Author Archives: Phil

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About Phil

With 40 years of experience in comic reading, collecting and reviewing, English Professor Phil Mateer has an encyclopedic mind for comics. Feel free to ask Phil about storylines, characters, artists or for that matter, any comic book trivia. He will post your questions and answers on the AABC blog. His knowledge is unparalleled! He is also our warehouse manager, so if you are looking for that hard to find comic book, ask Phil!

It Came From the Back Room #46

dd500

Standard recap: I’m slowly going through AABC’s one-million-plus back-issue room, restocking the boxes on the sales floor and pulling stuff to sell as discount/overstock/special items (these are featured at the discount racks at the west end of the store for a couple of weeks after each post, and then go to the discount racks on the east end of the store for a few weeks, and then disappear into our warehouses, so get them while you can). I’m going through the alphabet backwards (don’t ask), and at my speed (especially with the school semester in full gear), this amounts to … Continue reading

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Phil’s Reviews: Stuff I Bought #219

avsxo

Avengers Vs. X-Men #0 — Writers: Brian Michael Bendis and Jason Aaron; Art: Frank Cho Bendis provides a Scarlet Witch story wherein Wanda (a) fights M.O.D.O.K., (b) talks to Carol Danvers, who convinces her to go to Avengers Mansion, and (c) actually goes to said mansion, wherein she meets the Vision (it’s a good idea to read Avengers #24.1 before this book, if you’re wondering what the Vision is doing there and why he acts the way he does), and things don’t go well. The Cho art is fun to look at, in its mildly cheesecakey way, and the story … Continue reading

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It Came From the Back Room #45

dd7

Standard recap: I’m slowly going through AABC’s one-million-plus back-issue room, restocking the boxes on the sales floor and pulling stuff to sell as discount/overstock/special items (these are featured at the discount racks at the west end of the store for a couple of weeks after each post, and then go to the discount racks on the east end of the store for a few weeks, and then disappear into our warehouses, so get them while you can). I’m going through the alphabet backwards (don’t ask), and at my speed (especially with the school semester in full gear), this amounts to … Continue reading

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Phil’s Reviews: Stuff I Bought #218

saga1

Saga #1 — Writer: Brian K. Vaughan;  Art: Fiona Staples Vaughan’s last extended series was Y: The Last Man, so he’s got a reputation to uphold, and this debut issue does so nicely: it’s a fantasy/Star Wars/Romeo and Juliet mashup, with all the sprawl its name implies — but this first issue focuses very tightly on just two characters, and the third one they produce. It’s very well done, and Staples brings enormous talent to the drawing: she’s just the kind of artist I admire, able to work with small human expressions and double-page city-destroying splashes (with giant turtles added!) … Continue reading

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It Came From the Back Room #44

dcpres1

Standard recap: I’m slowly going through AABC’s one-million-plus back-issue room, restocking the boxes on the sales floor and pulling stuff to sell as discount/overstock/special items (these are featured at the discount racks at the west end of the store for a couple of weeks after each post, and then go to the discount racks on the east end of the store for a few weeks, and then disappear into our warehouses, so get them while you can). I’m going through the alphabet backwards (don’t ask), and at my speed (especially with the school semester in full gear), this amounts to … Continue reading

Posted in DC, Promotions, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment