Don't Try This at Home!

One of the most popular motifs for the "non-powered" superhero is archery; Robin Hood remains an icon and inspiration for comic writers and artists. Sadly, not many of them bother to learn anything about the sport, and it shows. It's like this: I will accept that Green Arrow can shoot an arrow through an ant's ass at 100 yards while swinging from a chandelier, but only if you show me that he knows how to hold a bow. Mike Grell and Scott McCullar get a pass here, being about the only Green Arrow creators to know their way around a bow; likewise Pia Guerra on Y, The Last Man. Everybody else gets it wrong one way or another, the most egregious being Todd Nauck and Peter David for their "Arrowette Goes to the Olympics" storyline in Young Justice a couple of years ago. Even putting aside the obvious absurdities (compound bows are not permitted in the Olympics, men and women shoot in separate competitions), Nauck just flat-out made up every bit of equipment out of his head, and clearly has not the slightest idea what's involved in shooting an arrow. He's at it again in last month's Teen Titans Go! (#14).

To be fair, the worst example of archery in this issue can't be laid at Nauck's pencil. The cover, by Dave Bullock, is the single most laughable example in quite a while. Worse, it falls into the category of "Kids, Don't Try This at Home." If any impressionable children try to shoot their Li'l Chief archery set using this picture as a guide, they are quite likely to injure themselves. I hope DC's liability insurance is paid up.



See how he's holding the arrow onto the bow with his index finger? Never do that. Let me repeat that. Never ever ever under any circumstances should you hold the arrow with your finger. If Speedy shoots that arrow, the next thing the Titans will hear will be his screams of pain. The fletchings (feathers on the back end of the arrow) are going to cut his finger to the bone. It's the mother of all paper cuts. That arrow will be moving at roughly the same speed as a .22 rifle bullet.

The reason he's holding the arrow that way is, he's holding his bow upside down. The bow hand should be thumb-up. The arrow then sits on a little shelf on the side of the bow (depending on the type of bow; some longbows have the arrow rest right on the hand, in which case a glove is absolutely necessary, and not the utterly useless fingerless things Speedy is wearing here). Of course, Speedy's arrow wouldn't fit on an arrow rest anyway, since it's roughly the thickness of a broom handle. A normal arrow is usually somewhere between 3/16" and 3/8" thick. But that's really beside the point. The point is, when Speedy releases that arrow, the string is going to smack him on the forearm and raise a heck of a welt all the way down just before the fleches half-sever his finger. Kids, don't try this at home!

Even if he were to turn his hand upright before he fired, he still would most likely miss whatever he's trying to shoot at, for three reasons:

First, he has the arrow backwards. There are three fletchings on that arrow, and the one that's perpendicular to the bow should be facing away from it. Otherwise, as the arrow passes the bow, the fletch will hit the bow and be thrown sideways a few inches.

Second, He has no rear anchor point. The string hand should actually touch the face. The idea is to put the rear end of the arrow close to the aiming eye (by the way, Speedy is left-handed here and right handed on page one), in a spot that can be repeated consistently. It works like sighting a rifle; there's a front and rear sight. For the bare-bow shooting Speedy does, the front sight is usually the tip of the arrow. The rear end of the arrow is the rear sight, and has to be put in a spot that can be found over and over. The hand hovering six inches away has no reliable anchor and the shooting is necessarily random.

Third, he isn't pulling the string correctly. For a recurve bow, as shown here, one usually uses three fingers to draw the bow, not just two. The string sits comfortably in the groove of the first knuckle, with one finger above the arrow, the other two below. For longbow, which DC Comics bows randomly morph into with alarming regularity, all four fingers are used (longbows take a lot more strength). The thumb stays the hell out of it. The fingers pull back on the string, not the arrow. Pinching the arrow or pulling on it will only mess up the shot.

Once we stop alternately laughing at and cringing from the cover, we get into the comic itself.

On page one, Todd Nauck reveals that he has still not bothered to take a look at an actual bow. The recurve part (the smaller reverse curve at the ends of the bows) is not decorative; it's there to increase the bow's power and accuracy, but only if the string actually connects to the ends of the bow instead of at the base of the curve as shown here. Oh, and once again the arrow is on the wrong side of the bow.

