Black Friday Holiday Shopping Guide ‘10



Today is Black Friday 2010. Black Friday is the traditional first day of the hectic holiday shopping season.

Following are several suggestions for comics-related gift shopping. They are intended to help you along if you've decided that sequential narrative presents and things related to sequential narratives are to be on Santa's list this year.

As I have little chance of actually selecting something for your friend or loved one, please use this as a starting point only. It's unlikely I'll have discovered just the thing. More likely what follows will give you an idea as to what's out there, or spark some brainstorming that leads to an idea for something specifically suited to your loved one.

I'm also quite certain I'm forgetting a list of items and ideas equally as long as the one that follows. That list is almost certainly filled with quality works and books. I apologize profusely for their absence here. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list, and anyone that thinks such a list is even possible these days may be a fool.

Have fun today and the weeks ahead, and please remember a few simple rules about comics gift-giving:

1. When it comes to gifts, comics are best for people that already like them as opposed to people that may like them someday.

2. The bigger the comics fan, the more likely that person is to be very specific about what it is they want. Be careful!

3. Comics don't have the retail saturation of, say, DVDs, and some of the best things are carried by specific vendors or involve an element of handcraft, so make sure you have enough time to receive the thing it is you want to buy.

All that said: gifts are gifts. It's difficult to do anything wrong when giving someone a gift. Happy shopping, and here's to a fulfilling and safe holiday season.

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THE COMICS REPORTER BLACK FRIDAY HOLIDAY SHOPPING GUIDE 2010
or
230 REASONS TO SPEND YOUR SHOPPING MONEY ON COMICS THIS YEAR

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"GIFTY"-SEEMING COMICS GIFTS FOR THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS
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1. 40: A Doonesbury Retrospective, Garry Trudeau (Andrews McMeel)
I think this is the gift-type comics work of the year, a massive chunk of Garry Trudeau's great strip and a bunch of solid supporting material. It's nice to see people coming around to a greater recognition of Trudeau's achievements, and I'm glad Trudeau participated through events like the release of this book.


2. Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Box Set, Bryan Lee O'Malley (Oni Press)
One of the iconic comics series of the new century, now all in one place.


3. Picture This!, Lynda Barry (Drawn & Quarterly)
Lynda Barry's follow-up to her blazing return to comics' consciousness What It Is looks squarely at the questions of why we draw and why we stop drawing. I can't imagine a person with even the tiniest creative spark within them not learning at least a little something from Barry's insights.


4. Lynd Ward: Six Novels In Woodcuts Lynd Ward (Library of America)
Art Spiegelman helped curate this collection of woodcut novels but one of the handful of great talents to work in that arena of storytelling. The moment I saw the collection it seemed obvious to me how nicely this would look under someone's Christmas tree.


5. 75 Years Of DC Comics, Paul Levitz (Taschen)
There's a big want-to-see element with this gigantic, handsome book, but I can't imagine it not being of interest to a wide swathe of people even beyond the already-considerable, built-in, fan-of-DC audience.


6. Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali Deluxe Edition, Denny O'Neil And Neal Adams (DC Comics)
I've been by a couple of friends in comics shops over that this is one of a handful of books given an extra nudge by DC for the holiday season. I may be skeptical about the gift qualities of this deluxe edition -- that's for the individual buyer to decide -- but I quite like the fun, funny, energetic superhero story inside. If this had come out from Marvel in the 1990s, breakout character Ali would have been appearing all over everyone else's comics like Ghost Rider, Punisher and Wolverine did.


7. Vampire Knight Box Set, Matsuri Hino (Viz)
I'm also been told by a few members of that same small group of retailers that Viz is pushing versions of this popular series' box set as a holiday pick-up. I'm not familiar with the content at all, but I'm sort of attracted despite myself to the thought of these specially-cased entire-series purchases.


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