Wednesday Warrior or Trade Waiter? What Say Ye?
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It's a milestone week here in Dope Land. I woke up to two bits of exciting news on Tuesday. First, our audience grew to 18,000 subscribers on YouTube! I've set a goal in my head to reach 20k by November. But the truth is, the number only matters to me as much as I'm bringing joy to the person on the other end of it. That any singular person chooses to spend time listening to what I have to say about an artist's words and pictures will always be mind blowing to me. That makes the next announcement even sweeter... The 2025 HeroesCon schedule is finally out, and I'm hosting my first panel! On Saturday at 4:30pm, I'll be teaming up with my good friend Badr of The Short Box: A Comic Book Talk Show for a live podcast taping! We'll be yapping about the best comics of the year so far, and bringing out a few surprise guests (rolodex, don't fail me now)! On The Channel I'm sticking to my word and doing my best to upload more frequent videos on the channel. In case you missed it, check out last week's premiere of The Review Desk -- where I shared my thoughts on Marvel's latest summer debuts, plus more than a little analysis of Priest & Quesada's Marvel Knights: The World to Come. [Spoilers: the debut of T'Charlie caused a stir, but this comic fan ain't worried a bit.] I can't promise The Review Desk will be a weekly series. But I at least want to do one installment per month, aligned with some of the most talked-about comic releases. If haul videos are more your speed, you can check out everything I added to the collection in May here. On The Podcast Thanks to my busy schedule, the Podcast has become video only in the past several weeks. I'm working to get the audio published to the feed for you daily commuters. In the meantime, please check out the latest episode featuring Chris O'Hara of Bentbox Comics. His campaign for Refuge #1 is still ongoing, and we need every supporter we can to make it happen. The Last Word This week, I've been bugged by the age old debate. Should I keep buying series monthly, or drop them and wait for the trades? My budget can only handle so many comics. And my schedule can handle even fewer. But now more than ever, it seems impossible to narrow down the books on the list. Everything I read is good. Some things I read are GREAT. And there are several titles I haven't gotten around to, that others tell me are great. All of Ghost Machine's output for example. Every time I decide to trade wait, it seems to end poorly. I'm still waiting for Dynamite to collect Space Ghost and Jonny Quest. X-Force got canceled after 10 issues. The sob stories go on and on. So I'll leave that last word with you:
Vote wisely, but with confidence! Read Something Dope Today, BJ KICKS |
Comics Are Dope
Celebrating everything Dope about comics. Curated by BJ KICKS.
This week, we crossed the 20,000 subscriber mark on the Comics Are Dope YouTube channel. As I said on Threads, I don't think I've met 20 thousand people over my lifetime. The idea of that many people clicking the subscribe button after seeing me talk about fictional heroes in capes and tights is crazy to me. While I think every YouTuber (including me) dreams at least a tiny bit about having one of those 100,000 subscriber plaques; every subscriber on this journey feels like a gift I couldn't...
One of my heroes is the late Congressman John Lewis. As one of the co-founders of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, he was on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement at an age when most kids are trying to decide which super easy elective they're going to take to boost their Freshman GPA. He often talked about the days of sit-ins and marches, recalling all his arrests during those demonstrations as getting into "Good trouble. Necessary trouble." Car trouble is neither of...
Today, I'm mustering up the courage to do something I never thought I would. For the last few weeks, I've been promising some ambitious videos. A deep dive into the Ultimate Universe. Power Rankings for all the digital comics subscription services. A long-awaited Q&A video fielded from subscibers on social media. Then comes a bunch of silence and missed deadlines. What you don't see between uploads are all the struggles of trying to make things happen. For example, last week's Graphic Novels...