REVIEW: Big Man Plans #1-4

Writers: Eric Powell and Tim Wiesch
Art: Eric Powell
Review: Art Bee

When it comes to miniseries I start more than I finish. There is a real talent in producing a quality miniseries, and many are not up for the task. Numerous series have a great start only to fizzle out halfway through and end up with a finale that has nothing to do with the beginning. It’s as I have stated before: a creator has a great idea for a scene or a character and that becomes the focus. They bend the story around it and they end up with a sub par product.

When Big Man Plans #1 looked at me from the shelf of my LBCS, I thought I would give it a chance. What a great decision! This was truly a good series to read. Four issues and not a bit wasted.

The story starts with the main character, a man who has dwarfism and only referred to as Big Man in an interior monologue.

“When you don’t care about losing your own life, when you lose the fear of losing everything, you can do anything. And the moment I read that letter, my number of fucks to give had reached zero.”

This really had my curiosity piqued as to the letters contents and who sent the letter. Big Man is setting in a bar dealing with drunkards poking fun at him and pretty harshly I may add. They get theirs; don’t worry. The entire story reminds me of a Charles Bronson Death Wish movie if Bronson was about three and a half feet high.

The story is well planned and executed. The first issue is a perfect set up with the story hook, background, and character designs. The pace of each issue is the same and the story develops naturally. I really want to share some of the highlights, but I am trying to support the sales of the story not hand it out.

Now I save the best for last: the artwork. Eric Powell’s pencils are phenomenal. Much of the story is focused on the situations occurring and his art reflects with little background and sharp contrasting lines for the characters. Colors are used perfectly to enhance emotion rather than the scenes. My favorite feature of his art is the exaggerated emotions on character faces. It adds intensity to the story that many others lack.

As the last issue came out two weeks ago, please pick this up in a trade or get the back issues. By the look of my LCBS they had issues left over, so you may be about to find them in dollar boxes. This series is really worth the read. You will truly enjoy it, although it is recommended for mature audiences.

REVIEW: Red Skull #1

Writer: Joshua Williamson
Artist: Luca Pizzari
Color Artist: Rainier Beredo
Review: Cody "Madman" Miller

I decided way before Secret Wars: The Threequal started that I wasn’t going to make eye contact and maybe it’d just go away.

I was wrong . . . so, so wrong.

I passed on the two prior mega-events that Marvel shat out as well. I can’t even think what they were called off of the top of my head at the moment, that’s how much I actually cared. Marvel and DC are both suffering from diarrhea of the mega-event, saturation bombing their relevance right outta comicdom. Unless you’ve been living on some distant planet you have to know that Marvel has burnt their Multiverse to the ground and have launched all kinds of new series that I refuse to care about . . . I mean, chances are good that in about a year Marvel will just reset the MU back to how it was before Joe Q and the rest of the Marvel high ups started getting high and coming up with this “great idea” called Battleworld. I don’t like it. To be fair I haven’t read enough of the titles to say that they’re all horrible, not entertaining books and few that I have been reading such as Masters of Kung Fu, Old Man Logan, and 1872, and M.O.D.O.K: Assassins have all been entertaining reads. It’s the main title and its core tie-ins that give me the Mehs. It’s just seems like they (Marvel) just want to see what they can get away with. How long were the Marvel Executives sitting around the in the think tank in complete silence before some hero blurts out “Battleworld?” Even the name is generic and uninspired. I don’t like it.

So yeah, I ended up buying into this fiasco a little, albeit with titles that have little to do (so far) with the main event. There were two main reasons I opted to read Red Skull:

Reason #1 it’s only three issues
Reason #2 I don’t know much about Red Skull. To be honest I haven’t read that many Captain America books. In my youth I just always thought he was kind of lame so I never developed an interest in the character. My feeling has changed in that regard. The Cap movies and such, however true to the character or not, have piqued my interest. Now again, I’m not sure how true to the source the portrayal of Red Skull was either, but I really liked the Red Skull character represented in the movie. So here I am learning. Not that Battleworld is the best place to be trying to learn about Marvel history or anything . . .

