What I've Been Doing

Well, I'm now officially Count Jovial1, Creature of the Night. I've got a new third-shift position, and while it's not going to help my complexion, it does generally leave me some good time for reading.

Since I'm finding myself with a bit of a shortage of new comics to read between DCBS boxes, I'm taking a cue from Bill over at Just Bill's Comic Drawerbox to re-read some of my back material. It's not quite the same, as Bill is still working on catalogging his collection. As my collection is much more modest, I'm taking it as an opportunity to get some benefit of keeping my comics.

So that leads (invariably) to the question... what have I been reading?

I've been going back and reading some of my Batman books from 2000-ish. Rucka's Detective Comics, Brubaker's Batman run and Grayson's Gotham Knights. And, on the whole... I'm finding that they're holding up pretty well from my perspective. I loved the division between the Bat-titles. Each one had a purpose, and I thought the writers did a pretty good job of differentiating the books. I've also just re-read the first 10 issues of Gotham Central, in light of Rucka's joining Brubaker and Lark on Daredevil.

I've also been re-reading some of my (limited) Superman books. I'm not sure if I've read many truly great Superman stories, and I'm sortof paging through what I have to see how it holds up. I've reread the Sacrifice crossover resulting in the death of Maxwell Lord, and the One Year Later story that crossed Superman and Action Comics. If anybody can recommend a good Superman read, please let me know. I know one friend has suggested the Election 2000 stuff. I'll have to check that out.

A couple more weeks, and I'll have another shipment from DCBS to add to the collection.

DCBS - First Shipment

Today I received my first shipment of comics from DCBS. I thought I'd take a moment to record my impressions, since I know that at least one of my friends is also just trying DCBS out.

The comics came well packaged. I paid the nominal fee to have them bagged and boarded. They came as promised, and tightly bound into two small bricks of comics. Those two mini-packages were themselves packed into a box filled with foam packing peanuts. Everything seems to be in excellent condition.

I initially thought that the quality of the boards being used was less than I was used to, but I'm going to take that back. There was one board in the first comic I read (She-Hulk #31) that didn't seem to have a 'smooth' side. The boards in each of the other books I've been able to read thus far have been perfectly fine. I've swapped that board out, and have no complaints.

I was initially nervous about getting the lion's share of my books only once a month. I think I've discovered over this past month that those were unfounded concerns. It gives me time to go back over my growing collection of back-issues to re-read those things that I thought were particularly worthwhile. Thus far, I have to say I'm an enthusiastic fan of getting my books this way. If you're looking to save a little cash on your comics, and if you've got something to help fill the time between shipments, DCBS is a great way to go.