I continued to make MARVEL TALES a regular purchase, it being one of the few remaining reprint titles at this point. My circle of comic book reading friends looked down our noses at reprint books, the understood belief was that they were "worthless" because they wouldn't accrue in value as back issues, something that we … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #105
It cannot be overstated just how amazing an impact was made by writer Alan Moore on comic books. He came along at exactly the right time, just as the Direct Sales Market was making it possible to do comic book stories with greater sophistication for a somewhat older audience. It was a rare thing for … Continue reading Perfect Game – SUPERMAN #423
This issue of INCREDIBLE HULK was another comic book that my household owned two copies of growing up. As had happened in the past, for some reason my younger brother Ken bought himself a copy of this issue at some point after I'd gotten mine. This may have simply been an opportunistic purchase on his … Continue reading BHOC: INCREDIBLE HULK #237
Among the other comic books that I borrowed from my grade school friend Donald Sims in order to read them was WORLD'S FINEST COMICS #200. I was interested in it mostly due to my understanding of how centennial issues were managed: they always contained a seminal story for the series involved, and so they were … Continue reading BC: WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #200
I wasn't used to Marvel titles wrapping up their runs cleanly. In my experience, when a Marvel book would come to an end--such as CHAMPIONS or NOVA--the series would be left in a cliffhanger state with outstanding business left to be wrapped up. That business would generally get tied off in some other Marvel book … Continue reading BHOC: GODZILLA #24
In the early pre-Superman days of comic books, the medium was trying to figure itself out. The young and often ill-trained creators who toiled in the early comic books were mostly talented novices with a desire to tell stories in pictures and put some food on the table. Accordingly, much of the common wisdom of … Continue reading The Second Slam Bradley Story
This was the last regular issue of CONAN THE BARBARIAN that my younger brother Ken bought, his short-term interest in the character waning a bit at this point. I was never either a CONAN fan r regular reader, but I was interested in this double-sized issue #100 simply because it was a centennial issue. Already … Continue reading BHOC: CONAN #100
My grade school friend Donald Sims had inherited a bunch of comic books from some older relative who had tired of them and passed them along. He mostly had a smattering of stuff, but there was one complete run among his possessions. And that was SHAZAM, DC's 1970s revival of the original Captain Marvel, a … Continue reading BC: SHAZAM #1
This next issue of AVENGERS was the first part of a well-remembered storyline--not so much for the plot per se as for the revelations it set up for prominent Avengers Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch about their lineage. It's worth setting the table a little bit, though. When they were introduced, Wanda and Pietro were … Continue reading BHOC: AVENGERS #185
As we recounted in passing last time, the arrival of creator Joe Simon and Jack Kirby to the Sandman strip that had been running in the back pages of ADVENTURE COMICS swiftly turned it into a popular feature once again. The stories were much improved, with a thematic thread of dreams running through them all, … Continue reading The Last Sandman Story
The Tom Brevoort Experience 