I really enjoyed this first issue, but oddly enough it had little to do with Red Skull. Doom has tasked Crossbones to assemble a team to enter the Deadlands and either kill or find proof of Red Skulls death. It seems Red Skull is some kind of freedom fighter that is trying to knock Doom off of his high horse.

The team that he assembles is fun and interesting if only for a fleeting moment. Electro, Magneto, Jack O’ Lantern, Moonstone (I’ve no clue who this is), Lady Deathstrike, and the Winter Soldier himself are the starting lineup. By the end of the book as far as I can tell all of them are dead (eaten by the Marvel Zombies) except for one soul survivor. I’m not going to spoil it for anyone so you’ll just have to read the issue.

So far I’ve enjoyed the story quite a bit. It’s the art that hamstrings this title in my eyes. It comes off as rushed and incomplete. Foreground and background just seem to be muddled together in parts and in others the details just aren’t there. When they finally revealed Red Skull was a huge let down, he seemed too small and wiry for my tastes. I’ll be here for all three issues so I hope the artwork improves and the writing continues to not suck.

REVIEW: Archie #1

Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Fiona Staples
Review: William R. Davis Jr.

America is a country founded on unwavering faith in an abstract idea. The American Dream drives the nation forward even in today’s overly pessimistic times. To most Americans this core belief still holds true: anyone can become anything with a strong work ethic or one great idea. Stories like Archie are rooted in this same brand of national optimism.

Before there was Dawson, there was Archie. There are hundreds of examples of this in every medium of American storytelling. All of our most greatly admired protagonists are Beaver Cleavers, Kevin Arnolds, and Rudy Ruettigers. Archie is just another example of the angels of our better nature finding their way onto the page. I sat searching for answers as to why we need these morality tales (and we do), but the answer is either inherently and subconsciously American or something that I am not willing to admit to myself out of some deep seated shame. Let me come clean, I have indulged in my fair share of Full House and The Brady Bunch episodes.

What is inarguable is that there is a market to be filled and a yearning for an American utopia that is peaceful and moral and safe. The difference between reality and fiction is from time to time hammered home by entertainers like Bill Cosby. Cosby offered us a vision of a better America, but the hope that families like the Cosby family can actually exist was wholly disproven by the darkness in reality that is as equally inherent as the optimism on family television. These stories are entertainment and nothing more, but denial and want are powerful things.

As far as apple pie and baseball flavored comics are concerned, Archie is king. After reading that Chip Zdarsky and Erica Henderson signed on for Jughead, and Mark Waid and Fiona Staples would be working on the flagship title, my interest in Riverdale was piqued enough to read and review an issue of Archie.

What I found was a comic that was well crafted for an Archie book, but as of yet there has been no great reimagining of the franchise. The Archie team of Mark Waid and Fiona Staples is too talented to prematurely judge their vision harshly after only one issue, but let me give it the old college try.

Staples is a once in a generation artist, but on this book she is limited by the source material. Recently Archie has found himself toe to toe with zombies or Predator, a place where an artist like Staples shines, but his interminable run through sequential art has been more defined by his eternally abiding optimism in a wholesome midtown American setting, one that makes for a pretty bland canvas.

Issue one was a traditional Archie story with some pop culture tweaks, a disappointing offering of “Archie for the 21st Century”. The addition of YouTube and Hashtags fell far short of what I was expecting. A typical Archie tale has to respect the audience and the tradition, but I felt that there should have been something more substantive to add to the relaunch fanfare. Where modern mainstream comics tend to flounder is their inability to create a compelling and original story with well-established characters whose stories have been told for decades, not an easy task but a necessary one.

Saga became the most relevant comic in the world over a short period of time because of strong, creative writing and art. It is anything but average. To me, Archie #1 was painfully average to the point of feeling completely redundant. If you are already an Archie fan, or a vapid and unimaginative middle school student you should buy this comic. If you are anyone else, don’t. #superfluous

REVIEW: Marvel Zombies #1

Writer: Simon Spurrier
Artist: Kev Walker
Review: Will Dubbeld

Oh boy, you guys, where to start?
Secret Wars is upon us, and dearly departed Marvel 616 rapidly becomes a distant memory. I'll not delve into the minutiae of Secret Wars, but between Beyonders destroying worlds, Namor and Thanos destroying other worlds, Dr. Doom remaking the world with godlike powers and Captain America tooling around with Devil Dinosaur, it's crazy. Whack, some might say.
I'd even go so far as to call it cray cray.

