Marvel Universe

[Diabolical]

Anything between $1-2 per new issue (in the last 6-12 months) sounds fine.
Split the money between the publisher, creative team, a bit for hosting issues, and say, have local comic shops become "sponsors" or referrers (via online code) so they can get a small cut and help them stay in business. Older issues would equal a royalty for the creative team, similar to tv reruns.

My idea:
Joe Average goes to see The Dark Knight Rises. He hasn't read a Batman comic since 1992, and is curious to get back into it and he goes to his LCS. The LCS tries to help but they only have issue X but not issues Y or Z in stock to help out Joe. So the LCS suggests getting the issues digitally via DC online. He gives Joe a business card with the LCS's unique reference code (and he can write down the exact issues for Joe to look for right on the back of the card - how convenient!). Joe goes online, gets the issues at a discounted rate, from cover price or secondary listing, (maybe even an extra 15% off for first timers), types in his LCS code, guaranteeing the LCS a small "bounty" and DC gets money it normally wouldn't have.

Joe gets his comics.
LCS gets a new customer and a bonus.
DC gets money from a back issue where it wouldn't have before.
Creators gets paid again.
Everyone wins.

[anarky]

Only here's how it works in the real world, unfortunately:

Joe goes to see The Dark Knight Rises, having not read a Batman comic since 1992. He comes out excited and goes to his LCS to get some new issues. He picks up the latest issue, only to find it's part 3 of 5 of a new storyline, which stars some kid named Damian who he obviously doesn't know. He asks the proprietor if they have the previous two chapters and gets an evil stare for a few seconds, followed by a grunt and point at an unorganized box of recent back issues. The proprietor goes back to his sandwich and Joe rummages through the issues, finding chapter 1 at $1 more than cover price but not chapter 2 (because it was a current issue the previous week, and the proprietor just hasn't gotten around to putting it in a bag and marking it up yet). He buys the issues, getting not even a thank you, and doesn't bother asking for any more help.

He goes to DC's website, only to find that their comics are available on the Kindle Fire but not his computer. "Fuck!" he shouts. He really likes the two chapters he has, though, so he gets a Kindle Fire, since his wife wanted one anyway. He then goes to download it, only to find he has to have a Comixology account, which he sets up, taking over an hour to deal with the interface. Then they don't have the damned issue anyway, so he's SOL.

Meanwhile, the artist has been sued by Warner Bros for publicly criticizing the clusterfuck they made out of Speed Racer's marketing a few years earlier.

In this case, Joe does not get his all his comics. The proprietor never gets another visit from Joe, which is sad, because he actually had the damned issue behind the counter and would've gotten to putting it out after finishing his other four Subway sandwiches, which cause him to have a heart attack that proves fatal because he doesn't have health insurance. The artist loses everything he owns and has to turn tricks on the street, contracting several VDs, one of which eventually drives him insane and makes him bomb a train station. Joe's wife leaves him because he forgot to get milk when he went to the comic shop, only he didn't--he just accidentally left it in the backseat. DC Comics is sad because Alan Moore won't shut the fuck up about how they're assholes. Everyone loses.

[anarky]

Everyone loses.

Except for the farmers.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Joe's wife left because he forgot to buy milk? Wow, Joe's wife is a bitch.

I don't think Comic Shop retailers are as bad as you make them out. Yes, some are like that, but I find the majority of them are engaging and enthusiastic towards customers. Thinking about the 4 local shops, as well as the LCSs back in California, I think only one in ten had the douche version behind the counter.

[anarky]

The good ones are some of the best and friendliest businessmen I've encountered in any business.

Unfortunately, the bad ones really make the whole industry look bad. The really sad cases are where the owner is awesome, but hires antisocial asses to man the counter and probably doesn't know how poorly they treat customers because no one bothers to complain.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Going off on a different tangent, that new Hawkeye series they announced at C2E2 looks fantastic! Fraction as writer is eh. He's run the gamut from suck to very well done in the writing dept. But, goddamn, David Aja on art is making blood rush to my weener. Aja has quickly become one of my faves since he did Iron Fist a few years ago.
anarky will hate this new series on principle.

[Diabolical]

They should call it "Hawkeye and (classic) Jubilee" just to confuse him.

[anarky]

Yes. Yes, I do hate it on principle.

