Fewer and Fewer Comics

Diamond Comic Distributors – these days (pretty much) the sole distributor of American comic books – continue to do their bit to help out in my ongoing quest to cut down on my comics consumption. In January we had the snow, which disrupted deliveries, and this week there was this little announcement:

Dear Customer,

Due to a serious accident involving the truck transporting Marvel Comics

titles from the printer to Diamond's Distribution Centers in the US,

several Marvel titles were damaged or lost.

Please see details below for the approximate percentages

that Diamond UK expect to fill in this week’s delivery.

We hope to have an update later this week

as to when we expect the balance of these titles to fill.

As a result, orders for several Marvel titles that are

scheduled to arrive on February 4th will not be filled in full.

45 % DEC090497 INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #23

50 % DEC090501 INDOMITABLE IRON MAN B&W

55 % DEC090432 SIEGE #2 (OF 4)

66 % DEC090433 SIEGE #2 (OF 4) DELL'OTTO VAR

77 % DEC090434 SIEGE EMBEDDED #2 (OF 4)

80 % DEC090464 ULTIMATE COMICS X #1

80 % DEC090465 ULTIMATE COMICS X #1 A ADAMS VILLAIN VAR

80 % DEC090551 WOLVERINE WEAPON X #10

Lo and behold, when I went to the comic shop today, they had no copies of Iron Man (that and Siege were the only comics I wanted from that list). So that's one more comic I won't be getting anymore (I was losing interest in it anyway). Thanks Diamond!

As for Siege, I read that on the way home on the train, and all I could think was, meh. There's a tedious extended battle, complete with lots of glowering and posing; a standard-issue dismemberment (de rigeur in comics these days); a standard-issue call to arms; and the expected missteps in continuity (Captain America is handed a briefcase – containing, I would guess, Tony Stark's Iron Man armour – and told by Jarvis the butler that he has reason to believe the owner of the briefcase is near the battle in Oklahoma; except Cap would already know that, 'cos he saw the incapacitated Tony in Oklahoma in a recent issue of Iron Man). Still, Olivier Coipel's art is kinda purty.

Rather more excitingly, the new issue of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' Criminal shipped this week, which is probably my favourite comic right now, and streets ahead of just about anything else in 'mainstream' comics at the moment, with the possible exception of Ex Machina, which, also excitingly, I managed to blag a copy of the issue I missed the other week. Thanks Rob!