Four Day Geekend 2022: GothAM.

Friday morning, and I'm heading down to Queen Street West in hopes that Toronto comic book icon The Silver Snail is in fact opening its doors to shoppers on Good Friday as promised on Twitter™. 

As I finish successfully jaywalking across University Avenue, I casually  notice that there's a TV production vehicle parked in front of the Superior Court of Justice building - but wait, what program is that on the side of the van?

Ah, right, Goth A.M., ha, I see what you did there.

But what is a Gotham (or GothA.M.) remote broadcasting van doing in Toronto?  To the best of my knowledge, Vancouver has been the city of choice for shooting the various DC Comics television series, and I'm confident that we're not quite at the point of starting filming the next Robert Pattison Batman movie.

A little research after the event revealed that the Teen Titans production team - sorry, just Titans, I gather that we're not dealing with teenagers -  has chosen Toronto to stand in for Gotham (and is apparently willing to pay holiday rates to shoot on Good Friday in order to get access to empty courtrooms).

It's understandable that I wouldn't have done the math on that at the time. I haven't followed the live action Titans* series at all, and the landmark 1980s comic book series by writer by Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez that has provided much of the framework for the show** had the Titans based in New York City (in a sharp departure from DC's standard alternative superhero map of Metropolis, Gotham, Coast City, Smallville, etc.)

All of that aside, it was kind of fun to see the van, but honestly?  I was really hoping to run into someone from Star Trek: Discovery.

- Sid

* Although I was a regular viewer of the popular Teen Titans animated series that ran for five seasons in the early 2000s - I still have an nostalgic affection for the show's distinctive theme song as performed by Japanese pop duo Puffy AmiYumi.  In that version, Titans Tower was located in Jump City, somewhere on the west coast of the United States.

** Along with a dash of the Young Justice animated series, in the form of Conner/Superboy, the Superman clone.

Four Day Geekend 2022: Apocalyptic?

Mathew Borrett, HYPNAGOGIC_CITY_II

In the wake of our successful trip to England last month, I've decided to double down with a four day trip to Toronto over the Easter weekend. (My workplace is conveniently closed on both the Friday and the Monday.)  It's a bit of a gamble: because it's Easter, there's a chance that not all the places that I want to go will be open, but I'm reasonably certain that I won't have any trouble filling the time no matter what happens.

In addition to spending some time with my friend Colin (the pretty Campbell Brother) I'm hoping to visit my traditional shopping favourites: the Silver Snail, newly returned to Queen Street West, for comics, graphic novels and action figures; Bakka-Phoenix Books for, well, books; and whatever other shopping opportunities offer themselves.  I'm travelling light, with just carry-on luggage and my shoulder bag, so if for some reason I should hit the jackpot for shopping, I could always buy a cheap bag and check in my purchases, although I doubt that things will get that far out of control.

However, it's been over two years since I last visited Toronto, and let's not forget that there's been a near-apocalyptic pandemic event since then.  Maybe an extra bag for books is the least of my concerns - it's possible that I should be planning for the traditional post-apocalyptic challenges of finding clean water and evading roving bands of cannibals.  Or even without that, it may just be a very different place...

- Sid

Infinite.

When I saw a press release announcing that DC Comics was finally expanding their DC Infinite online comic books subscription service on a limited international basis, with the service finally going live in Canada on March 28, I was instantly interested.  Marvel Unlimited has been a frequently visited addition to my iPad apps, and DC's decision to let other countries access Infinite is somewhat overdue.

In order to pull in subscribers, DC Infinite is priced at $59.99 Canadian for an annual subscription* if you sign up within 30 days of the launch date, after which it will jump to $99.99.  By comparison, the Marvel Unlimited service runs at $69.99 USD annually (about $80 CAD), although there's also an exclusive option at $99.99 USD with some additional perks.

Five dollars a month seemed like a reasonable price point - I think it's fair to say that most people spend more than on a daily basis for Starbucks - so I signed up immediately to lock in the introductory price, downloaded the app, and took a look around to see how it compared to Marvel's offering.

The app formats are slightly different, but not in any major way - after all, there are only so many ways to read a comic book on an iPad.  Both companies offer the reader the option of full page or panel-by-panel reading, both have event/storyline reading guides, and so on.  Interestingly, DC's home page defaults to a gallery view of all the available comics, which I found to be a browser's paradise in terms of seeing comics that I had long forgotten and never would have thought to search for.  I'd love it if Marvel took a similar approach, it's just such a great way to find hidden treasures.

As with Marvel , the quality on DC Infinite is excellent, even with old comics like Jack Kirby's original Kamandi series from 1972, the classic Murphy Anderson Superman comics from the 1960s, or Alex Ross' painterly take on Batman.  

Surprisingly, both apps suffer from similar problems in terms of navigating out of comics and managing full page versus panel viewing - perhaps they hired the same programming company.

Regardless of minor navigation issues, I'm very pleased to have added DC Infinite to my subscriptions.  Unlike my mild collector's mania regarding vintage science fiction (Ace Doubles and so on) my interest in comics has always been primarily as a reader, and as such I'm quite happy with virtual access to DC's catalogue of content.

Now I just need someone to digitize all the First! comics from the 80s.  Until then I'll just make sure to take very good care of my Grimjack and American Flagg! comics. Speaking of which, I wonder where that box of comics ended up after the move last year?  Ah well, just another reason for switching to online comics...

- Sid

*Monthly memberships are $9.99.