Ssalefish GSO First Look #75 for 9.12.18

MANIFESTED! My life, where fantasy becomes reality, apparently!

After skateboarding and before comics, I spent all of my time playing guitar. I'd come home from school, go straight to my room, and spend all of the time before dinner, and from afterwards until I went to bed, playing back CD's on my stereo and reading off the tablature on Ultimate-Guitar.com to learn all of my favorite pop punk songs. 

With age came more self-consciousness, and even though I had no qualms about blasting my music at my parents' house, or my dorm room, or the basement of the house I rented with five other people, in 2008 when Carly and I moved into our first real apartment, I turned things way down out of consideration for others. Then I moved my amps off-site to a place I could play as loud as I wanted, but I never went out of my way to actually do it. Then we moved into our townhouse, and though the equipment came home again, I was still too nervous about the neighbors complaining and out of practice to pick it up again.

But on a whim I went out and bought a Line 6 Amplifi 150 at Guitar Center a few weeks ago. It's basically a glorified Bluetooth speaker with a 1/4" input. You bypass all of the on-board controls with an app on your phone, and it has built-in tone detection, so it can make you sound just like whatever you're playing along with. Then Tuesday I got the Line 6 FBV Express MKII pedal to go along with it from our neighbors at Music-Go-Round. And finally yesterday I got the Epiphone ES-333, Tom DeLonge of blink-182 and Angels & Airwaves' signature model.

I've always thought Fender Stratocasters were the coolest guitars ever. And as Tom says in the Ernie Ball documentary In Pursuit of Tone, being a guitar player is 93% about looking cool. My first guitar was a bo-bo Strat knockoff lying around in a friend's room, then I got a Squire from Music-Go-Round on High Point Road in 2000 with my first paycheck from Food Lion. The greatest Christmas gift I ever received was my Fender Tom DeLonge signature model in 2002, which my dad even gave to me Christmas Story-style ("Hey, what's that over there?" once all of the other presents had been opened [I only asked for the Squire version, assuming the real deal was too extravagant]). I customized another one into a Steve Klein of New Found Glory (before his legal troubles) signature model when I went to visit my cousin in 2003 as a high school graduation present to myself. I cheated and got a Telecaster Custom II in 2004, but it still has a Seymour Duncan double humbucker configuration, so it still counts to me.

All of that is to say, it's a pretty big deal for me to cross the street. I basically only ever read Marvel, and just picked up my first Batman book. It feels similar, it's still a comic, still 32 pages, reading left to right, top to bottom. But it feels wider, richer, deeper, too. It's cool. It feels like I'm 15 again, alone in my room, figuring things out. Yet this time around, it's from that more positive, exploratory, experimental place that Tom was at when he created To the Stars.

Don't worry, I'm still reading comics. I read 17 of them on Tuesday night.

The following titles are scheduled to ship on Wednesday, September 12th excluding some re-orders and providing nothing changes by the time the final invoice arrives on Monday:

• All-Star Batman TP vol. 3
• Amazing Spider-man #5
• American Gods My Ainsel #6
• Archie 1941 #1
• Batman Knightfull TP vol. 1
• Birthright #31
• BPRD Devil You Know #10
• Catwoman #3
• Cemetery Beach #1
• Champions #24 - a very special issue!
• Charlie's Angels #4
• Criminy TP vol. 1
• Cross Plus 100 Mimic #5
• Crowded #2
• Daredevil #608
• Dejah Thoris #8
• Detective Comics #988
• Doctor Who Road to the 13th Doctor #3
• Domino #6
• Elvira Mistress of the Dark #2
• Exiles #8
• Fantastic Four #2
• Farmhand #3
• Flash #54
• Frozen Breaking Boundaries #2
• G.I. Joe A Real American Hero #256
• Hawkman #4
• Head Lopper #9 - the best paranormal adventure book in comics is BACK for a new story arc kicking off in a heapin'-helpin', quarterly issue!
• Hey Kids Comics #2
• Hot Lunch Special #2
• House of Whispers #1 - playing off of the Vertigo classic House of Secrets and spinning out of Sandman Universe #1
• Hungry Ghosts HC
• Iceman #1
• Infinity Countdown TP
• Infinity Countdown Companion TP
• Infinity Wars #3
• Isle of the Lost Descendants Prequel TP
• Joe Golem #1
• Journey Into Mystery Birth of Krakoa #1 - the stunning origin of the island that ate the original X-Men in Giant-Size #1!
• Justice League TP vol. 7
• Kick-Ass New Girl TP vol. 1
• League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Tempest #2
• Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess TP vol. 4
• Low Road West #1
• Lowlifes #4
• Mage Hero Denied #12
• Marvel Rising Omega #1
• MCMLXXV #1
• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers TP vol. 6
• Moth & Whisper #1
• Ms. Marvel #34
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 #1
• Nameless City TP vol. 3 - the final volume of Faith Erin Hick's epic trilogy from First Second books, this title can normally be found in our all-ages section and is a perfect middle-grade stepping stone for fans of Bone, Avatar The Last Airbender, and Amulet!
• Nancy Drew #4
• New World #3
• Newbury & Hobbes #1
• Nightmare Before Christmas Zero's Journey #3
• Nightwing TP vol. 6
• Ninja-K #11
• Oblivion Song #7
• Oblivion Song TP vol. 1 - just $9.99, the way it used to be!
• Old Man Logan #47
• Peter Parker Spectacular Spider-man #309
• Plastic Man #4
• Rat Queens #11
• Red Hoods & the Outlaws #26
• Ruinworld #3
• Runaways #13
• Sailor Moon Eternal Edition TP vol. 1 - reprinting the classic manga in two-in-one, oversized fashion, like the Dragonball Z three-in-ones.
• Scooby Apocalypse #29
• Seeds #2
• She Could Fly #3
• Sideways #8
• Sleepless #7
• SpongeBob Comics #84
• Star Trek Next Generation Terra Incognita #3
• Star Wars Darth Vader #21
• Star Wars Darth Vader TP vol. 3
• Star Wars Last Jedi Adaptation #6 - final issue!
• Star Wars Thrawn TP
• Suicide Squad #46 - "Atlantis Sinks" part 3!
• Supergirl #22
• Superman #3
• Titans #25
• True Believers Daredevil & the Defenders #1 - reprinting Daredevil #80 by the Scarlet creative team of Brian Bendis & Alex Maleev for $1!
• True Believers Jessica Jones Alias #1 - reprinting Alias #1 by the Pearl creative team of Brian Bendis & Michael Gaydos for $1!.
• True Believers Luke Cage Hero for Hire #1 - reprinting his classic first appearance for $1!
• Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #36
• Venom Adventures TP
• Venom First Host #3
• Venom Planet of the Symbiotes
• Venom Tooth & Claw TP
• Volition #2
• Voltron Legendary Defender #3
• Weapon H #7
• Weatherman #4
• Welcome to Wanderland #1
• Wicked & Divine #39
• Wildstorm Michael Cray #11
• Wonder Woman #54
• World of Tanks Citadel #5
• WWE Takeover Proving Ground #1
• X-23 #4
• X-Men Blue #35
• Zootopia Friends to the Rescue HC