I'm Just Sayin'…#3

Columns, Top Story

imjustsayin-copy.jpgSo here’s what I’m wondering…is Dude Looks Like a Lady autobiographical? Because whenever I look at Steven Tyler, I wonder if Heidi Fleiss has a secret identity…

Hm. Sorry, that’s been with me for a coupla days.

How’s everybody doing, this time around? Greg Manuel here, and this time around I’m feeling pretty link-tastic. With that said, I have to kick this off with some positively exciting news:

Especially if you watched this delight of a program when it was on FOX Kids about ten years ago.

That’s right, Steve Purcell’s SAM & MAX: FREELANCE POLICE has arrived on DVD, to which I can only say: YEAH, BABY, YEAH!!!

This is the kind of news that fills me with hope. Now if only someone would quit dragging their feet on Seasons 2 & 3 of XIAOLIN SHOWDOWN. I mean, it was only three seasons! What the deal?!

There was a lot of news to come out of Wizard World LA last weekend. I see yet another writer/penciller team is joining the fray on THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN* (I’m hoping to start a trend where the Brand New Day period gets the asterisk treatment) in the form of Joe Kelly and Mike McKone:

We'll do anything to make you forget

Man…they really want us to embrace Brand New Day, don’t they?

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with this pairing in the slightest. In fact, there was a time when I would’ve put money down to read the work of a pairing like this without hesitation. That time wasn’t that long ago, either. Three guesses on what my problem is…

I’ll have a lot more to say about this in due time. I just need a little more time to process it all. Especially as it becomes increasingly clear that there was no good reason to erase Peter Parker’s marriage to Mary Jane Watson in any way, as evidenced by the hemming and hawing done by the Spider-Man Panel at WWLA. Not even as a plot device as part of a larger story; if the best reason they can give us for erasing Spider-Man’s marriage is “a single Peter Parker just works better,” we have to consider that this could very well be yet another Clumsy Quesada Head Fake (TM) designed to drive up sales and get people talking, no matter what.

Ugh. It’s like Civil War all over again. I’d best not get to thinking about that again, lest I start frothing at the mouth and barking uncontrollably…

On to other things…we lost a phenomenal talent and an even greater human being in the form of Dave Stevens on March 10. Only a handful of those closest to him knew of his battle with leukemia, and sadly that battle is over now. All that we can do now is remember him, and be thankful for his contribution to the great tapestry. Comic 101’s Professor Scott Tipton offers these words. If it’s not enough to send you out to Best Buy in search of the Rocketeer on DVD, I don’t know what will.

And that’s it for me this week…take it easy folks, and courtesy of Darwyn Cooke and JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE NEW FRONTIER SPECIAL, never forget what comics is all about:

preach it, Darwyn!

If you haven’t bought this comic, you don’t really need any other reason.

I’m Greg Manuel, and I’m just sayin’…