Charts – 23 December 2012
Merry Christmas! Yes, this is the Christmas chart, and you know what that means – everybody in their right mind runs a mile, leaving us with a two horse race between a charity record and a bloke who won X Factor but told everyone they should buy the charity record. (Despite which, he was still ahead on iTunes for some of the week – so it wasn’t a complete thumping.)
But further down the chart, it’s a bit of a wasteland, truth be told. Quite simply, releasing a record in the week before Christmas is almost entirely the province of charity records, novelty acts, and lunatics, giving us one of the stranger charts of the year. All part of the glorious tapestry, though.
36. Chris Rea – “Driving Home for Christmas”
35. Wham! – “Last Christmas”
Two belated re-entries from the Christmas back catalogue. “Driving Home for Christmas” was the lead track from an EP that Chris Rea released in 1988, but didn’t make the top 40 until the download era, when it achieved the dizzy heights of 33. Even so, it keeps coming back (perhaps because a lot of people genuinely don’t own it). “Last Christmas” spent five frustrating weeks at number 2 in Christmas 1984, stuck behind Band Aid.
The X-Axis – 23 December 2012
It’s the week before Christmas, and the scheduling bunnies are on acid. Perhaps it’s a rush to get all this month’s remaining books out before the holiday season hits, but the result is a full-on deluge of X-books if ever there was one – ten books in a single week, surely more than anyone could actually want.
A+X #3 – The stories in this anthology title have generally been pretty decent so far, but I still struggle to believe that it’s a format that will sustain sales once readers and retailers figure out what it actually contains. If it does, so much the better – that would imply that it’s selling on entertainment value (of which it has some) rather than significance to continuity (of which it has virtually zero), and that would be no bad thing.
The Homies 2012
As we’re about to hit the end of the year, we’re thinking about our next episode, which will be our end-of-year wrap-up. As part of this, we’re going to be inaugurating House to Astonish’s own awards – the Homies – where we’re going to hand out gongs in eight categories. The best part is, we want YOU to help – Paul and I are each going to select our winners in the following categories, but we’re also going to read out what our listeners think on the next episode. So check out the categories below, and let us know who or what you’d award each glittering prize to if you were us!
BEST NEW SERIES
This one’s pretty self-explanatory – any comic whose first issue was published between 1 January 2012 and the date of broadcast (likely to be the 29th or 30th of December) is eligible. What new series got your attention the most this year?
BEST ACTUALLY NEW SERIES
This one’s a little less self-explanatory – what series, again first published between 1 January and date of broadcast, did you think was best, with the proviso that it has to be something where the property wasn’t in existence prior to the start of 2012. We’re counting re-use of titles as well as concepts, so Prophet, X-Men Legacy or Dial H wouldn’t be eligible, but (for example) Saga would.
MOST WANTED
This is for the comic, series or graphic novel that saw print this year which you’d want to see more of, whether that be a book that was cancelled before its time, a one-shot or mini that just begs for a follow-up, or an OGN that you’d love to see a sequel to.
MOST PLEASANT SURPRISE
It may have seemed unappealing when you read about it online, and those preview pages may have looked unremarkable, but when you finally got the winner of this category in your hands you were ready to eat your words. What comic, series or graphic novel did you find yourself enjoying much more than you thought you would?
STIFF DRINK AWARD
This award will go to the comic or graphic novel that most made us gasp with surprise – an unexpected plot twist, a daring cliffhanger or a shocking denouement will stand a book in good stead here.
THE JOE CHILL AWARD FOR SERVICES TO REFRIGERATORS
Here we’re looking for the most egregious example of bad gender relations in the comics world, whether that’s a disservice done to female characters or to a female creator(s) or participant(s) in comics fandom.
THE NEW COKE AWARD FOR MOST ILL-JUDGED MARKETING
What move did a comics company or creator make this calendar year that had the effect of most making you want not to read a particular book or buy a particular company’s comics? We’re looking for abrasive interviews, ridiculous variants and counterproductive advertising here.
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT
This is exactly what it says – which creator, creative team or publisher really knocked it out of the park this year?
Let us have your picks in the comments thread below, along with your thinking on each one – we’ll read out a range of the responses on our big end-of-year show. Happy nominating!
