Hey folks, Travis here. A few little odds and ends before I get to my big FCBD post. I stopped by the Ithaca, NY library book sale on Monday and picked up some goodies, and another issue of Cerebus in Hell? is out.
Ithaca has a big book sale that benefits their local library (and the Ithaca library has a sweet selection of comics, btw). I stopped by Monday and picked up some cool stuff for cheap. There were a bunch of DC digests that I got.

A coverless copy of an issue of the Spirit magazine. Some random issues of Optic Nerve.

Some other random issues of the original run of Dark Horse Presents, particularly the issues with Sin City.

The Marvel Code of Honor painted mini that was done in the wake of Marvels.

Some other single issues that I seem to be forgetting. I also got two SPX collections, from ’98 and ’99, which feature a lot of the indie and self-publishers from the late ’90s that I love so much. I got a copy in decent shape of The Comic-Book Book by Lupoff and Thompson (I think I have a copy of All in Color for a Dime, the predecessor to this one). And I got the recent Boom! tribute to Charles Schulz in hardcover with a lot of neat comics creators, like Paul Pope and Mike Allred and stuff.
I plan on going back to Ithaca the next two weeks for more stuff. In the collector corner, there are some neat older DC comics that I probably will snag, as well as getting something for our pal Jim.
In other news, there’s another issue of Cerebus in Hell?, number 3, that just came out last week. Oddly enough, it appears that number 4 is out next week, so this series has been really strange in that the issues have been delayed quite a bit, but then when the issues do come out, they pop out every 2 weeks. So weird!
So what did I think of this issue?

Well, the incorrect cover price was a bit disconcerting. It was listed as 4 bucks but had 5 bucks on the cover. C’est la vie, though, y’know?
This issue is quite a bit stranger than the others. Lots of jokes that completely go over my head. Shots at SJW-type stuff that is amusing but a bit too esoteric for my tastes. A reference to the Moore/Bissette/Totleben Swamp Thing. Jingles the dog saying dog thoughts out loud. Some homoeroticism. Henry Kissinger. More amusing bios and do-it-yourself instructions text pieces. Other than the Justin Bieber joke, the funniest joke is probably the inside front cover one claiming that there are no Cerebus fans under 40. Hey! I’ve got a couple years still!
If nothing else interests you, though, the Doré artwork looks beautiful (even with that donkey thing in front of it), so it’s almost worth it just for that.
If you’re interested in Cerebus in Hell? and can’t get a copy at your local shop, drop me a line at one of the email addresses below. A local shop in my area has a number of copies of issues 0 and 2, and I could probably work something out with you, if you’re interested.
Also, if you like shopping on the Amazon that the kids all seem to like, please be sure to click on the links above when you do your shopping. Like Greg Hatcher said, you don’t even have to buy what we’re talking about to steer some money our way and keep us going, you just have to order something there.
Back with my FCBD reviews soon.
Question Travis: Do the books have stickers or something so that people know the’re from a Library? That’s the way it goes in Holland (not that they have any american comics btw).
You can preache Cerebus all you want, but it’s not my thing.
Well, while the library runs the sale and the proceeds help out the library, not all of the books for sale are from the library per se. They get a lot of donations, so the books can be privately owned stuff. There are ones that have library stamps on them, so I can tell they were library books (like the Comic-Book Book was from a library up there, for instance).
And it’s perfectly ok if you don’t like Cerebus! There are so many good comics around there are some for everybody, but the flipside of that is that not everybody has heard of some comics. But if you don’t like a certain comic, that’s totally cool too!
I had to track down that Adventure digest a while back because it continued that amazing E. Nelson Bridwell/Don Newton Shazam Family run from World’s Finest (which was itself continued from the cancelled Shazam comic). I wish DC would collect those stories, because they were terrific.
I mentioned elsewhere that for FCBD I got the Showcase Presents volume of Shazam! I guess if they’d done another volume of that, they would have collected those stories, but seems there was just the one.
I’m looking the Showcase volume up on GCD right now, and I’m amused that DC didn’t have the rights to the Isis character at the time, so couldn’t reprint Shazam! 25 in that book. If Rich Johnston didn’t headline an article about DC getting those rights back (if they have) something like “DC retakes control of Isis” (or even something funny) then he wasn’t trying 😉