Released on March 25th, 2020
So this guy Frank was in a band back in the late 70's and they were in NYC doing a show and during the day he happened to pass a comic book store and went inside. He loved perusing the selection and getting caught up on all the stories he had read as a kid and finding out how those old story lines ended. So Frank bought a comic book store in suburban Philly and ran it from '79 until last Spring when he sold it to one of his customers. Boy did Frank pick the right time to retire. The customer that bought the store, John, has only been running Comic Universe for a year but now, because his shop is closed and there are no new comics being released for at least a month, he's on the verge of bankruptcy. So right now, John is running a Go Fund Me campaign and asking for ten grand. He's gotten two grand so far. I haven't been in that store in awhile, but I've shopped in there a million times over the years. And this is only one story of one comic book store. I would think that a good majority of comic book stores across the country and world are fucked. Sure, there are talks for small businesses getting government loans. Sure, some landlords might not ask for rent for awhile. And, at least here in the U.S., the government is supposedly sending every adult a $1200 check (at least those that make under $75,000 a year). So what happens if a ton of comic book stores close forever? Will the industry just shift to digital permanently? If that happened would digital sales go up enough for the industry to at least stay the same? Or would small publishers disappear and the number of books released diminish? Granted, we're in the middle of a pandemic, so every outlook on everything is doom and gloom. I remember right after 9/11 it seemed like the world was about to end, but daily life pretty much went on to be the same except for small things like airport security taking a bit longer to go through. So maybe in a year everything will be the same and the comic book industry won't perish. Who knows? I will say that the comic book industry hasn't done a lot of favors recently, though, in prolonging its life or getting new customers. From pricing books way out of the reach of children, to constantly putting out new #1 issues, to continue pumping out yearly, mega events that have lost their appeal long ago. Marvel was set to start their latest event, "Empyre," but that's been postponed. We did get the prequel issue, though, Road to Empyre: The Kree/Skrull War #1. I guess this big event will feature Thor, Iron-Man, Captain America, and The Fantastic Four, since they're all on the cover, but this issue has none of the big names. This issue features a Skrull family that's living undercover as a regular American family. A Kree family living undercover as an American family tries to kill them. Then they maybe join forces at the end? To do...something? I guess go to war? I do know what a Skrull is because they pop up from time to time; they're basically a shape shifter villain. I have no idea who the Kree's are...though this issue tells their origin; they're aliens! Really, that's all you need to know. The history is very dumb, silly, and uninteresting. I'm sure the books back in the day were great, since Wikipedia calls it a "highlight of its era." The original Kree/Skrull war arc happened in 1971-72 in The Avengers. I suppose it's okay to re-do something that happened fifty years ago and was apparently great, but still, do these current writers have no new ideas? Maybe it's just a gimmick to get people like me to buy those old issues. Either way, so far I have zero desire to read Empyre #1, whenever it ends up coming out. The one good thing about this set-up issue is that one of the artists, Mattia de Lulis, is exceptional. His stuff looks like a crisp video game, which is at least visually cool. Usually the set-up issues are lame anyway and they save the good stuff for the first issue. In that case, great, but will any comic book stores be left standing to even sell it? *
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