Well, I'd known this day was coming for several months now, but it was somehow always a surprise when it happened--typically because I was used to budgeting against a particular amount, and now all of those calculations were in the wind again. This issue of DAREDEVIL was the first book I bought where the cover … Continue reading BHOC: DAREDEVIL #158
We're back for the fourth and final chapter of Blooperman, a story that ran in Charlton's GO-GO for four issues during 1966 at the height of the super hero craze, and which incorporated ideas and characters from comic book fandom, most of which were the innovations of future Marvel superstar Roy Thomas. On this issue's … Continue reading Brand Echh: The Fannish Adventures of Blooperman, Part Four
As I indicated a bunch of entries back, at around this time my younger brother Ken had become passingly interested in CONAN THE BARBARIAN. So he'd bought issue #97 at our local 7-11 and seemed to like it well enough. At some point, on one or another shopping expedition, our family must have ended up … Continue reading BHOC: CONAN THE BARBARIAN #96
THE MAD WORLD OF MARVELDOM was a short fanzine released in October 1967 by Greg Kishel and Fran Shusterich. It isn't especially noteworthy apart from that. But it does give us a sense as to what the fans of Marvel were talking and thinking about during the firm's heyday of the Silver Age.
Wildcat was one of the great second banana super heroes of the Golden Age of Comics--one who has become ostensibly more popular in more recent years than he was when his series was running in the back pages of SENSATION COMICS. Wildcat was champion prize-fighter Ted Grant who was inspired by the example of Green … Continue reading The Last Wildcat Story
As much as you might have thought that it would, the public debut of SUPERMAN THE MOVIE didn't really do much of anything to change the contents or direction of the SUPERMAN comics. Oh, sure, Clark Kent was brought back into the Daily Planet as a reporter (in addition to his job as a WGBS … Continue reading BHOC: SUPERMAN #334
Continuing our look at the obscure 1966 strip Blooperman, which incorporated a number of parody ideas from comics fandom, many of which had been originated by Marvel writer/editor Roy Thomas years earlier. Once again here, the character's designed Jon D'Agostino draws the small vignette of Blooperman on this cover for GO-GO #5. Writer Gary Friedrich … Continue reading Brand Echh: The Fannish Adventures of Blooperman, Part Three
Despite having followed the series for a few issues now, I still wasn't entirely a convert to SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES. For whatever reason, its stories of adventure in the far future with a veritable army of super-powered characters didn't grab me the way that other comics of the time did. In some … Continue reading BHOC: SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #250
So we begin this feature with my favorite comic book super hero, the Scarlet Speedster known as the Flash. Introduced in FLASH COMICS #1 in late 1939, by the second issue Jay Garrick had been relegated to a small cameo image on the left side, the primary cover area given over to the almost-as-popular Hawkman. … Continue reading The Second Flash Story
It often takes a bit of time for characters and series to find their footing. While many have their basic broad strokes premise set out by the end of the first installment, it's beyond that where the series begins to take shape, to become what it will eventually be known for. But this can be … Continue reading The Second Story Introduction
The Tom Brevoort Experience 