Dr. Dooms remanufactured world, (called Battleworld) is a composite of several chunks if alternate earths, making the backdrop for Secret Wars like a bunch of What If? back issues tossed into a cauldron and poured onto the page.

Outstanding.

The setting for Marvel Zombies is a realm besieged by (surprise, surprise...) zombies and defended by heroes manning a Great Wall (zing!) called The Shield. Our protagonist comes to us in the form of Elsa Bloodstone and I'm pretty happy about that.

A little moment to rap about Elsa Bloodstone, if I may. Elsa is a rough and tumble monster hunter possessing a fragment of a meteor that grants her some degree of superpowers. She also has the distinction of being the daughter of Ulysses Bloodstone, monster hunter par excellence and bearer of the Bloodstone proper. The Bloodstone is a super-power grantin' meteorite that was encountered by a Hyborian barbarian who bombed around doing superhuman business for the next 10,000 years.
Because someone at Marvel was like, "Vandal Savage what?"

Anyhow, I love Ulysses Bloodstone despite the character being dead for longer than I've been alive and via the transitive property I also love his daughter Elsa.
Don't worry. It's a pure kind of love.
I enjoyed her miniseries, but the character really came into her own in Nextwave, a Warren Ellis series that arguably deconstructed the super hero archetype better than Watchmen.

This particular incarnation of Elsa finds her defending The Shield against endless hordes of zombies, and through zombie teleporting happenstance ends up stranded in the zombie-controlled wasteland beyond.
After disposing of a zombie Doctor Octopus she finds herself in the company of an amnesiac boy, dubbed 'Shuttup' by our erstwhile heroine, and attempting to safely make it back to The Shield.

'Shuttup' provides comedy relief, and the interplay between he and Elsa is entertaining, but I don't trust this kid. He suggests heading away from The Shield, toward parts unknown, instead of towards safety. Elsa eventually relents after seeing the horde of zombies barring their path. Kev Walker's art shines here. Elsa crests a ridge only to find the horizon and everything else in her field of vision a roiling swarm of undead. It's almost as great as his rendition of Zombie Juggernaut.
I'm just gonna let that image tumble around your grey matter for a bit.
Zombie. Juggernaut.

So, Elsa and her youthful charge head off into the post-apocalyptic zombie infested wasteland. It's no surprise that they're not alone, and I'm certain plenty of monster hunter-on-zombie action will ensue in the remainder if the series.

There are waaayyyy too many tie-in books to Secret Wars, and this dutiful Marvel Zombie is buying his share of obscurae for the event. I'm staying away from the Civil Wars and House of M and other well-known properties and picking up your basic Weirdworlds and your Where Monsters Dwell and what have you. Most of the good stories deal with minor characters from little, forgotten corners of the Marvel Universe and Marvel Zombies is no exception.

Spurrier crafts a witty character in Elsa and the PTSD flashbacks of the borderline abusive training at the hands of her father are chilling, yet darkly comedic.
How twisted is that? 1-10...
Kev Walker nails it in the art department with the assistance of Frank D'Armata on colors. Crisp, detailed figures and backgrounds coupled with colors that juggle dreary and bright from page to page really make the art in this book pop.

I'm not quite inundated with Secret Wars books yet, but the bucket it rapidly filling. After giving quite a few the first issue treatment I'm now at the point where I see who makes the cut. As weary as I am of the zombie pop-culture phenomena I'm keeping this particular zombie book on my pull list for the foreseeable future.

Marvel Zombie must buy product, after all.

REVIEW: Secret Six #3

Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Dale Eaglesham
Colorist: Jason Wright
Review: Art Bee

Recently DC and Marvel have been making poor decisions regarding their intellectual properties. I followed along cringing with the reboots, but I liked a few of the changes. The Big 2 are currently revamping and redesigning their stories, characters, and even the environment in which they exist. This is bad for us older comic fans for it means the death of the characters we have loved during our lives. Revamping means killing what the hero or story was and slapping the old label on something new. Marvel and DC are trading in their long term fanfare for a new younger generation.