Moving on, we see on page two a repeat of the two-fingered shooting style and complete lack of an anchor point.

For the next several pages, Speedy just carries the bow around, until page 11, when he somehow manages to turn the bow sideways with the arrow on the underside without having it fall to the ground. By the way, can we declare a moratorium on that holding the bow horizontally thing? Nobody shoots that way. It's inaccurate. You will not hit the target if you shoot that way.

Finally, on the second-to-last page, it's time for that tired cliche, shooting three arrows at once. And again, all three arrows are on the wrong side of the bow, all three are backwards (fletchings AWAY from the bow, remember?), and at least one of them isn't on the string at all.

Jim MacQuarrie is an NAA certified archery instructor. Naturally, his arrows are green.

Green Arrow's Specialty Arrows

Green Arrow Secret Files & Origins

Eliot R. Brown has established himself as the go-to guy for "realistic" (or at least plausible) diagrams and explanations of superhero equipment. Sadly, in his Green Arrow Secret Files & Origins piece, he really drops the ball.

Most of his diagrams look pretty good (except the bow, but we'll get to that), but it all falls apart in the text, mostly because he didn't do any research into archery terminology or techniques. Examples, beginning with the most trivial and proceeding to escalate in importance:

Thoughout the article, he refers to arrows being "notched." The word he's looking for is "nocked." Similarly, he consistently refers to bows being "pulled." Bows are not pulled, they are drawn. Archers speak of a bow's "draw weight;" they do not say things like "a custom pull of 125 pounds." Aside from the erroneous use of "pull" there is the question of what a "custom pull" might be. But that is the least of the problems with the bow description.

As I said, the various trick arrows sound mostly plausible, and fall well within the bounds of "suspension of disbelief:" that is, we'll all agree that they'll work, simply because they have to work for the sake of the story. The bow described here does not pass the test, simply because a real bow would perform better than the ones that Brown has made up out of thin air. Listen up...

"A traditional bow of the gentle recurve type, 46" overall. Constructed of maple hardwood with rosewood handle, the limbs are laminated fiberglass and are very quick with a custom pull of 125 pounds."

The accompanying illustration shows what appears to be a one-piece bow, but the text clearly describes a "takedown" bow, or in other words a bow that can be taken apart for storage. But that's just the beginning of our problems here.

"A traditional bow of the gentle recurve type"-- There's no such thing. There are traditional bows and there are recurves, and never the twain shall meet. A recurve bow has the reversed curve at the ends, a traditional does not. Aside from that, there's no such thing as a "gentle recurve" bow. It's either a recurve or it isn't. "Gentle recurve" is analagous to "sort of pregnant." Which leads to the next problem...

"46" overall"-- No way. When my daughter was 8 years old, she shot a 54" bow. Now, there are some short bows, but they would be more like the mongolian horseman's bow, with a VERY deep string height (distance from string to handle). A normal recurve would have a string height of around 9 to 10 inches, while a horseman's bow might be 12"; Mr. Brown shows us a bow with a height of about 1".

Let's do some geometry, shall we? An average archer's draw length (distance from nock to arrow rest at full draw) is 29", which is the length at which bow weights are calculated (add or subtract two pounds for each inch longer or shorter). I think we can all agree that Ollie is above average. I would estimate his draw length at 30 to 32" (the longest draw length I've ever seen is 36", which is the longest arrow shaft one can buy without having them custom made, and that guy is very tall with disproportionately long arms). We'll go with 30" which is about right for a six foot tall guy, and it makes for nice round numbers.

Now, the bow is said to be 46" tall. The riser (handle) is not flexible, and it would normally be 24" tall, but we'll agree that this one is 16", again, just for the sake of round numbers. That leaves us with 30" for the limbs, or 15" each, which is about 6-8" short of what a normal limb should be. The problem now is that the string is normally 3 to 4 inches shorter than the bow, which is what causes it to be curved in the first place. Since this is supposed to be a "gentle" recurve, let's say that we have a 44" string. Okay?

