? Was there a chance that any of the 16 people killed would ever come to the United States to commit a terror attack? I would say that since they were not Saudis, the chances of that ever happening were absolutely nil.

What a complete and utter waste.

Yesterday I quickly wrote something about the federal government requiring everyone to get National ID cards. I thought it was a good idea and long overdue. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I think it’s a good idea.

Last night Sheri and I went down to Baltimore to pick up her great aunt. She was flying back to Maryland from an extended visit with one of Sheri’s cousins in Arizona. After getting to the airport and finding the terminal she was arriving at, we found ourselves with some time to kill. I started watching some of the security measures in place. One of the things I noticed was before passengers could even get into the line for TSA screening, they had to show their boarding pass along with a photo ID.

Imagine how complicated that can be.

How many forms of photo ID currently are there? A country with 50 states means 50 different driver’s licenses. You also have to factor in US territories such as Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. There is also Washington DC. They have their own drivers license too.

What about the people that are not licensed by their state to drive a motor vehicle? Well, they would have to have some type of photo ID issued by their state. Something that looks every much like a drivers license. There are around 54 different versions of those too.

A state drivers license was never intended to be a national ID card. It was meant to show proof that someone was licensed to drive a motor vehicle. That’s it. To rely on it to also be an ironclad form of ID is inefficient.

There needs to be one standard form of identification.