Thjs was yet another issue of SGT FURY that I got in the box of around 150 Silver Age comics that I'd purchased from a dude that I met at the Post Office for $50.00 cash money in 1988. While that box was a treasure trove of material, none of the issues in it were … Continue reading WC: SGT FURY #12
Continuing our look at the two-volume X-MEN COMPANION published by Fantagraphics in 1982, just as X-MEN was expanding from being the darling of the Direct Market to a full-on juggernaut across the whole of the industry. Writer and historian Peter Sanderson interviewed pretty much all of the principle writers and artists involved in the creation … Continue reading THE X-MEN COMPANION #1: Len Wein Interview
Eventually, after a week's gap caused by my having bought the new comics for that week while at Heroes World earlier, new comics that I did not already own started turning up at 7-11 again. And so, on my weekly Thursday venture, I bought this issue of PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN. It was a … Continue reading BHOC: PETER PARKER, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #22
It's time once again for another dive into MIGHTY COMICS, Archie's attempt to reverse-engineer the appeal of the Marvel books of the era without understanding them a whit. As before, we're going to be focusing on my favorite of the Mighty creations, the Web. The Web wasn't cast as a Spider-Man knock-off as you might … Continue reading Brand Echh: Mighty Comics #45
Once again, another collection of random old photographs showing either comic books of decades gone by on sale in their native time period or else being read and enjoyed by readers of that era. I know that we occasionally repeat a photograph in this series, an occupational hazard as I'm not keeping all that good … Continue reading Comics in the Wild 16
This issue of SGT FURY was another book that my younger brother Ken purchased for himself on some trip to a local card store or the 7-11 or some such. He had a dalliance with war comics for a few months, and bought a number of random issues along the way. Eventually, all of those … Continue reading BHOC: SGT FURY #148
This issue of JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY was situated right at the transition point between the early Marvel style of storytelling and the more mature and measured approach the firm would take through its glory years. By this point, artist and largely plotter Jack Kirby had received a rate increase that permitted him to slow down … Continue reading WC: JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #115
In 1982, there was simply no hotter book in the Direct Sales marketplace than UNCANNY X-MEN. Riding off of the tremendous success of the Dark Phoenix Saga, the series was rocketed to the absolute pinnacle of the sales charts, at least in comic book specialty shops. X-MEN was super hot, and so the publishers of … Continue reading THE X-MEN COMPANION #1: Roy Thomas Interview
Another new issue that I bought at Heroes World was IRON MAN #114. Not because I was particularly a huge IRON MAN fan, but because I went and bought all of the new books that they had that I didn't yet own before delving into the back issues. In retrospect, that may have been a … Continue reading BHOC: IRON MAN #114
Charlton was pretty much the bottom rung of the comic book business. Yes, they published a lot of material, but it was always on the crappiest paper, and always had the worst distribution. What's more, it only rarely seemed as though anybody cared about what the content of these magazines was. One notable exception was … Continue reading Brand Echh: Thunderbolt #54
The Tom Brevoort Experience 