Now, remember Pythagoras? The guy who prattled on about triangles? He's about to bother us a lot. Suppose Ollie draws his bow; He needs to extend it to the point that the back of the arrow (on the string) ends up 30" away from the point where the arrow sits on the bow. Here's an illustration:



Notice that as the bow is drawn the limbs bend and the string forms an angle roughly equal to about half the distance from nock to handle. Hmm. The string is only 44" long, so that only gives us 22" on each side of the arrow. What angle will that string have to be at in order to reach 15" (half the draw length)? Are those tiny limbs going to be able to reach the other 15"? I don't think so. The bow described here can't possibly have a draw length of more than about 20" and it certainly can't have a draw weight of 125 pounds.

If that's not bad enough, Brown then goes on to describe an "impromptu bow":

"This impromptu bow, made of found components, uses a table leg for the handle-riser system and a spring steel center surrounded by a segmented armor sheath for the limbs. Pull is estimated at around 80 pounds."

Say what?

If I were going to improvise a bow, I certainly wouldn't try to create a takedown one. A one-piece bow would be a lot simpler and might actually work. Find a 6 foot piece of a straight, long-grain wood such as maple or ash, build up a handle out of duct tape, and braid a string out of dental floss, and you're set. Certainly a lot easier than scrounging up lengths of "spring steel...surrounded by a segmented armor sheath", which is just the sort of thing everybody has lying around their house. For that matter, why bother with the armor segments? They add nothing to the bow's operation at all. A length of steel roughly an inch wide and 1/8" thick would make a pretty good impromptu bow.

But then, the rest of Green Arrow Secret Files & Origins is chock full of material for me to write about. That ridiculous first story by Judd Winick, for example. Unlike the subjects of my previous posts, in that story all the fault lies with the writing rather than the art. But that's for another time.

John Byrne goes 0 for 3

Over at John Byrne's forum (byrnerobotics.com), he recently posted some of his drawings of Green Arrow. Given that Mr. Byrne is a notorious stickler for accuracy (see any of the numerous controversies in which he's embroiled himself, such as the logical inconsistencies of Captain Carrot), let's see how he does with archery...

First, the positives: Byrne's Green Arrow is consistently right-handed, consistently has the arrow on the correct side of the bow, and consistently has the fingers on the string in the correct orientation. His bow fairly accurately resembles an old-fashioned Ben Pearson or Fred Bear one-piece recurve in most respects.

On the minus side, there's no way that this guy can shoot straight. No anchor. No back tension. He's canting the bow. Arrows only have two fletches, or are nocked upside-down so that the index fletch will strike the riser. In picture #2, GA is pulling on the shaft rather than the string. In #3, the arrow has fallen off the bow and is resting on GA's knuckles.

Worse, in picture #1, Green Arrow is drawing the bow up above his bow arm. The string should be under the arm. Of course, the bow should be vertical, but apparently archery has been affected by the same idiocy that causes gangbangers to turn their guns sideways in order to try to look "cool".

I don't know what those little cuffs on the ends of the limbs are supposed to be, but that's not how the string attaches to the bow.

In a nutshell, if this guy showed up at my range, I'd send him back to the beginner class.

Mr. Byrne, my offer still stands. If you would like assistance in portraying archery accurately, I am happy to offer photos, consultation and reference materials free of charge. If you happen to be in the Los Angeles area at any time and would like to try archery for yourself, I am happy to offer free lessons, including the use of all equipment, at any convenient time.

Oh, Really?

Smallville: Arrow
So Smallville is doing Green Arrow, and now Chris Arndt, over in the comments on the last post, is eager to hear me rant about it.

Your wish is my command.

I haven't been watching Smallville much for about the past year; it got kind of tedious for me when they went off into all that kryptonian mumbo-jumbo with Jane Seymour and french witches and Brainiac the T-1000. But of course I heard that Green Arrow was coming, and so I set the Tivo. So here we are.

It sure is easy to be an impressive archer when your arrows are computer-generated. And apparently it's even easier if your bow is equally computer-generated. So let's see, what sins against archery are committed here? (I mean apart from the insult to Lois' intelligence; she can't figure out that the archery-themed bandit might have something to do with the new boyfriend who dresses up as Robin Hood?)