My suggestion is to create new characters in the same flavor of the old ones and have them exist in their own element. The Multiverse. It was a great tool to enable creativity and expansion. If Marvel and DC really wanted to attract newer and younger readers, they should reduce the number of comic books focused on one story element to one or two QUALITY books and put the extra effort into a new segment of the multiverse which targets the desired demographic. Seriously, six or seven Avengers comic books revolving around the same event is really old and overkill.

As of two months ago, I have officially dropped all Marvel and DC books except for Amazing Spider-Man, Star Wars, Darth Vader, and Secret Six, and the latter is on the chopping block at the moment as well.

This release of Secret Six started in February of this year and has been slow coming out. Issue 2 came out in March, but this issue waited till June, and my LCBS owner, Shawn, told me that issue 4, due out in July, is expected to be seriously delayed. This story had my attention, but if the creators are not committed, then why should I be?

From the start Secret Six really caught my attention with its story hooks. This comic features six lowly villains who are kidnapped and placed into a coffin-shaped metal box in the ocean by a captor known only as Mockingbird. The cast members of the Secret Six are as follows:
1. Thomas Blake as Catman
2. Kani as Porcelain
3. Shauna Belzer as Ventriloquist with Ferdie, the dummy
4. Damon Wells as Big Shot
5. Mary as Strix
6. Lori Zechlin as Black Alice

The first two issues do a great job setting up the story and tying these individuals together. They are trying to find out who has kidnapped them and why. While trying to answer the question their captor posed another: “What is the Secret?” In issue three, the group has settled into Mr. Wells’ home while trying to stay low after their escape from the oceanic prison. This comic book is greatly entertaining. Each of these villains is trying to do right by being bad. Trust me. That statement will make complete sense if you read the issue.

The best feature of this series is the artwork. Issues one and two featured Ken Lashley, Drew Gerace, and Jason Wright working together and the images looked great aside from the depiction of Ventriloquist as undead in the rendering. Changing the artists may explain why there were three months between issues two and three. Issue three’s artwork was created by those credited at the start of this review, and they have done a superb job. Ventriloquist now looks just ugly rather than undead. Even the scenes look more crisp and gorgeous.

My favorite artwork is the cover. The cover really states a lot about the issue. We see Damon Wells looking at the scene on his couch, a jumble of bodies and random items with the center blotted out by a big black “Censored” circle. This scene is referenced in the issue and let us just say that Mr. Wells is definitely thinking about covering his couch in plastic. This act involved the absence of clothing, an electric mixer, a jar of pickles, roses, a dagger, a fish, and a jar of wax and caused the cat to hit a whiskey bottle labeled MrE. Yeah. That’s right.

Anyway, I would really like to see where this story goes, but I am not going to wait forever and a day to read them. This seems like the best thing I have seen from DC lately. Granted, I may be harboring ill feelings from the cancellation of The Movement, but that has nothing to do with the current DC debacle.

REVIEW: The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1

Writer: Dan Slott
Pencils: Adam Kubert
Inks: John Dell
Colors: Justin Ponson
Reviews: Madman (1st) & Rynae “Madwoman” Miller (2nd)

First Review

So, we here at the HCB decided to mix it up a bit and do some duel reviews team-up style with our main womans. Art Bee and his daughter did a review a few weeks back to kick off Estrogen Month here at the HCB. So . . . I had to think on what book to hand my wife to review. She never reads comics and has shown zero real interest in comics . . . ever, except maybe to tell me to get them off the coffee table. I was really surprised she actually agreed to this fiasco in the first place, so I had to tread carefully and try and not turn her off of comics for good. Thanks to this Secret Wars business that’s currently going on over at Marvel the answer just kind of fell into my lap with this new Renew Your Vows series.

In this Spiderverse Peter and MJ are married and has a daughter named Annie, which is cool. I’ve always liked the idea of Spider-Man having children. I really liked that about the Mayday Spider-Woman books, and I’m an instant fan of Annie here.

Every Spidey reader knows that part of the fluff that makes Spider-Man a great character is his inability to successfully balance his personal life and his web swinging gig. Having a child only helps to intensify Peter’s burden of keeping his two worlds worlds apart, which true to form never happens.

