Dear Lazyweb,

What's a good online comic book store where I can set up subscriptions to the monthly titles I'm interested in, and have them just show up at my door with minimal hassle?

This is the kind of question that always brings out the Retard Parade, so let me try and head you off by saying ahead of time that: 1) I'm not interested in what you think of your local comic shop; 2) I'm not interested in what you think of my local comic shops; 3) no, the answer is not Amazon or eBay.

And now here's a story about how completely FUBAR Silver Bullet Comics is:

I had been using them for a couple of years, with moderate satisfaction. Their notion of "subscription" is somewhat dubious, in that before anything ships, I have to go do a bunch of clickery-pokery on their web site and re-enter my CC number every time, but mostly, they held on to the things I wanted and said things eventually showed up in my mailbox.

Until a few months ago. The last time they actually shipped me anything was in mid-April. I placed two orders in May, both of which I was charged for, and neither of which showed up. They completely stopped answering their email at that point. I finally spotted their "web forum" and tried asking there. "I'll look into that" came the reply. A few weeks later, I tried again. "I'll look into that". Weeks go by with no reply again.

Then, apparently, their store was hit by lightning.

This did not speed matters up. I guess they fucked up God's order too.

Finally, last week, they claimed my orders had vanished maybe due to "database corruption" and that they'd fix them manually right now, sorry.

So today two Express Mail envelopes arrived.

One contained my May 10th order. Great.

The other contained a piece of cardboard; a packing slip for my May 31st order; and no comic books at all. That's right, they just mailed me an empty envelope.

They win at teh ecommerces.

Update, Jul 16: Silver Bullet re-shipped that second order, with comics in it this time, so yay. But still, I'm gonna give scifigenre.com a try for a while, since of the suggestions below, they seem to have the least-bad web site.

tritone wrote:

A live-action version of a month's worth of Mary Worth strips, shot using the actual "camera angles" of the original strips. (If you want to subject yourself to the rest of the episodes, they're here. For some reason I had to watch all of them.)

Maybe this would make more sense if I had ever seen this strip, but jesus fuck is this shit weird...

HBO is developing a one-hour series based on the popular 1990s Vertigo comic series Preacher. Mark Steven Johnson, who directed the comic-book adaptations Daredevil and the upcoming Ghost Rider for the big screen, is writing the pilot. Howard Deutch (The Whole Ten Yards) is set to direct.

SuperBecca: "Oew. Mah powers. Oew."

Ghost Rider teaser trailer. This is going to be bigger than Catwoman, I can feel it.

The only good thing about Ghost Rider is the awesome lyrics to the Rollins Band song on the Crow soundtrack:

Ghost Rider motor cycle hero
Ghost Rider motor cycle hero
Baby, baby, baby, baby, he's a blazin' away
Like the stars, stars, stars in the universe, yeah!
Baby, baby, baby, baby, he's lookin' so cute, yeah!
ridin' around in a blue jump suit, yeah!
Baby, baby, baby, baby, he's screamin' the truth!
America is killin' its youth!
cause he is cryin', dyin', chokin', drownin'
Going to jail, going to jail, going to jail
I see him dyin'! Dyin'!! Ohhhhhhh
He's ridin' through town with his head on fire
He's ridin' through town with his head on fire!!
head on burnin' eyes all tired
head on burnin' eyes all tired
Ghost Rider
Ghost Rider!!
keep ridin'
never stop ridin'
don't forget to burn, don't forget to burn
burn....with fire!! with fire, fire, fire, fire, fire!
with fire!!!

That just about covers it right there.

A bullet dodged: "Plug Pulled On Watchmen Movie"
One still in the chamber: "Lohan Denies Barbarella Rumor"

I am drowning in awesome!

theferrett reports: "Yes, that's correct; he has the theory that dinosaurs, enraged by fallen angels, attacked Noah's Ark as the flood began in a no-holds battle to the finish."

Lying in the Gutters:

Earlier in the year, Moore received a call from "V For Vendetta" writer/producer and "Matrix" director Larry Wachowski, but told him politely, "I didn't want anything to do with films and had no time this year, being in the middle of work, my day job, writing, I wasn't interested in Hollywood."

Shortly afterwards, Alan Moore was made aware of a press release sent out covering a press conference producer Joel Silver and the cast had held. Joel Silver said of Alan, "he was very excited about what Larry had to say and Larry sent the script, so we hope to see him sometime before we're in the UK."

Alan instructed DC/Warner Brothers to issue a retraction against these "blatant lies - that's the phrase I'm groping for."

Most surprising detail: Moore's royalty cut for the movie rights (which he gave to the artist, after having his name taken off the film) was only $8k!

Speaking of Moore, has he been up to good stuff lately? I haven't heard about much. The most recent things I've read by him were the first trade paperback of "Promethea" and the first couple issues of "From Hell". Promethea did nothing for me, really (the art wasn't bad, but I felt like I'd read it all before.) I couldn't get into "From Hell" because I really didn't like Eddie Cambell's art. I enjoyed his "Bacchus", but something about the art in "From Hell" just didn't do it for me. (Call me a philistine, but it's rare that a black-and-white comic will grab me. I usually find them hard to read.)

Raising Nancies

Oh my god, this may be the most perfect movie ever made.

Chrome Fetus:

"Hail Jeffrey" is cool, and "Cochlea & Eustachia" is total awesomeness.

If you are not a fan of the comic book, Constantine might be enjoyable. It's not a very good movie, but it's not terrible for what it is. But they completely, utterly failed to capture the character.

The comic book Constantine is a con man. That's it, that is his one purpose in life. He knows a tiny bit of magic, and convinces everyone he knows more than he does, but fundamentally, he's a grifter and a self-centered bastard.

The movie Constantine is a freelance exorcist, spending his time pulling devils out of little girls in an attempt to attone for his own attempted suicide and earn his way into heaven. Um, what? Who's this guy? I guess he saves the world or something. By the time it happened, I didn't care.

Tilda Swinton is absolutely fantastic as Gabriel, and the guy who plays Satan is pretty good. Everybody else phones it in.

The broken-skull demons were totally uninspired and boring. They were less scary than nippless harpies.

And I cannot believe we were expected to take it seriously when he was attacked by Oogie Boogie from Nightmare Before Christmas.