This newsletter is sent in HTML format using CSS and JavaScript. The background should be cream, hyperlinks should be orange, and hyperlinks should glow when you scroll across them. If you do not see these effects, please view this newsletter online at this address: http://www.heroesanddragons.com/Newsletter/Archive
|
|
|
DRAGON'S BREATH |
|
The Official Newsletter of Heroes and Dragons |
|
Issue # 8.5 — June 22, 2003 |
CONTENTS
Farewell to Chad ...After five years of service, America's Most Beloved Comics Manager is moving on. That's right — we're losing Chad Bowers to The State newspaper here in Columbia. His last day will be this Friday, June 27. Chad came to the Dragon as a part-timer in '98 and stepped into the role of New Comics Manager when we restructured in 2001. We'll miss him, but we wish him all the best in his new career. Though he's gone, Chad will remain our official liason for H&D Comic Club — so you'll still get to see him on the first Thursday of every month. ... Hello (Again) to Tug ...Stepping up to replace Chad as our Comics Manager is long-time employee Tug Baker. Tug's worked in our back-issue, mail-order, and new-comics departments, so he's just the man to take over for Chad. Tug will be training this week, then he'll move into the position of New Comics Manager on July 1. ... And Another Hello to JohnAlso on July 1, John Boozer takes over as our new Back Issue Manager. John has been working the convention circuit for Heroes and Dragons this year, and he'll continue to do so once he starts as a full-time employee. Look for a profile of John on heroesanddragons.com in the next week or so. Improvements to New This WeekWe're using your recent suggestions (from Question of the Week) to improve our New This Week page. Starting this week, we're separating the list into two sections — new merchandise and reorders. If you're looking for this week's brand-new comics, toys, and swag, you'll find that list at the top of the page. But if you're looking for reorders and special orders, you'll find them below the main list. We're also starting our own archive of shipping lists, instead of directing you to the list on Diamond's web site. Starting with items that arrived on June 11, you'll be able to view exactly what arrived at Heroes and Dragons on a week-by-week basis. The New This Week link in our "Quick Links" section of the newsletter will now direct you to the Archive page instead of the current week's listing. (Just click on the top link to view shipments for the current week.) And yes, we are working on returning cover scans to New This Week! Please bear with us another couple of weeks. Interviews Added to ArchiveWe're continuing to migrate the relevant content from our old web onto the new site. This week, we unpacked our eight most popular interviews from the old site — chats with Mark Waid, Phil Jimenez, Terry Moore, Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Kurt Busiek, Fred Perry, and Roy Thomas from the years 1996 to 1999. Though we no longer do exclusive interviews for the site, we've opted to make these eight available in our Archive area. Look for more old content (like past photo galleries) in the next couple of weeks. In the NewsUPCOMING COMICS: The X-Statix will add another new member at the end of summer, and it looks like it's going to be — Princess Diana of Wales?! more Marvel will be offering a "Previews supplement" starting in September. Priced at 99¢, the comic-book-sized Marvel Previews will feature sneak peeks, reviews, and 22-page previews like the ones that have been appearing in Wizard magazine. more Newcomer Roberto Francisco Aguirre-Sacasa will take over the writing on Fantastic Four after Mark Waid's departure. more H-E-R-O writer Will Feiffer will take over Aquaman when Rick Veitch leaves at the end of 2003. more Com.X's way-late Classwar is back on schedule with a new artist, Travel Foreman. more Brian Michael Bendis's plans for Ultimate X-Men include appearances by Spider-Man and Daredevil. more September's Testament graphic novel will feature adaptations of Old Testament stories by Jim Krueger and a host of superstar artists — including Bill Sienkiewicz, Kent Williams, George Pratt, and Phil Hester. more Marvel will be offering multiple printings of Trouble # 1, including a "Second Chances" edition with a cover by Frank Cho. more Batman/Planetary: Night on Earth will be an in-continuity adventure for both series. more In a backwards version of the story we typically hear, CrossGen artist Steve McNiven is leaving the Florida-based company to go to work for Marvel Comics in New York. more Newsarama has posted artist Drew Johnson's sketches for his upcoming run on Wonder Woman. more The Pulse, meanwhile, has a sneak peak at the art of Clayton Henry, from upcoming issues of Marvel's Exiles. more Neon Genesis Evangelion will reach out to girls this fall with