A being named Regent has turned the world on edge. Apparently he has the ability to absorb super powers and such. He’s killed off most of the heroes in New York, forcing Spidey to work overtime to pick up the slack. This causes MJ and the voices in his head to nag Peter into being Peter more and Spider-Man less, which is the whole undertone of the book.

With the lack of heroes on duty the inmates of Ryker’s supermax prison are on the loose. This means Venom is out and of course he heads straight to the Parker house forcing Spidey to battle it out with Venom in order to protect his daughter. Much to my surprise Peter takes the gloves off, offers no quarter and puts Venom down. Down as in kills him dead by bringing a burning building down on Venom’s head. Now Spider-Man killing anyone is just never done, but I must admit I loved it. It brings Peter down to the real world a bit more and gives this title a darker side that you just don’t normally see in a Spider-Man book. I must add it was the old school drooling “I’m going to eat your brains” Venom that I was weaned on and grew to love in my youth.

I’m excited to see where this book goes. The writing is really well done and art isn’t too shabby in its own right. I would highly recommend this book to any Spider-Man fan that’s looking for a different read that oozes entertainment.

Second review

My Initial Reaction: When being handed The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows my first reaction was . . . what? What? The one time I get to interject my voice into this world of comic yin and yang, I get handed a mushy looking comic with a loving Spidey family centered in the middle of a gigantic red heart? Geez guys. How stereotypical to be asked to review a comic with such a girly cover. I expected to be handed a book with some sort of ninja sword wielding, venomous, laser eyed, telepathic man on the cover; of course with some sort of common name like Robert; Bob if he’s cool with you. However, with all predispositions set aside, I’ll turn the page.

Brief Summary: We start out with MJ, Annie, and Peter sitting around the kitchen table at home. MJ starts nagging Peter about all things Spider-Man. She pretty much asks him to agree to the good ol’ ball-in-chain relationship. As it turns out Peter has been spending extra time fightin’ crime, because a man by the name of “Augustus Roman” is snatching up super heroes and taking their powers. After learning this, a bunch of super heroes unite and decide they need to take Augustus, who later declares himself as “Regent", down. While Spidey is out with the newly developed super hero united group, Venom goes after MJ and Annie. Of course Spidey heads home and goes round and round with Venom until he crushes Venom and stands victorious. Meanwhile, Regent attends to his agenda and seeks to harvest all super powers. We are left wondering what is to become of our little Spidey world. An image of Regent on a billboard speaks to his current success in his mission . . . so far.

My Reaction After Reading the Book: I was entertained. I’m not gonna lie, I'd like to see what happens next. As I read I kept thinking of things that I’d tell the characters in the book as the scenarios played out.

Here’s what I’d have to tell them:

MJ: Seriously, why rep the nagging stereotypical girl? Your husband is Spider-Man; you should be equally as cool. You also need to quit complaining about Spidey making web fluid on the kitchen table. He has web fluid . . . that’s freaking awesome! The whole city is your jungle gym! Don’t hate, appreciate.

Annie: Guess what? Your dad is Spider-Man (yeah, I’d totally tell her).

Spidey: Let the only whip that is on your name be that of your web slinging type. You’re not a whipped kinda man, don’t let MJ control you.

Venom: Wipe your face. You drool a lot.

Regent: Everyone has had the dream of possessing every super power all at once. It’s a dream though, you know you’re gonna get blasted. Luck.

So yeah, that’s my Madwoman point of view on this book. I do think I might take a peek to see what happens in the next issue. Curious, you’ve got me curious, dear Watson.

Like A Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, A Tragedy or at the Very Least a Great Pain in the Ass, told in 1 part.

I've just recently, within the past 3 or so years, gotten into the works of Daniel Clowes. I think I was peripherally aware of him back when the Ghost World movie was released and it was super popular for a hot minute. Other than that I was largely ignorant of his body of work aside from an ad I'd seen on the back of an old issue of Usagi Yojimbo.
Although that may have been an ad for a Peter Bagge book...
Hell, I dunno...

Anywho, a couple-or-perhaps-three years ago the staff of the HCB made a pilgrimage to Wizard World Chicago in order to pay homage to our ancestors and buy nerd-swag. A good time was had by all, longboxes were pawed through, and I got Boba Fett's autograph.

