We do keep an eye on this old blog space because it was our home for a long time until we morphed into Waypoint Comics 🙂   We hope you’ve been able to come into the shop if you’re from, or visiting , Dunedin.  Make sure you do and say hi!  What are you enjoying at the moment?  There’s a lot of interesting material coming out in comcis.  Movies are still interesting too, this year of course seeing the end of the Star Wars sequel error era 😉  So lots to look forward to as ever!

Have you been over to the new website? http://www.waypointcomics.co.nz and visisted us in store?  We’re open Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays 12.30 pm till 1.30 pm and Saturdays 11.30am till 3.30 pm.

As of this post the June Previews has just come out so its a great time to come in and have  look through it and get your orders sorted for all the releases before and through August.

We now have a physical store for you to visit us.  We’re in the throws of opening, and are just sorting out our new website and some other behinds the scenes necessities, but essentially we are open for business.

One of the largest changes, is the name. While Dunedin Comics still exists, the business is now officially operated under Waypoint Comics – your destination for comics!

The store operates on limited opening hours, but we will have times to suit everyone.  Our twitter feed is also now under Waypoint Comics so if you’ve lost us for any reason on Twitter or Facebook, look out for us under the new name.

But of course you know that following us on Facebook.  Some news coming soon 🙂

So, i ordered in Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle #1 issue that came out late last year from DC and IDW.  It was simply to have a look at it, and in case someone placed a late order for it.  No one did, and it rolled in and finally after  week or so i read it.

One of the quickest reorders I’ve put in for was for B/TMNT #2.  This comic is a hell of a lot of fun.  The story, for what you can do with a cross over, is great, if not that big a surprise (how else would you get some mutant reptiles and 1 sage rodent to Gotham?!)

The series is up to issue #4 of 6 and i’d recommend if you aren’t already, get some orders in for this, it’s a classic Batman book and classic Turtles tale.  Don’t get me wrong, i’m not saying this is going to sit up there with Killing Joke, Dark Knight etc, but it will be one of the strongest Batman crossovers ever played out.

The art is dark and broody as you’d expect but has a bit of a colourful pop to keep it exciting.  In someways, it does remind me of the original Turtle comic art.

It’s not lost that when Batman and Splinter are together, you’re dealing with two smart mutant rodents, one of the ‘flying rodent’ variety, and the other of the ooze!

Look it up, check out some reviews and, if you love either or both of the Turtles and Batman, this is one for your stash.  Goes well with Pizza.  Party on!

 

It’s been too long since we’ve had an update on here (as you know always check our Facebook page which is regularly updated).

2015 has been a good year for Dunedin Comics and comics in general.  In fact, for pop culture it’s a year where many of what we comic fans have cherished for a long time, have gone from strength to strength.

At Bag End Books during the mid 90’s conversations were often of Batman and Lord of the Rings movies and new Star Wars prequels.  But never did we dream of the likes of an Ant-Man movie (nor that it’d be a good movie!) but that’s the brave new world we now are in.  For all it’s ills, the golden era of popular culture becoming truly main-stream continues.  The first of the new Star Wars ‘sequels’ has come out, to largely critical acclaim.  Maybe my thoughts on this event in a separate blog post.  The ‘world’ also now looks for to Batman vs Superman.  We’ll leave that too for another discussion, but perhaps I’ll note here that the latest trailer more concerned me than filled me excitement.  That I find a shame as its been a long time coming – however, let’s give it a chance to arrive.

My thoughts are that among all the Hollywood love that comics are now being given, there is so much good stuff coming out which the main stream public are still oblivious too.  The stigma of comics as a reading medium unfortunately still remains even thought popular comic properties have become chic.  Both DC and Marvel continue to do some great work, Boom!, IDW and Image are also doing some works which will become modern classics in years to come.

So for the incoming 2016, i hope you can find what moves and entertains you, be that just the silver screen interpretations or a mixture of movies, numerous comics related TV series (which deserve a discussion of their own as well) and our ever faithful paper floppies.

It’s going to be another big, fun year – stay around and if we can help plug you into the fun with comic supplies, please let us know 🙂

 

 

It’s been a while since updating on here. Don’t forget, if it every looks a bit quiet on here (i.e. no recent updates, just jump over to our Facebook page (Waypoint Comics) and you’ll find us. Also, email still is a valid way to get hold of us. Comics, toys, books – we can help you with it all!

If someone had said, even just a few years ago, that there would come a Friday where you would start the day watching a trailer for a new Star Wars movie and end that same day watching one for Batman vs Superman well I would have thought…maybe. Well that happened this last Friday. Admittedly, the Batman/Superman was a leaked version but still authentic.

Every decade since 1991, when I reconnected with my love of pop culture, I’ve thought that we are living in more interesting times in respect to the stories that are told. Though during the 1990’s as comic fans we knew there was a lot of junk, there was also gold. That holds true today as many people still seek out those comics that they overlooked or missed having left the hobby, especially from the mid 1990’s on.

