Five Nights at Freddy’s owns the November kids graphic novels charts. An online rant from a comic shop owner has sparked fierce online debate. Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are taking on the Satanic Panic. All on Comic Book Club News for December 7, 2023.
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Episode Transcript:
Five Nights at Freddy’s dominates November charts.
Comic shop rant sparks debate.
Brubaker and Phillips tackle Satanic Panic.
This is Comic Book Club News for December 7, 2023.
Five Nights at Freddy’s Dominates November Graphic Novel Charts:
Five Nights at Freddy’s? More like seven spots on the November Kids Graphic Novel charts for Freddy’s, am I right?
The graphic novel adaptation of the video game series took seven of the top twenty spots on last month’s charts, according to ICv2. Though the Fazbear’s Frights spinoff series always makes a good showing, this is most likely in part due to renewed interest from the theatrical movie, which was released on October 27.
Also making a huge showing on the chart, including at the number one spot, is Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man series, which also has seven books on the chart. Add on Pilkey’s spinoff series Cat Kid Comic Club, and he actually beats Five Nights by one book.
Other books showing up include The Baby-Sitters Club, Investigators, and Hooky. The only books debuting on the chart for the first time? Keeper of the Lost Cities: The Graphic Novel and the latest volume of Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales.
Ed Brubaker And Sean Phillips Taking On Satanic Panic:
If you missed this past Tuesday’s live Comic Book Club, you missed a good one. Specifically, a great chat with writer Ed Brubaker about his new book Where The Body Was, which hits stores next week. And towards the end of the interview, Brubaker was asked whether he and his frequent collaborator Sean Phillips are thinking about their next book.
Turns out not only are they thinking about it, it’s almost done, and Phillips will finalize the art in January. And not only that, but Brubaker accidentally exclusively revealed the new book’s title on Comic Book Club: Houses of the Unholy.
The new book, according to Brubaker, will mix the team’s regular focus on crime with a healthy dose of the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. You can hear a little bit more about that, plus updates on the Criminal TV show and much more on this week’s podcast. Houses of the Unholy will hit comic book stores in Summer, 2024.
Another Comic Shop Rant Sets Fire To Internet, Mark Millar Responds (Again):
The latest in the whole “comics are dying” kerfuffle has hit the internet, and this time it’s thanks to a short clip from Glenn O’Leary’s YouTube channel.
The owner of Comic Book Palace in Haverhill, Massachussets, about minute long clip from a video where O’Leary complains about the current state of comic book storytelling went viral on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) after it was shared with — who else — writer Mark Millar.
In the clip, O’Leary chides comic book creators for putting their own experiences into comics, saying, “we don’t care what you would do if you were Iron Man, we don’t care who you are. You’re writing Tony Stark, you’re not writing yourself in a book… Just write a book, get paid for what you’re supposed to be doing, and make it a good story.”
Mark Millar Interviews Glenn O’Leary:
Naturally, this resonated with Millar, who had previously came up with a genius plan to save comics by “writing good comics,” and the creator invited O’Leary onto his YouTube show. While the bulk of the beginning of the chat is Millar talking to O’Leary about how many comics professionals were unfairly piling on him, in a conversation that is clearly about cancel culture without saying those words, at about eight minutes in the mask starts to fall off.
Says O’Leary: “People come here to escape from the real world… We don’t need that real world stuff in the comics, either.”
Though Millar doesn’t plug further along these lines, this is the well that a lot of these arguments seem to go to, the easily refutable statement that readers are tired of seeing the real world, politics, what have you in comics — when that has been part and parcel with the whole medium since it began. Taken a step further, one might wonder what “real world stuff” seems to be the issue, but the interview doesn’t go that way, either, so we won’t speculate. And in fact, O’Leary clarifies later that, “There was nothing political in my statements… If you watch my videos there’s never anything political.”
The rest of the interview beats Millar’s current drums, that if Marvel and DC go, so to shall go the entire comic book industry. Also not surprisingly, O’Leary is anti-digital comics, which makes sense since he runs a brick and mortar store.
So that’s it for that for the moment. At least until the next big comics rant hits the internet. We’ll see you back here then.
Podcast Outro:
For Comic Book Club News, I’m Alex Zalben. Hmm… Real world stuff. What could he mean? It’s a mystery!
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