Jeremy Bulloch. Not the little kid from Episode II.
Jeremy is an exceedingly polite Englishman, and we had a nice conversation about the dearly departed Irvin Kershner, of whom he spoke quite fondly.

Paul Jenkins and Mark Texeira were also very friendly, though I suspect my girlfriends bosom-hugging Supergirl shirt may have contributed somewhat to their good cheer . . .

After the con, Chicago pizza, some games and lots of drinks, we retired to a mildly shady motel off the interstate that was located within walking distance of a strip club for your convenience. This motel also may have been featured in a news report about that guy who had murdered like 30 girls in the Gary region over the years, but I couldn't say for sure.
Although I'm fairly certain it's the same one.

The next morning was a tad bittersweet, as our site founder and brother-in-arms William Davis was leaving within the fortnight for South Korea to teach English to wee South Korean children. And to drink copious amounts of cheap Korean beer.
In any case, that morning William posed the following question:
"Hey, does anybody want to buy some statues? I can't get anything out of them at the local shops and I'm not taking them to Korea".

We all knew damn well what he meant by statues. Not garden statuary, library busts or the like.

We were talkin' comic book statues.

I gave fellow feature writer Cody Miller the first crack at them.
He had seniority.

Cody said something along the lines of, "Man, I have like 8 dollars left".

I told William I could give him $50 for the lot of them, and a look crossed his face that said he'd really like to get more than $50 for them.

"Yeah, I can do fifty. I know they'll be going to a good home".

The deal was sealed, money and statuary exchanged hands.

Full disclosure:
I really only wanted the Jesse Custer and Rorschach statues, but there were a couples more in the lot.
One in particular caught my eye. A slightly pickaninny-looking character that could be construed as a bit of a racist caricature by some of the more thin-skinned amongst us.

"What the hell is a Pogeybait?", I asked, holding aloft the odd fellow.

Mr. Davis went on to explain, a bit excitedly, that Pogeybait was a character in the indy comics written by this Daniel Clowes fellow.
I made a mental note, along with some other tidbits William gave me about my new acquisitions.
(Sorry, Waffles, I still haven't checked out that Chris Ware book...)

Quantum Leap forward a month or so, and I finally was on the hunt for some Clowes material. I figured if I was going to be the caretaker of this statue I'd better read up on him. Before long I'd found an inexpensive used copy of Twentieth Century Eightball and I was off to the races.
I loved it. Clowes comics were nearly Second Wave Of Underground Comics-style work, mixing that recipe of juvenile humor, acerbic wit, social commentary and raciness.
In the next year or so I picked Death Ray and Wilson, both excellent works, and always was I watchful for more.

Not that I couldn't order anything I wanted from the Daniel Clowes bibliography off the internets, but the chase is half the fun.
Right, kids?

Which brings us to ...A Velvet Glove.
Soon. I'll get there, don't fret.

Some years ago my parents retired to a quaint little village on the Ohio River. A nice little burg with a hippy -dippy art community, great architecture, and a hole in the wall pub with one of the best goddamn burgers I've had in recent history. Nestled amongst the downtown shops, across from the antique stores and down the street from the ice cream parlor, is a used DVD/video game store. The kind with just stacks and stacks of movies and bits of other assorted ephemera.
I'd pop in most times when I was down visiting my parents. I like to paw through movies and it's always good to strike up a bit of a rapport with merchants.

And then one day there were longboxes in the store.

Hot damn, we're in business now. We were talking the kind of flea-market longboxes, the dingy ones, devoid of bags and boards and plenty of spine curl and folded corners.
The fun ones to dig through.

Soon after that, bookshelves went up. The kind of bookshelves you put graphic novels and hardcover collections on.

I bought Marvel Masterworks editions of Young Allies and Rawhide Kid from this dude, because he sold them to me dirt cheap.
Reference the aforementioned rapport...

My last trip 'round, last month , yielded a great haul. There were 3 Will Eisner books I hadn't previously owned and lo! Some Daniel Clowes books.
One was his Caricature collection, and the other was Like A Velvet Glove Cast in Iron. What luck!
All these books were between $2-$4 apiece, and that, dear readers, was a done deal. I loaded up my arms, zippety do dah'd to the register and headed home with my fresh nerd loot.
I hadn't even looked at the books to speak of, certainly hadn't examined them, as I was too excited by my find to rationally make a decision more advanced than "buy product!"

So imagine my consternation when I discovered Like A Velvet Glove... had at some point been the recipient of some water damage and subsequently the pages had welded to one another after they had dried.

Fuck. Beans.

I really wanted to read this book. I'd eyeballed the book online for quite awhile but had balked at buying it because I tow the line between "$8.99? I bet I can find this cheaper somewhere..." and "$125 for the book club edition of Captain Marvel and the Monster Society of Evil? I'm in..."

I've some experience with book-shepherding, so I gingerly attempted to separate the pages. Almost the entirety of the book had pages stuck together in the bottom quarter of the book, nearest the spine.
Which meant every seventh panel in the nine panel layout on every page was illegible.
Goddammit.

My efforts were unsuccessful, netting a result of some pages getting separated but for the most part gained naught but torn pages.
Perseverance soon gave way to frustration and I put the book away. In my luggage, to be revisited at a later date.
I briefly bandied about the idea of taking the book back to the shop, but opted not.
It was a $2 purchase, not a high dollar expenditure. I'm fairly certain the proprietor wasn't sequestered in his lair, twisting his mustache and thinking, "Nyah-ha! I finally got some clueless rube to buy that damaged Clowes book! Thanks for the two dollars!"

Plus at this point it was a war of attrition between me and this damaged book...

Upon my return home I did some research, didn't find many realistic options I was ready to explore, and certainly wasn't willing to spend any money on getting this book professionally repaired.
I'd already spent 2 whole dollars, after all...

At the end of the day, I threw caution to the wind and attempted a slapdash rendition of one repair technique.

Do not replicate this on any book you want to keep intact...

I started by running each page under hot water at the stuck point. Each page. One at a time.
It worked. The hot water broke whatever hellish grasp the pages had on one another and separation occurred.
On the downside, I was fully aware that once the pages dried, they would simply stick back together.
A mixture of lackadaisical apathy and good old American laziness led me to an answer.

I'd freeze-dry that sumbitch.

It's sound logic, but not quite a task your Friendly Neighborhood Refrigerator Freezer is up to.

But that's what I've got, so into the freezer went Like A Velvet Glove...

As a great aside, this served to confuse my girlfriend who, upon returning home from vacation, discovered a comic book in the freezer with no explanation as to why.

After a couple of weeks in the freezer I got bored with the whole thing. I was ready to render this book to a readable state or call it a loss ad buy a replacement.

But I'd already spent those 2 dollars, so I had a pretty good idea where I was going with this...

The freeze drying process actually kind of worked and many of the pages had separated and the moisture had been expunged via freezing.
The middle of the book, however, was a solid frozen mass of ice and comic book.
Utterly defeating the point of my freeze-drying , my impatience compelled me to throw the book into the microwave and start thawing/drying it in 20 second bursts.
The attempt to thaw was much more successful than the attempt to dry, and at the end of the day I was left wet pages that would stick back together once the pages dried.

Which was exactly where I was before I threw the sucker into the freezer.

Not willing to go through this freezer business again, I opted for plan B. Daniel Clowes was simply taking up too much valuable pizza roll space.
Plan B (From Outer Space...) involved suspending the book in front of a high-powered fan, leafing through the pages one by one to prevent sticking, and thinking, "Really? Two dollars?".

That was 2 days ago.

I've been blow-drying this thing for 2 days, and it seems to have worked. Everything is nearly dry, but at the expense of the structural integrity of the book. The spine is cracked nearly a quarter of the way up the lengthy, and the bottom half of the book is so flared out and rippled from water damage I may have to park my car on the thing in order to press it flat. In all honesty in may only peripherally resemble flat once it's all said and done.

Soon I'll be able to read the book, however, and really that was all I was after in the first place. I'd prefer to have a nice, pristine copy, devoid of water damage and frustration, but such is life.
The fan is still whirring in the other room, putting the final drying on Like A Velvet Glove . . . and I may see if some of my artsy friends have anyone in their collective network who can rebind books .

For a reasonable fee, of course.

After all, I've already spent two dollars on the book . . .