They should have an inter-company crossover where Hawkeye and Green Arrow accidentally switch places somehow. Then the Avengers love Green Arrow, because he kicks ass and takes names (where Hawkeye used to try to suck ass, screwing up the whole team's strategy). The Avengers, with a competent brightly-colored archer, take down all the villains in a matter of weeks.

Meanwhile, in the DCU, Black Canary kicks Hawkeye in the nuts (which doesn't hurt, since he has none, but hurts his feelings) and he cries in an alley for the rest of the miniseries, until the Ten-Eyed Man comes and even he laughs at Hawkeye until Hawkeye commits suicide. But he can't even do that right, so Batman takes pity on him and breaks his code to put the poor slob out of his misery.

Green Arrow's parts would be drawn by George Perez.

Hawkeye's parts would be drawn by Norm Breyfogle. But not Hawkeye himself, oh no. Breyfogle is there to make sure Gotham looks good, and to make Jose Delbo's Hawkeye (inked by Rob Liefeld, who also "draws" Hawkeye's feet, or smoke concealing the feet, at least) look even worse in every single panel.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

I just looked up José Delbo on cbdb, and discovered he had NO bio entered. Nobody gave a shit enough to even enter his birthdate. I felt bad, so I plugged it in. I didn't realize he was so old. Fuck, he was pushing 60 even when he was drawing Transformers.

[anarky]

Truth is, for all the shit we give him because our main exposure to him is Transformers, some of his earlier work is pretty good. I suspect he saw TF as a paycheck and only being bought by little kids, so he just didn't give a shit and got lazy.

[Hawkeye]

That's really not very nice, anarky.

Mr. Delbo has been drawing funnybooks for longer than you've been alive. I'm sure he could draw rings around you.

[anarky]

Fuck you. What the fuck sort of name is "Clint" anyway? "Clint Barton." It's like you're an obvious ripoff of fucking Cliff Burton, too, even if you pre-dated him, but, fuck it, Cliff Burton was infinitely cooler, so I'll still say you're a ripoff.

I forgot to mention that even the uber-lame Damian Wayne took a photo of you with his dick in your mouth.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Hey, remember when we were discussing the absurdities of Time Travel in comics? If you ever find this issue: Secret Avengers 20 in the back issue bins, buy it. It's got one of the coolest Time Travel stories ever. Written by Warren Ellis with art by Alex Maleev. I won't even say anything about the plot because I don't want to ruin it.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Diving back into my unread long boxes. I decided to hit up the 'A' box this week. I was gonna try to do that Flash run, but after the Firestorm run I don't feel like another marathon of one character. First up:

The Abominations. 3 issue mini. Written by Ivan Velez(the only other thing off the top of my head I can remember him doing is Ghost Rider when he was dressed in that gaymo bright orange costume. Bleecchh.) This came out in '96 roughly the same time as Heroes Reborn. It's set in the alt future of the Hulk's Future Imperfect story after Maestro is dead, the future version of Abomination takes over the world. A bunch of unimportant characters with names like Po, Sleek, Char, etc escape into the past because a Betty Banner clone claims she's with Maestro's baby. They end up in 1996. The NYPD is attacking a bunch of homeless people with guns(WTF??!) and the present day Abomination is apparently now a champion of homeless rights or some shit. (Seriously? What the fuck is wrong with you, late 90s Marvel?) and natch he gets mistaken by the time travelling nobodies for the future Abomination. Eventually they all go and live underground, an occasionally come to the surface to fight crime as: The Abominations.

Fuck you, 90s Marvel. Gawd you sucked.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Next up
Adam:Legend of the Blue Marvel. 5 issue mini from 2009 written by Kevin Grevioux. I've been generally unimpressed with Grevioux's writing. He wrote those crappy Vampire vs Werewolf movies(not Twilight, the Kate Beckinsale ones) and he wrote the New Warriors revival in 2008. Which sucked from beginning to end. But this was okay. It was a tad cloying at the end and preachy throughout, but it didn't suck.
It retcons a Superman level hero into the 1960s Marvel U, who despite saving thousands of lives, becomes a pariah once it comes out he's *gasp!* a black guy. President Kennedy asks him to stop being a hero on account of his non-honkiness. Then the FBI sends a white woman to pose as his wife for the next 40 years to keep tabs on him.
Fast forward to the present. A bad guy whips the Avengers' collective butts and Adam is called back into service. Except now he's kinda pissy at the establishment and doesn't want to help. Eventually he saves the world and gets back to heroing.
Except I looked at his cbdb profile and he's shown up exactly three times since, and one of those was a What If issue.