Um, Actually…

Missives from and to the internet, delivered by a series of tubes.

Welcome, dear readers, to our Thursday feature – a letter column of horrors culled from our inboxes. There will be things that are real and decidedly unreal – but hopefully all content presented here will be entertaining.

That said, WE ARE LOOKING FOR LETTERS! We are hiding in your bushes, metaphorical or otherwise. We crave your sweet correspondence. Contact us by clicking on that handy contact button right above the site banner to save yourself from our sweet lips on your power bills.

Letters might be edited for space, but not for intent.

Thank you, internet.

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Jay Runram (@jayrunram) asks: If you could screen any movie at a major move theatre for two weeks, what movie would it be?

James: There is literally only one correct answer here, and that is Josie and the Pussycats. It’s got everything you could want:

• Good-looking, likeable lead characters (and Rosario Dawson as Valerie)!
• Catchy music, sung by Letters to Cleo’s Kay Hanley, that is still on my iPhone to this very day!
• Tara Reid not knowing it’s a movie!
• Parker Posey and Alan Cumming in a maniacal laugh-off!
• Donald Faison, Seth Green and Breckin Meyer in throw-away roles! Seriously, their plane gets thrown out of the sky.
• Consumerist cross-media branding paired with a genuine criticism of it!
• Fourth wall breaking!
• Archie Comics characters!

It is basically the perfect movie that isn’t The Princess Bride.

Brandon: Does anyone remember that movie where Rodney Dangerfield was a dog? If I were to pick a movie to screen for two weeks, it would probably be that. Or possibly a movie of my own creation called Danger Field, which would be a mix of the Gilmore Girls and Rambo.

Barring any of that craziness, I would probably have to say I’d screen Hobo with a Shotgun - a prime example of Canadian tax dollars at work.

You’re welcome, internet.

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Britny Le Blanc (@britl) writes: Why is there a significant lack of ‘shipping’ on Comics The Blog? So many articles you could write!

James: Ahem.

Honestly though, ‘shipping isn’t really my jam, and since literally the only editorial mandate on this site is “what our jam is,” it fails the only criteria possible. I generally just prefer to leave ‘shipping to the TVLine and EW comment sections, where it belongs.

Well, except for ‘shipping Brandon and myself. I do that all the time.

Brandon: I strongly ship Archie Andrews and Kevin Keller. Does that count?

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John Bazin (@joshbazin) writes: As a relative newcomer to the comics hobby, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to read all the cool looking books on a (somewhat) constrained budget. Do you have any tips or tricks on how to evaluate books in your file to make cuts easier?

James: Actually, you are probably asking the two worst people around for advice on this matter, since both of us have a problem keeping up with the massive amounts of comics we buy and it’s actually Brandon’s job to sell me as many comics as possible. I’m also on a budget, however, so as a general rule, if I stop liking it, I stop reading it. Of course, it gets more complicated than that, and you still might not find yourself reading all the books you buy. In this case, I recommend just trying to keep track of how many issues you are falling behind in different series, and set a number of issues where you’ll review whether or not you want to drop a series - 4-6 is probably a decent amount.

You’ll probably find that most series you’re falling behind in are ones you’re not as excited to read, though with the occasional exception; for example, at the beginning of his run, I fell behind on Jonathan Hickman‘s Fantastic Four, and that’s one of my favourite series! Either way, you’ll probably know, looking at a pile, whether or not it’s a great series that you let slip through the cracks, or if it’s one you’re putting off reading and could probably drop (or start picking up in collections or digitally after price drops).

I am not very good at following this, but I’m trying.

Brandon: I As a completely unbiased third party, I say it’s always best to take your mind off your budget problems by buying more comics. Hey look, is that Brad Pitt?

On a more serious note, quantity can become problematic, I know. When I first moved away from home years and years ago, I was not every good at budgeting, and made the mistake of buying comics as though I didn’t have to pay rent or utilities. As you can imagine, that time in my life ended well. The trick is always to try and find ways to tamp down on spending when things look like they might be snowballing. Nowadays, it’s a whole lot easier to do that too, with digital. Think about the books that you’re getting and ask yourself: can I wait to read this for a month? Because after a month, you’ll be able to read that book for cheaper on your computer or iPad or whatnot.

Also, if there are some series you know you will want to get in a collected format one day, definitely try waiting for the price drop on the issues, and grab them digitally. Save your duckets for a collection later down the line. If you’re local comic shop is AWESOME, you can also ask them to flag collections, and they will save them for you, along with any singles you can’t seem to do without.