The telescopic-night-vision targeting sunglasses. What's wrong with letting him just be that good? He's supposed to be a superhero; maybe it would help if he were a little bit, well, super.

The semi-automatic crossbow. With a retracting cable, no less. I'm still trying to figure out how that thing reloads and draws itself. But that pales beside...

The self-folding compound bow. They made a point of only showing this gadget in the dark and on the move, so you never really got a good look at it, but no matter how much they tried to hide it, they have a few serious problems:

1. The limbs fold down. That is, they fold in the direction that the string would normally pull them. This means the bow can't function. The force of shooting the bow would surely damage or overcome whatever locking mechanism holds the limbs up until they're released. The bow should collapse in Ollie's hands when he draws it. If the producers wanted to be marginally believable, they should have had the limbs collapse forward over the handle, away from the string.

2. Where'd the string go? Ever get a good look at a compound bow? The string is this really elaborate affair that winds back and forth over cams and pulleys. There's no way to remove it without a very large, very heavy piece of equipment called a bow press. Somehow, at the click of a button, the string on Ollie's bow vanishes.

3. The wheels. At one point, Ollie uses his folded-up bow to ride down a line, riding on the bow's wheels which he's placed on the cable. Problem: One of the "wheels" is not a wheel at all. It's an elliptical cam, and it only turns about 3/4 of a revolution.

On the positive side, the taser arrow and the gas arrow were both pretty cool and pretty plausible. And the guy doing the shooting seems to actually know something, at least as far as compound shooting with a mechanical release is concerned. I didn't get a good look at his form with a recurve when he shot the pull-tab off the soda can last week, but what I saw looked reasonably decent.

On the other hand, the writing was atrocious.

I'm a graphic designer by trade. I've spent 40 hours a week for the last 16 years staring into a monitor. I breathe Photoshop. Exactly what software is Chloe using that can enhance and refine images the way she does in the last episode? She works at the Daily Planet, not NASA.

What are they teaching in schools these days?

Truth to tell, I was supposed to write about Green Arrow's recent appearance in Birds of Prey, but there's really not much new to say about that one; the few errors that appear are mostly minor and are things I've already flogged to death in previous posts. Fortunately, Geoff Johns and Tony S. Daniel have stepped up to the plate and provided grist for the mill.

Teen Titans #30

First off, it's wonderful to see a new Captain Carrot story. If you agree, e-mail DC and tell them so. That way maybe they'll give us a new series. Wouldn't that be nice?

But I digress.

So anyway, the Titans are gathering for battle against Brother Blood and his undead minions. We finally get to the new Speedy, A.K.A. Mia...



Mia, according to what she tells Roy, is in school, at shop class, working on a "stupid flash grenade arrow" in a vise grip. Okay, so let's leave aside for a moment the painfully obvious fact that in these paranoid and litigious times there is not a high school in America (in any universe, DC or otherwise) that is going to allow a minor to (a) make arrows on campus and (b) make explosive or incendiary arrows in class. No, sorry, it's not going to happen. This scenario is more unbelievable than any of the superpowered adventures in the rest of the book. Heck, the Captain Carrot sequences have more credibility than this scene. But, as I said, we'll leave that aside and get to the really egregious part.

The really egregious part being, one does not construct arrows in a heavy-duty woodworking vise. One would use a fletching jig. Here's a simple one from Cartel:



Secondly, the arrow Mia is shown working on is a good 10" too short for her. Based on her age, height and build, I would guess her draw length to be somewhere in the vicinity of 28", maybe even 29" if her form is perfect (it's not). The arrow she has clamped up there getting crushed and ruined in that clumsy iron monstrosity looks to be maybe 16-18" long at the outside.

If she tried to shoot that arrow, one of two things will happen:

1. She will draw the bow to 16" and release. Let's assume for the heck of it that she's using a 40 pound bow. There's a mathematical formula we can use: that 40 pounds is the draw weight when the bow is drawn to 29"; for each inch below that length, we subtract 2 pounds of power. 29" minus 16" leaves 13". 13 times two is 26. 40 minus 26 is 14. Mia will shoot that arrow with the equivalent of a 14 pound bow. With that big heavy payload, that arrow will hit the ground within about 30 yards. Hopefully that's far enough for her not to be injured by the flash grenade.

