Early Returns

Tammy's back in Canada a couple weeks earlier than originally planned, as she got a little homesick and road weary lately, as you'd expect after nearly eight weeks abroad. If any of the (I'm sure) 2000 or so digital photos she took on her adventure especially tickle my fancy, I'll post one here later on.

A less cheery set of early returns I spent some time today reading about today are the responses to DC Comics' current weekly series, Countdown. Among the more negative bellwethers I found were sliding sales (compared to predecessor 52's remarkably steady numbers) as well as the decision of the owner of the blogsite dedicated to writing about Countdown to not only stop covering Countdown.. but to also stop buying it! (Sort of like when the president of your fan club announces he or she is closing it down. Gulp!) His criticisms of the series so far - of which he has many - are all well-reasoned, and appear to be in line with what I've read elsewhere as well as winced at myself. It's quickly becoming a hard series to like, and this is coming from a die-hard DC fan (for almost 40 years now). There's very little actually happening in each issue; the art has been wildly inconsistent, to the point where it's hard to figure out who's who on some pages; and it always seems like the real story is actually going on somewhere else and we're just getting glimpses of the periphery in this title. And then to have DC announce yet another slew of Countdown spin-offs recently, at a time when people like me are wondering why we're even bothering to sink $3 each week into this crap... It seems like DC may've backed the wrong horse this summer, as I'd be much more inclined to pay to see the Sinestro Corps storyline spread throughout the DCU, as at least that one's interesting, has a clear direction to it and has already featured some fantastic artwork!