This Week in Comics
My Pull List for July 2, 2025
Working at a Comic Shop can be dangerous… Mostly for your wallet. One of the jobs I have is to unpack the shipments from our distributors. Lunar, and Penguin for the most part (let’s not even talk about Diamond). I get these sorted, and counted then we start pulling comics for regular customers and special orders. I’m not the only one doing it, but if I’m there and the box arrives…
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain
The process is pretty old school. I stack the comics by title on a table. count how many of each we’ve gotten, checking that with what we ordered. While doing that I inspect them for damages. I also pull variant issues (specifically foils to begin with). Some companies make this easy. They have near the barcode either which cover (A,B,C, etc) or who the artist is for the cover. Other companies don’t making it more difficult. In some cases the artist didn’t sign their work or their signature has been blocked by something like the barcode. So It’s off to my cover scanning app (I use CLZ) to figure out which version it is. These can also be accompanied by whatever ratio the variant is. These get pulled to be marked and in some cases the price is adjusted (above my pay grade).
Once everything has been counted and then checked in we move to the restocks. In the land of LEGO new sets were boxed with a big bright sticker alerting everyone as to the release day. Comics… not so much. Some publishers will include a packing list with the date things go on sale. So I go through that list and check off as I pull the stuff that can be put out. These tend to be trade paperbacks or “Graphic Novels” along with a very few number of single issues.
Then it’s on to the pull lists. Most comic shops do this- if you are a regular you can ask them to put aside the titles you want, you then don’t have to worry about missing out. Our list get printed out by title. We count the names for each title and pull those from the stores stock. Those get put into a long box. I tend to do it by distributor in the same order as the list so that we aren’t hunting around for things.
With one person calling out the names the comics are either put into a tabbed box (which means you are a long time customer), or put into a bag with a Post-It® note on it. The note has your name and phone number on it along with a date two weeks from the date of release. This helps us know how long comics have been sitting around waiting for you to pick them up. There are also special instructions - like if you want us to bag and board your comics. This isn’t a free service, we do charge for the bag and the board, but some people like it. I did the math, doing it yourself is about 10¢ cheaper per issue, but it does take time. These bags are put in alphabetical order waiting for Wednesday. On Tuesday someone calls to let the customer know they have something to pick up so they don’t waste a trip.
Here’s the problem I have… I get to see every comic that comes in and decide if I may have missed something really cool. I have a pull list, but as I remove titles, I find that I may have been too fast in my decision making. For example, I pulled a couple titles, without realizing that the next issue was the final issue… Why not finish the story? Other times, I’ll see something and go decide I would like it. I do check to make sure no one has actually ordered it before I pull it for myself. This week there was a bit from column A and a bit from column B.
My Comics
Amazing Spider-Man #7 Marvel Comics W: Joe Kelly A: John Romita Jr.
Resurrection Man Quantum Karma #4 DC Comics W: Ram V A:Anand RK
Adventureland Family Tree #3 Image Comics W: Matt Fraction A: Terry Dodson (final issue) SO it looks like we’re ready to rescue Tommy now that the entire Adventure Team has figure out who they are.
Black Hammer Spiral City #7 Dark Horse Comics W: Jeff Lemire A: Teddy Kristiansen (final issue)
Arcbound #5 Dark Horse Comics W: Tom Hardy A: Scott Snyder - Nice to have it back after what seemed like a long while. Time for Plan: B
JSA # 9 DC Comics W: Jeff Lemire A: Diego Olortegui
Absolute Green Lantern #4 DC Comics W: Al Ewing A: Jahnoy Lindsay Have we finally gotten to the point where we will learn what was going on and what happened to everyone?
Captain America #1 Marvel Comics W: Chip Zdarsky A: Valerio Schiti
“Dr. Werthless” Dark Horse Comics W: Harold Schechter & Eric Powell A: Eric Powell
Review Time
There aren’t that many titles this week, So not that many books to choose from… still som great stories and one that seems to be a clunker.
“Dr. Werthless” Dark Horse Comics W: Harold Schechter & Eric Powell A: Eric Powell If you are a comic book person you know about Dr. Frederic Wertham… or you should. Frederic Wertham basically was the guy who crusaded about the evils of comic books in the 1950’s. He’s the reason why comics were censored and had the “Approved by the Comics Code” stamp on them. It wasn’t just him, just like it wasn’t just Neil deGrasse Tyson who made Pluto a non-planet. We look to place blame and Wertham is our guy.
