Neilalien : A Doctor Strange Fansite : A Comic Book Weblog  

January 02023

Steve Ditko's hometown- Johnstown, Pennsylvania- has put up a mural commemorating the artist!

YouTube

VisitJohnstownPA.com

Mural is by Matt Lamb and The Bottle Works Ethnic Arts Center. Mural shows Spider-Man and Doctor Strange. Two other murals honoring Ditko are planned.

[31 January 02023]

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What Ever Happened To The Sales Charts?

Killed by the recent distribution wars: the era of Diamond being able to tell us how everything sold- because they distributed everything- is long gone. Do we have a modern-world industry that has this information- or are we trying to hide the death of the periodical? Neilalien needs his wonky data back!

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Brain Hibbs: Tilting At Windmills #293: What's Wrong With The Periodical???

Brian Hibbs shop report: Comix Experience Best-Sellers: [0]2022

[29 January 02023]

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Strange #10 was out 18 Jan! Series finale ends with Doctor Strange among the living; leads into new ongoing series

Preview at Comics Continuum

Comic Book Round Up collected reviews

Variant cover regime via Midtown Comics

Clea Resurrects Doctor Strange With A Kiss, Disney Style

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Updating/Braindumping:

The table was set that it would be catastrophic if Doc and Clea touched. While Neilalien appreciates that the result of their touching could never have been annihilation, and was quite unexpected and imaginative- this Strange merged entity- he doesn't think that the result should have been so overwhelmingly positive and done. A downside should have been shown- a "cost"- as Doc writers have been so obsessed about of late- would have been appropriate here.

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Doctor Strange's Next Epic Role: Magical Wife Guy
[includes preview images/covers for Doctor Strange #1 in March]

"I think there's a certain gravitas in the two of them together - neither of them are young, fresh, unseasoned," said MacKay. "Stephen Strange is an elder statesman in the Marvel universe, the person that's always brought in when magic intrudes into lives of other heroes, and Clea is every bit his equal: an alien warlord who possesses great power of her own. I think Clea and Strange are a power couple in every sense of the word, and I'm interested in exploring that relationship and bringing it back to the forefront in the world of Strange."

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Tradd Moore's Doctor Strange: Fall Sunrise #3 was out 25 Jan!

Preview at Comics Continuum

Comic Book Round Up collected reviews

Variant cover regime via Midtown Comics

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Also out 18 Jan: Punisher #9: Frank Castle has killed and replaced Ares, the God of War; Doc in ending cameo assembling a hero confab about what to be done

Also out 25 Jan: Midnight Suns #5 miniseries finale: Agatha Harkness gives herself a Kathryn-Hahn MCU younger makeover

Alex Ross cover for upcoming Doctor Strange #1 used as cover for "Marvel Free Previews Volume 6 #16 January For March 2023 Shipping Product"

[27 January 02023]

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Megacorporation Acquires Good Thing, Destroys It

Digital Comics Platform Comixology Hit By Amazon Layoffs [Popverse]

Amazon Ran Comixology Straight Into The Ground, And Now It's Laying Off Staff [Android Police]

Amazon's Huge Layoffs Are Gutting Comixology [Gizmodo/io9]
["In the wake of a disastrous Amazon integration and redesign last year, a move to cut 18,000 jobs is going to have a major impact on the digital comics platform."]

Comic Book Folk React To ComiXology Layoffs [Bleeding Cool]

Jonathan H. Gray: "Still thinking about Comixology & how Amazon bought a thing that worked, gutted it, shat in its bed, and then threw it away because they didn't want to play with it any more. Jobs lost, livelihoods upended, & a fresh digital horizon that was opened up is now gone on a whim."

More/General info about the Amazon layoffs: Amazon CEO Says Company Will Lay Off More Than 18,000 Workers [NPR]
[A little more than 1% of the 1.5 million Amazon workforce; none of the reasons given (pandemic over-hiring then, economic slowdown now) seem to actually be about Comixology; if Comixology activity is down now, it's because Amazon nuked it]

About that "disastrous Amazon integration and redesign last year": Opinion: Comixology's New Update Takes All The Fun Out Of Reading Digital Comics [IGN, February 02022]

When the world was new:

With Comixology, Amazon Acquires A Piece Of The Comic-Based Media Empire [TechCrunch, April 02014] ["Amazon has purchased Comixology, and that's a huge deal, because it means the largest bookseller in the world now owns the company that brought digital comics distribution to the masses, and essentially forced big publishers like DC and Marvel to get with it and start distributing titles on the same day in print and via digital channels. It's hard to understate Comixology's role in digital comics and the transition of the medium from print to online..."]

Amazon Buys Digital Comics Company ComiXology [Wired, April 02014] ["Well, there goes the digital neighborhood [Graeme being prescient lol]. ComiXology, the leading digital comics platform responsible for the sale of more than 4 billion pages of comics in [0]2013 alone, has been purchased by Amazon."]

Amazon.com To Acquire comiXology [Press release, April 02014] ["Amazon.com today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire comiXology, the company that revolutionized the digital comics reading experience with their immersive Guided View technology and makes discovering, buying, and reading comic books and graphic novels easier and more fun than ever before... There is no better home for comiXology than Amazon to see this vision through. Working together, we look to accelerate a new age for comic books and graphic novels... Amazon and comiXology share a passion for reinventing reading in a digital world... Founded in [0]2007, comiXology offers a broad library of digital comic book content from over 75 of the top publishers as well as top independent creators."]

ComiXology [Wikipedia]

Comixology [Amazon.com]

[22 January 02023]

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The massive Howard Hallis Doctor Strange collection has been posted online!

Strange Multiverse Collectibles

All 6,660 items have been photographed and categorized!

Auction coming in July: buy the entire lot for $110,000!

Announcement on Twitter

Update: Strange Multiverse Collectibles YouTube Channel

Update: Strange Multiverse Collectibles News Page

[9 January 02023]

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Tradd Moore's Doctor Strange: Fall Sunrise #2 was out last week 28 Dec!

Preview at Comics Continuum

Comic Book Round Up collected reviews

Variant cover regime

Also out:

Midnight Suns #4
Strange Academy: Finals #3

[2 January 02023]

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