2. She will accidentally draw the bow too far back, the arrow will fall off the rest, and she will shoot herself right through her left hand. Ouch.

I know Ollie wants her to learn to do it herself, but does he really want her to learn the hard way?

Where Winick Lost Me

Green Arrow Secret Files & Origins

I've mentioned it a few times, but the time has come to explain why the lead story in this comic is so aggravating.

As the story opens, Ollie and Connor are practicing shooting at long distance targets, "placed about as far away as I could but still make them out with the naked eye," which leads into this conversation:

Connor: We should be using long bows for this.

Oliver: You carry a spare long bow around with you in the field?

Connor: I have a collapsible one, yes.

Oliver: Really? Blasphemy. You can't possibly get the same tension from your Swiss Army-knife toys than an actual bow.

Connor: Join me sometime in the 21st century. I'll show you some adaptations that would make your trick arrows look like buggy whips.

Stop. Rewind. Let's go through that again, with some editorializing from yours truly...

Connor: We should be using long bows for this.

Me: Really? Why? Do you think a "long bow" is called that because it's used for long shots? You should be using compound bows for this. Of course, at the distance suggested here, the targets should be lying flat on the ground, and you should be shooting way up in the air to create a parabolic arc. There's no other way to make that range.

Oliver: You carry a spare long bow around with you in the field?

Connor: I have a collapsible one, yes.

Me: Say what? Do you mean a takedown? Yes, there are two-piece takedown longbows, but most longbow shooters are pretty much purists; they want the one-piece, as Ollie says. And nobody calls them "collapsible" except people who are utterly ignorant of the sport. Oh. Wait.

Oliver: Really? Blasphemy. You can't possibly get the same tension from your Swiss Army-knife toys than an actual bow.

Me: Um, that sentence isn't even English. Aside from that, "tension"? What tension? Who talks about tension in archery? Ollie, have you ever shot a bow before?

Connor: Join me sometime in the 21st century. I'll show you some adaptations that would make your trick arrows look like buggy whips.

Me: "Adaptations"? Sounds like B.S. to me. You're just trying to pretend you know what you're talking about, aren't you?

And so on.

Next page, we're informed that the boys are shooting "the length of several football fields." Okay, sure. Olympians only shoot at 90 meters (about 100 yards), but we'll take them at their word... that is, until we get to the next page, where Connor can actually see a 3/8" thick arrow hit the approximately-5-foot-diameter target, when we were just told that they could barely make out the targets. I didn't know super-vision was among Connor's gifts. (Of course, if they had any supervision, they wouldn't be engaging in this silly game anyway... har!)

Eventually, the boys get to the point of the scene, which is a segue into yet another of Winick's tales about a demon attack, which amazingly enough, only has one really dumb archery moment. But before we get there, Connor allows as how he has "about a thousand arrows to get to here," so he has plenty of time to hear the tale.

Indeed he does. Any archer knows that fatigue sets in rapidly if shots are taken too close together. It takes about 20 seconds for the lactose buildup in the muscles to dissipate, so any smart archer will pace himself. In tournament settings, archers are permitted two minutes to shoot three arrows, but let's assume that Connor is used to shooting an arrow every 30 seconds (10 seconds to shoot, 20 seconds to recover before taking the next shot). So he's going to take 500 minutes at least to get through those arrows, or in other words, 8 hours and 20 minutes. I hope they packed lunch.

That doesn't include the time it will take to walk back and forth the several hundred yards (a mile is 1760 yards) to collect their arrows. Assuming that their quivers hold 50 arrows (a not unreasonable number, considering my quiver holds about 18 max). they're going to make that walk 20 times at least, round trip, for a grand total of about 10 miles. Walking at a brisk pace, they cover 3 miles an hour, so in addition to the 8:20 shooting time, add another 3:20 walking time, for a grand total of 11 hours and 40 minutes at the range. I hope they packed dinner.