This is a great biography of the man and the good things (and not so good things) he did. It starts with his work with some really weird murderers and trying to understand their motivations. Some were just… nuts. His drive to be recognized and respected. Along with his work with Civil Rights. It’s like I used to say about my students- “Their hearts are in the right place, but…” The art works seamlessly with the words, it’s a “Graphic Novel”, but more along the lines of a heavily illustrated novel. I used to hate that books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid would be called graphic novels or comic books, who really they were just books with a lot of illustrations in them. This is much more than something like those. The illustrations and words work together to tell the story. Powell’s drawing are just amazing.
In the end, did I hate Wertham any more or less? I understood his motivations better. Having now lived through enough “Society is falling apart because of (easy scapegoat to allow people to ignore the real issues)” movements I can roll my eyes a bit. Maybe its because we all know the real reason for society collapsing is…
Captain America #1 Marvel Comics W: Chip Zdarsky A: Valerio Schiti I didn’t have this one on my pull list. I had stopped pulling Captain America because he,like many Marvel heroes, had dove into the mystical world of… whatever. It was an interesting concept, but like Spider-Man becoming a master of the mystic arts, just didn’t fit with my concept of the character.
On Wednesday a customer came in to pick up their pulls. and within 10 minutes was back, looking at one of those expensive variant covers of this issue. He had read it in the parking lot and loved it. I decided to go with his recommendation and give it a shot. Yes, I could have just read it off the rack and put it back, but I’m an old Boy Scout, so I decided to buy a copy. Wow.
This is a flashback story taking us back to the time right after captain America had been freed from that ice block. He was still finding his way and wasn’t sure what his life would be like since everyone he knew was gone. We see old school Cap stopping a terrorist from bombing the U.N. even though he had no idea what the United Nations was. Wow. He decides to go back to what he knows and is back in the Army, now on a secret mission. After some intel and a great fanboy scene- I’m waiting for issue #2
Amazing Spider-Man #7 Marvel Comics W: Joe Kelly A: John Romita Jr. I was really loving the first arc of this new series. The key word is “was.” Do we really need to deal with some mystical all powerful guy who is trying to challenge, or team up with, or whatever Spider-Man? Ugh. In the immortal words of the petunia “not again.” Then we move back to JR Jr. as the artist… I dropped Miles Morales because it was dealing with gods and their minions. I was about to drop Amazing Spider-Man because of all the non-Spider-Man stuff going on. So after 6 issues of really great stuff… I get a bait and switch.
Black Hammer Spiral City #7 Dark Horse Comics W: Jeff Lemire A: Teddy Kristiansen (final issue) The world of Black Hammer has been a great escape for standard super-hero comics for years now. This series has been interesting in the way it has been told. The story of the city told through the eyes of various inhabitants. The mayoral candidate against Super-heroes, but with a dark secret. The down and out private detective, just trying to figure out his role. just to name a couple. It all comes to head in this final issue. The system has let so many people with powers down. I think of Wild Cards and how some people get the glamorous powers and others… not so much. We learned last issue who was killing the left behind The crime boss running the fighting ring gets confronted by the unlikeliest of people. Mostly the heroes do what heroes do best… no matter how hard it might be.
JSA # 9 DC Comics W: Jeff Lemire A: Diego Olortegui The Justice Society has been a favorite of mine for a long time. I used to love reading the stories that took place on Earth-2 Pre-Crisis. As I’ve gotten more and more “golden age” I’m connecting more with those characters. Since JSA restarted we’ve been all over the place fighting the Injustice Society and hopefully getting things back on track. Sadly, we lost Wildcat (Ted) and still have a few heroes missing. It’s all coming to a finish with a few threads getting woven into the story. Dr. Midnight has escaped, will she and Obsidian make to back? Wildcat (Yolanda) is drowning her sorrows and blaming herself. Obsidian and Johnny Thunder figure out where they’ve been all this time. And Green Lantern discover (after giving away the location of the Spear of Destiny) that the Obsidian with them isn’t Obsidian… Wait, that’s three total Obsidians… OK fine there are still two who are the “real” Obsidian… looks like the tide might be changing, but in who’s favor?