It’s a slippery slope you’re on: I started out buying trade paperbacks, then I decided I just couldn’t wait another six months for a compilation of a series and before I knew it I was checking the release schedules every week.

I have four sources I check to see what’s coming out.

First, there’s the weekly list of shipping comics from Diamond Comics: it’s a simple plain text list updated every week, with titles sorted by publisher. It’s primarily intended for US customers, but as UK stores consistently get their deliveries one day after American stores it works nicely for me. I don’t know how useful it’d be with respect to Australian stores, but I’d imagine that your local store would know. The major disadvantage of the Diamond list is that it doesn’t tell you anything about the releases beyond the title and publisher, so it’s not going to alert you to a new title by a favourite author.

Second, I use the Forbidden Planet web site. This is the site the biggest UK chain and pulls together the weekly releases from all the major publishers, so it serves as a handy one-stop shop. FP don’t operate in Australia, but a bit of googling reveals Kings Comics, which looks to be a similar type of site.

Third, I keep an eye on the web sites of Marvel, DC and a couple of the other imprints. The blurbs for the issues are the same as those that FP use, but there tends to be more information about release dates beyond the next fortnight.

All those are fine if you know what products you’re looking for. If you want tips and comments about what’s out there, you can’t beat finding a couple of comics weblogs that are on your wavelength. I’ve come across all sorts of worthwhile material that way.

Have fun with Buffy. I’m probably not going to get a chance to get to a comics store tomorrow, so I’ll have to wait until the weekend before I get to see if season 8 is as much fun as I hope it’s going to be.

Wait, schmait. I just picked it up at a different store.