But I digress.

So now Ollie is into his demon story, replete with all the usual silly archery mistakes (gravity-defying arrows that suspend themselves in the air without any support, arrows on the wrong side of the bow, balancing the arrow on the tip of the thumb, drawing the string up over and behind the ear, and so on), but the really egregious part is coming. Ollie has to make a shot at a really long distance over a ravine, and he strains to do it...

"God... I hope... I don't snap the bow... before I get the shot off... it's just... such... a long... one..."

Tell me, Ollie, have you ever shot a bow before?

A big part of aiming a bow is what they call "anchor." This means putting the hand against the face in a certain spot, the same way every time. this functions like the rear sight on a rifle. Without a consistent anchor, accuracy is impossible. When making a long shot, one does not draw the bow back further (which would be impossible anyway if he's shooting properly; the drawing is done with the back muscles and there's only so far they can move); one would switch to a lighter arrow or heavier bow, or one would simply aim higher and allow gravity and inertia to do the work.

So Ollie finishes his story, and the boys set off on their quarter-mile hike to collect their arrows... with full quivers on their backs. Dunno about you, but if I were going to shoot that far, I'd go ahead and empty the quiver before I went and collected the arrows. But that's just me. I guess they like long walks.

Or more likely, Judd Winick engages in hyperbole in order to hide the fact that he doesn't know the first thing about the central fact of his main character, and can't really be bothered to find out.

In any case, that's the last Green Arrow story I'll be reading until he's gone.

Isn't this just nitpicking?

A few readers have at various times remarked upon the necessity or desirability of this blog, suggesting that it's nitpicking, or somehow rude to the artists whose work we critique, or reveals a negative attitude toward the comics in question.

So I'll take another whack at explaining it, only this time I think I'll let an expert do the heavy lifting. Here's Matthew J. Bruccoli, editor of the Cambridge University edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Dr. Bruccoli is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of literature at University of South Carolina and a leading authority on Fitzgerald. On the subject of accuracy, Dr. Bruccoli says, "Factual errors in fiction distract readers who spot them and may undermine confidence in the work and the author.* Many careful readers hold that if an author cannot be trusted in details, he may not be trustworthy in larger matters."

Dr. Bruccoli goes on to explain the two types of errors that occur in fiction, external errors (those regarding the actual world in which the work is set) and internal errors (those involving the fictional world).

Returning to the world of comics, we can call continuity problems "internal errors", and this blog is utterly unconcerned with them. If a given issue of Superman says that Clark Kent's middle name is "Joseph" and another says it's "Jerome", that's an internal error, and fans are welcome to argue over it to their heart's delight (or they can declare that his full name is "Clark Joseph Jerome Kent", as Wikipedia says).

We are concerned here with external errors, that is, things in the actual world that comics get wrong for no good reason. When Loren takes on issues of law here, he seldom deals with the fictional laws presented in comics except as how they interact with real-world laws that are assumed to be in force in the comics world. The primary concern is how real-world law is presented in cases where no comics-world law is in play, as for example in issues of courtroom procedure.

Or as I said from the beginning, I'll accept that Green Arrow can shoot an arrow through an ant's ass at 100 yards while swinging upside-down from a chandelier... provided you first show me that he knows how to hold a bow.

One comic writer, discussing a character's amateurish shooting form, told me that "the guy is just that good, he can still be accurate even shooting that way. He's doing it on purpose." Sorry, that doesn't wash. The laws of physics may not apply to Superman lifting a building, but they do apply to Hawkeye aiming an arrow, otherwise there's no point in having an archery-themed superhero at all. At that point it merely becomes a fashion choice, a theme, and not an ability at all.

Similarly, inconsistencies in the geography of Metropolis are not our concern, but inconsistencies in the geography of real-world places like New York, such as moving the Empire State Building, are an issue for us. I hope you see the difference.

* Bruccoli, "Getting it Right: The Publishing Process and the Correction of Factual Errors--With Reference to The Great Gatsby," Library Chronicle of the University of Texas at Austin, 21, no. 3-4 (1991), 41-60. Quoted in Fitzgerald, F. Scott, The Great Gatsby, The Authorized Text, Scribner Paperback edition (2003), p. 192.