Of course, the comic themed movies of the 1990’s are for the most part, forgettable – particularly any of the strict super hero variety. Hollywood and TV networks were well aware of the possibilities of tapping into pop culture genres (games such as Street Fighter, Lois and Clark) but aside from the technology being there, there just wasn’t the right talent to write the scripts and execute the vision to do such properties justice. Tim Burton’s first two Batman movie installments are possibly exceptions to the rule for the late 80’s early 90’s. True, they weren’t to everyone’s taste, but artistically they had a strong signature that rang true for the character of Batman and his world – all without the advantages of CGI. Strong storytelling/craftsmanship examples as exceptions also apply with many sci-fi/fantasy stories of the 1970’s and 80’s (Star Wars, Superman I and II)

Come the 2000’s and we began to see some visages of hope. Smallville was for me, while sometimes clunky and restricted by the network and target audience, a guilty pleasure that I believe helped pave the way for we enjoy today. Superheroes are everywhere, comics more than ever, TV, Movies, games. And they are brilliant and relevant – and perhaps most importantly of all, entertaining. All that was old is new again as retro gaming, toys and comics are as hot as ever, and even tv and you tube shows about people looking for this stuff is in hot demand.

The only downside perhaps is kids growing up today may never have need to imagine what would happen if Batman fought Superman? Sure the comics industry has answered that sort of question a few times but, sadly, not all kids grow up reading comics. But Hollywood looks to more and more fill that gap with stories that, were not that long ago, as unlikely to believe we would see as believing a man could fly.

Previews Oct 2014

The highlight emails are going out. Plenty to choose from. Alan Moore on Crossed, James Robinson on Miracle Man, Robin coming bat, Star Trek/Plant of the Apes Cross Over. Email us now with your orders!

august 14 previews

Yes we’re still busy here at Dunedin Comics. Just now putting out the email for highlights form the August 2014 Previews. If you’re interested in ordering anything, just email us your orders. If you’d like to get on our mailing list, same deal, just drop us a line.

So, for the last few years we’ve be publishing on this blog effectively the same overview that we regularly email out to our customers, that being an overview of comics (and other stuff) that we think looks interesting and may be to them as well. However, it’s time consuming to get that content onto this site.  When we started out it didn’t seem to be, but over time as WordPress has updated (or our software/PC has gotten older) it has become a more protracted and frustrating exercise.  So, for the time being – and to assure you dear reader that we are still here and are still ‘on mission’ – we’ll actually ‘blog’ whatever occurs to us at the time inspiration strikes.  With any luck it will be related to what we do 🙂  nd if you’d like those emailed overviews we do, just drop us a line and we’ll sort you out.

Trolling through the interweb via the power of google, a search of Bag End Books (yes, being nostalgic here) brings up little more than a lot of indexing by various web-crawling software for the store’s old site address and contact details.  The only repository nuggets of meaningful information are a few blog entries mentioning the store (including our fair blog and facebook page).  Other than that, the life and times of Bag End Books is now lost to the ultimately finite collective memories of those folk who used to frequent the store during the 1990’s/early 2000’s.  It strikes me that while this is not uncommon for many stores from that era it is unfortunate that there is not the sort of photo/social footprint of the store that would have existed, had it still been open today, or conversely, had the interweb/related technology existed earlier.  While the original store signage still exists and some of the framed artwork that hung inside the store, little else does.  I have only one(!) photo of the counter and mess that resided behind it (including me).  Other than that, I’m not aware of any other photo records of the store’s interiors.  It wasn’t the flashest of stores by any stretch but it did what it needed to do and I hope that it is largely remembered fondly.

Dunedin Comics would love to hold a similar presence in town today (edit August 2017 – and now we do! 🙂 Waypoint Comics), but the retail seas of today are vastly different to those that the good ship ‘Bag End’ sailed so well in its time.  The short, Dunedin Comics would be at risk trying to operate in a brick and mortar fashion.  The downside is that it is more difficult to create a shared experience without a physical store.  But, it’s people ultimately that make anything work and worthwhile, and i like to think that’s where Dunedin  Comics still works well, caring about peoples interests through regular contact and service .    A lot of satisfaction is taken that the spirit of Bag End has been allowed to live on through Dunedin Comics thanks to a loyal base of customers.   Do you have any emotive connection to stores from your past when you were young/a student/any other significant time in your life?  I’d love to hear from you if you do, in particular if you were a customer at Bag End and would love to recount what the store meant to you, what you used to enjoy collecting and, if by chance, you even have some photos of the store inside or out.

That’s enough rambling of yesteryear.  For now, some new upcoming previews emails for July’s comic releases need to be started.   And our view remains unchanged, this is still the best time to be a fan of all things comic books – the comic book industry is arguably a significant contributor, and lifeline, to much of the world’s entertainment industries.  So help support it and give a comic (or three)  a good home today by subscribing via Dunedin Comics.  You’ll be glad you did 😉