Or finally (and this is what I do, when I’m trying to make a list of purchases within my budget) take a copy of Previews and go through your projected purchases. Write down the total that’s going to cost, minus any discounts you might be getting. If that number is over what you’re willing to spend, start looking at the books. It’s always hard to kill your darlings, but it can be done. Hopefully, some of that helped.

Josh continues: How do you track what you own in your collection? What other solutions might you recommend?

James: Short answer: I don’t. I am extraordinarily lazy. That said, I used to keep everything ordered, which meant every few months I’d sort all my recent issues, then insert them in cardboard longboxes with dividers and labels.

For actually tracking your collection, there are some online solutions (like ComicBookDB) and software solutions (like Collectorz); the former requires search-and-entering while the latter has a barcode scanning option. Intelliscanner pairs software with an actual physical barcode scanner, and I’ve heard good things. Collectorz offers separate software solutions for each type of media (comics, movies, etc) while I believe Intelliscanner all uses the same software for all media, though they offer a specific Comic Edition that has some pretty cool features, like a feature to automatically organize your collection, printable barcodes with metadata tied to your DB, and a mobile app. I haven’t used any of these options, though, so I can’t really say if any of them are worth it.

Brandon: So yeah, I, uh… don’t quite know how to keep good track of comics. I usually sort my collections by company, but have been thinking of just going with creator, seeing how that’s how I usually buy things anymore. But otherwise? James probably has the best handle on how to keep track of what you own. Maybe I should get on doing an inventory at some point, seeing how I got so much stuff. Hmm.

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Kait (@Katiebear_81) asks: In your Podcast! The Comics picture, which do each of you identify with (paris vs. nicole)?

James: I’m actually Nicky.

Brandon: Didn’t I murder her? I’m pretty sure I murdered her.

Kait, Kait, Kait. Kait. KAIT. You’re a nice gal, and I really hate to do this to you, but…

UM, ACTUALLY the picture in our Podcast! The Comics logo is not of Paris and Nicole, but part of the cover to a wonderfully, meticulously ill-conceived Marvel romance comic called Trouble.

Trouble was a part of a very weird Marvel initiative called Epic, in which they gave indie creators free-reign with some of their more obscure characters. The stories wouldn’t technically be within the regular continuity, and existed more to test out fresh talent, with the hopes of graduating them to regular universe books in the future. They started this line with Trouble, done by two of their bigger creators, Mark “Ultimate comma Kick Ass” Millar and Terry “Defenders comma Uncanny X-Men” Dodson and the results were… interesting. And entertaining.

Basically, the pair cast characters named Ben, Richard, May and Mary in a 80s style sexy not-putting-Baby-in-the-corner rom com. They were all working a summer job at a resort run by a super religious dude and his wife, and got into all types of shenanigans involving booze, skinny dipping, partner swapping and condoms. Which would’ve been odd in and of itself, had it not been for the names chosen for this particular group of characters.

While there were no last names mentioned for the foursome in the book, you might recognize the names “Ben” and “May”. They bare a striking resemblance to Peter Parker’s aunt and uncle, yes? And hey, coincidently, Pete’s parents were named Richard and Mary. Could this book be about the extra sexy origin of Peter Parker? And hey wait, did they just imply that Aunt May shtupped Uncle Ben’s brother, had his illegitimate kid, and then gave him up to Richard and Mary when things became to real? The official answer is “no”, but come on. These names weren’t chosen by “accident” by anyone. Regardless, this series went forgotten for quite some time until Marvel, for some (awesome) reason, collected the whole thing in a hardcover, which is sitting on one of the bookshelves in my store right now.

But of course, if you’re not willing to shell out the cash duckets to read such a book, you can always check out my Drunk Recaps of the series. They are the only posts on the site tagged with the phrase “Aunt May’s vagina”.

For now.

Anyway, for reminding us about that delightful series, we hereby reward you with this week’s prize - a free digital copy of X-Men: Season One by Dennis Hopeless and Jamie McKelvie. We’ll be contacting you shortly to get you your awesome prize!

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That’s it for the second installment of Um, Actually! Check in every Thursday for a new batch of questions. If you have anything you’d like answered, hit up our Contact page! If you submit anything via Twitter - to @blogaboutcomics, @leask or @soupytoasterson - remember to include the hashtag #UMACTUALLY so that we don’t lose it. Remember: you can ask us anything.