Charts – 16 December 2012
It’s the release week of the X Factor winner’s single! Will it make number one? Yes. Of course it will. Ooh, the tension.
This peaked at number 10 a few weeks back before plummetting out of the chart in the band’s traditional fashion, but it rebounds now thanks to an ITV special.
36. Ellie Goulding – “Anything Could Happen”
Rebounding after it dropped out of the top 40 last week.
35. Emeli Sande – “Clown”
This is Emeli Sande’s next single, which technically doesn’t come out until 23 December, but since it’s already available as an album track, it doesn’t matter. She performed it on the X Factor final, which is why the pre-release promotion has now gone far enough to get her into the top 40 – though it was much higher up in the midweeks, so this is very much a post-TV surge.
The X-Axis – 16 December 2012
And so on to this week’s reviews, plus some hanging around from the week before. You’ll forgive me if I take some of these quickly, it’s been a busy day…
Age of Apocalypse #10 – Age of Apocalypse sells abysmally, so even though it’s heading towards a crossover with the similarly audience-bereft X-Treme X-Men and the somewhat healthier Astonishing, it comes as no real surprise to see the book suddenly racing towards the conclusion. It doesn’t take a genius to read between the lines when Prophet takes the opportunity to explain that he really wanted to train Jean Grey as his successor but “We’ve run out of time.” No kidding you have.
TLC 2012
Late in the day (for me, at least), but let’s quickly run down tonight’s PPV before I turn to the comics reviews. After all, this one’s a bit more time-critical.
TLC, the final PPV of the year, is a themed show and a hangover from the days of a decade past when wrestling was significantly more reckless in terms of the level of damage people were willing to expose themselves to in the name of entertainment. It stands for “Tables, Ladders and Chairs”, a gimmick match that made a bit more sense in its original context, as part of a three-way feud between the Dudley Boys, the Hardy Boys and Edge & Christian (who were, at that point, associated with tables, ladders and chairs respectively).
Nowadays, it’s just a particularly chaotic version of the ladder match that gets brought out once a year, with the undercard traditionally including one regular ladder match, one tables match (in which you win by, er, throwing your opponent through a plywood table – again, it made sense as part of the Dudleys’ gimmick), and one chairs match (which is just stupid, but they needed to invent such a thing to fit the theme of the show).
House to Astonish Episode 96
After far too long away, we’re back with a solid hour and a half of jabbering about Karen Berger and Gail Simone’s departures from DC (and what this means for the Vertigo imprint and the company as a whole), the November sales figures, the cancellation of Creator-Owned Heroes and Marvel and DC’s March solicitations. We’ve also got reviews of Hellboy In Hell, Blackacre and Avengers, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe cracks open a cold one. All this plus Cherry Wolverine, Fairtrade comics and the action escapades of a man called Boise.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
Charts – 9 December 2012
Well, hmm, yes.
There was meant to be a podcast up this weekend, but as Al explains elsewhere, it’s apparently completely inaudible, so we’ll be doing another one… ooh, probably midweek, the way things are looking. And since I’ve been working this weekend and haven’t received some of last week’s books either, the reviews are going to slip too.
Fortunately, though, the great thing about the midweek chart is that it lets you write a big chunk of these chart posts in advance, so let’s do this instead. We’re still in the quiet period pre-Christmas, when the regular release schedule is winding down and the seasonal releases aren’t out yet. That means a dearth of activity at the top end of the chart, some oddities floating around the lower end, and a bit of a disaster for the career of Tulisa Contostavlos.
39. Burns – “Lies”
Before we get to the oddities, an ordinary record pops its head around the door.
Even Further Housekeeping
Folks, we’re really sorry, but the episode of HtA which we recorded yesterday is a complete audio disaster. We’re going to have to re-record the entire episode, which means it won’t be until next week some time. We’ll keep you up to date with when we’re going to be going live.
Further Housekeeping
Paul and I are both seriously snowed under with work at the moment, to the extent that it’s been close to impossible for us to coordinate a time to record, hence our silence this week – our best guess is that we’ll be recording on Friday evening UK time, but it could be as late as Sunday. Bear with us; we’ll be back with you as soon as we can.