Add to your swipe file

Attention, Hawkeye and Green Arrow artists: Go see the new Nicolas Cage film, The Weatherman and take notes. The movie may not be any good, but based on the publicity photos I've seen, the archery is at least right.



Take particular note of the bow. The riser (handle) part is about two feet tall, with a couple of inches between the hand and the arrow rest. Also take particular note of how the fingers hold the string, and which side of the bloody bow the arrow goes on. Also note where the hand and string touch the face. While you're at it, note the posture. This is what archery looks like. From the ribcage down, you can have him doing anything you want-- swinging from a trapeze, riding a unicycle, running at full-tilt-- but from there up, this is what it should look like.

If I were a betting man, I'd wager that Don Rabska was the archery coach on this film.

Completing the Archery Trifecta

Here is the highest-profile comic book archer in a long time, Green Arrow as he appears on the new USPS DC Super Heroes stamps



It's a pity DC couldn't have picked a better image of Ollie. It's like a visual checklist of all the common mistakes MacQ's noted (with the exception of Ollie pulling the string with just two fingers).

My Year in Comics: 2005

Yesterday was the first new comic day of 2006. That makes now a good time to begin a comic-related New Year's Resolution that has served me well for two years now. Starting in 2004, I stole an idea from Augie de Blieck, and began tracking my comic buys with an Excel spreadsheet. What I bought, when, from where, and for how much. It's a good way to keep track both of hobby spending and of what comics I own, and for someone who doesn't think he spends much on comics, I surprise myself. And it allows you an quick and easy way to gauge what went well and not so well in the last year.

Over the course of 2005, I spent just a hair under $940 on comics. This was a really big jump from the $700 I spent in 2004. I still managed to average a bargain, because the combined cover prices of my purchases was over $1700. I expect quite a drop for 2006, though.

Where did all the money go? Over half, roughly $510, went to trades and hardcovers. 57 in all, up from only 23 in 2004. And $133 of that (approximately 1/7 of my entire year's comic spending, and about 40% off their cover price) was on tpbs of one series: Usagi Yojimbo. A year ago, I made a list of all the tpbs I wanted, and it included every Usagi trade I didn't already own. In early December I bought my last one, for a total of 15 Usagi tpb purchases in 2005. Now I have a complete library of a series I'll probably never need to talk about here.

Twenty different titles drifted in and out of my box at the shop. A couple more, such as Akiko, were on my pull list but didn't release an issue in 2005. My favorite new title of the year was Jonah Hex; the new title that disappointed the most was probably Villains United, which I dropped halfway through. I can't recall ever dropping a mini-series partway through before.

I spent just under $380 at my comic shop, Odin's Cosmic Bookshelf, for an average of $7.30 per week. This shows why I'll often go two or three weeks between trips. My eBay spending was practically non-existant after February, but it did provide me with one of the year's best bargains: the first three Cerebus phonebooks for $13.50 total.

Back issue purchases helped me fill some longstanding holes in my collection, and I completed my runs of Young Justice, Static, Mike Grell's Green Arrow, John Byrne's Sensational She-Hulk, and Ty Templeton's last two animated Batman runs.

I've bought four of DC's Showcase Presents volumes. The Jonah Hex one is my unabashed favorite of the four. I hope DC doesn't wait forever to release a second volume.

Best overlooked collection of the year: Max Hamm: Fairy Tale Detective Vol. 1. This book was a hoot, and while it may not be the year's best book, I heard virtually no talk about it. It deserves more attention.

So if you're willing to do a little record-keeping, I'd highly recommend keeping track of your comic buying with Excel or some other means. I'd even be happy to e-mail anyone a sampling of what my spreadsheet looks like, if you'd like to know how to start.

Why doesn't Green Arrow ever do this?

Or would it intrude on Aquaman's territory too much?

Quiz: What's wrong?

Alex Ross paints Green Arrow

Instead of writing another lecture about it, I'll ask you: what's wrong with this picture?



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