Youngblood #8.

Speaking of Rob Liefeld, I was on Image's website this morning and noticed the cover to Youngblood #8. Apparently, Rob couldn't stay away from the newest comic book trend; shamelessly trying to drive up sales by putting an image of Obama on the cover. Apparently, Rob thinks that even the 44th Prez needs some cross-hatched shading on his face to really bring him to life. Where is the light source coming from in that cover? He's got shadows on both sides of his face but then the background is pretty flat. The result is; it looks like he hasn't shaved in a couple of days. And that his facial hair grows in cross-hatched. Nice job there. I can imagine Rob sitting at his drawing table saying, "A little shading on the face...and...done. Time to cash some checks."

I also like how their "variants" are the exact same cover, just in a slightly different color scheme. You'd think that because it's Rob Liefeld, the variant would be a chromium, gold-foil, hologram, die-cut cover, selling for $8.99. But nope, instead of all of that awesomeness, they decided to just make it gray. Probably because of the economy.

Spider-Man #583, 5th Print.

I was cruising through the new releases for tomorrow and getting a list together and saw that Marvel is going to ship a fifth printing of the Spider-Man issue featuring President Obama. Crazy. Somehow, I got a second printing from a guy at work. They are also shipping a second printing of Thunderbolts #128, so I'll be picking that one up for sure and then I'll buy a first-print off of eBay in six years when all of the hype is over.

Thunderbolts #128: You've Gotta Be Freakin' Kidding Me.

So I accidently bought another copy of Thunderbolts #127 last Wednesday because my local shop was sold out. No problem, I thought, I'll just swing by my overpriced backup store and was shocked to see that they were also sold out. Then I hopped online and checked out eBay. Copies are going for $10. So I did some research and I did not know that the new issue featured Obama for most of the story. Thanks, Marvel. So now I have to decide to overspend and get the issue, or wait a couple of years and pick it up for 4 or 5 dollars. Right now, I'm thinking of picking up the reprint (which you know is coming) and then pick up a 1st print in a year or so.

I think the main thing is all of the problems that Marvel has caused with these Obama tie-ins. They are all short-runs and they're driving people crazy. I know there were a lot of people that wanted the Obama variant of that issue of Spider-Man from a couple of weeks ago and it caused a lot of problems for most of the retailers. I don't buy Spider-Man, but I probably would have bought the Obama issue, but you can't find it. It shouldn't have been a variant, it should have been the regular cover. I know Marvel is in the business of selling books, but I think they're really taking advantage of the situation by hyping these issues up so much.

Mainly, I'm pissed that I'm going to miss an issue of a series that I really love reading, but at the same time, I'm pissed at Marvel for pulling a cheap move, and I'm pissed at people for trying to sell issues at three times the cover price.