a new shoujo manga based on the popular game Koutetsu Girlfriend 2. more A computer glitch at Amazon.com led to the rumor that Across the Universe: The DC Universe Stories of Alan Moore had been cancelled. The rumor is not true, and we expect to have the highly-anticipated trade in stock this Wednesday, June 25. more IN THE MEDIA: Ang Lee's Hulk film opened to mixed reviews this weekend. more A teaser trailer for The Punisher (starring Thomas Jane and John Travolta) is now online. more Speaking of trailers, most of you probably missed the trailer for Harvey Pekar's American Splendor movie, which opens in August. It, too, is online. more Stan Lee's TNN series Stripperella has gotten the axe before hitting the airwaves. more Matrix designer and Big Guy & Rusty the Boy Robot co-creator Geof Darrow will contribute visuals to a Metallica video game planned for 2005. more Artist James Carson has posted conceptual designs for the long-abandoned Superman Lives! film — and boy, are they strange! more AWARDS WATCH: The Friends of Lulu have announced the nominees for their annual awards ceremony at San Diego's Comic-Con International. more Diamond Galleries' Scoop Newsletter wants to profile collectors who have odd or noteworthy collections. So if you have fifteen years' worth of Bruce Willis magazine covers or every single Kool-Aid Man commercial, get in touch. more LEGAL NEWS: Pittsburgh resident Marcel Walker has lost his suit against DC Comics for copyright violation. Walker claimed that both the premise and title of the 1998 Elseworlds story Superman: Last Son of Earth was stolen directly from a 1997 submission he had sent to DC Comics. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the claim, stating that Walker's springboard proposal was based on characters copyrighted by DC Comics and that there was not sufficient original material to claim ownership of the proposal. more and more Marvel Comics has issued a cease-and-desist letter to Skindex.net, warning the site to remove all Marvel character skins for the PC game Freedom Force. more INTERVIEWS WORTH READING:
Coming EventsThe History Channel's Super-Heroes Unmasked airs Monday, June 23 at 9:00pm (8:00pm Central Time). Lord of the Rings CCG League meets Tuesday, June 24 at 4:00pm. Chris will be at the International Sci-Fi and Fantasy Creators Convention in New York City this weekend, June 27-29. 300-point X-Men-themed Marvel HeroClix tournament will be held this Saturday, June 28 at 1:00pm. At least half your points must be spent on Sentinels or members of the X-Men or Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Ben (our games manager) will hold an organizational meeting for the new Warhammer Skirmish League this Saturday, June 28. If you're interested in joining the league, call Ben at (803) 731-HERO or e-mail him for details. Heroes and Dragons Comic Club (HDCC) will NOT meet the first Thursday of this month, July 3. Instead, HDCC will meet on the second Thursday, July 10 at 7:30pm. Site to SeeThis week's Site to See is the Marvel Chronology Project:
The MCP is a gargantuan undertaking by Russ Chappell, dating back to the early or mid-'90s. The site represents Chappell's attempt to list every single appearance of every significant character in the Marvel Universe. How does it work? Let's say you're a huge fan of Kitty Pryde from the X-Men, and you've decided to read all of her appearances, from Uncanny X-Men #129 to Mekanix #6, in chronological order. Just hit the MCP web site and look her up (under Shadowcat), and you'll get a near-complete listing of her appearances — arranged in chronological reading order. "Near-complete"? Yes, "near-complete." The MCP is a huge undertaking and is constantly under revision, so you can't actually get up to Mekanix #6 on the Kitty Pryde list. But you can get to X-Men (Vol. 2) #110, which is barely two years old. And by the time you've read the previous 300-or-so Kitty Pryde stories, I'm sure the MCP will have those post-X-Men-110 appearances listed for you. Question of the WeekA big thanks to everyone who's provided feedback on our New This Week feature. We're making a couple of changes this week based on your suggestions (see above) with more on the way. This week's question relates to a different feature of our web site, the Newsletter Archive. We have electronic copies of Dragon's Breath dating back to December 1999, but we've never gotten around to posting them to the archive. We'd like to make these issues available, but we want to gauge your interest in them to help us prioritize the work. So if you're hankering to see old issues of Dragon's Breath again — or if you just want to make sure the archive project doesn't detract from new content — please take a moment to answer our Question of the Week: |
|
|
|
Dragon's Breath is
written and administered by Scott
Simmons. To contact us, please
visit this page. |
