OPEN SEASON #3 February, 1987 I’d liked OPEN SEASON from the start, but this third issue was really where it started to fulfill its potential. Another character comedy, this one set in California, OPEN SEASON ultimately had a sensitive heart at its core. Cartoonist Jim Bricker offered to reply to anybody who sent him a … Continue reading BHOCOS: OPEN SEASON #3
Watchmen #1 - September, 1986 Little need be said about WATCHMEN, probably the best-regarded super hero story of them all. But the one point that I do want to make is that, while I’m happy that it’s been kept in print in collected form all these years, it really reads better in serial form. That … Continue reading BHOCOS: WATCHMEN #1
BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS #1 1986 I was never much of a Batman fan–popular theory has it that children either love Superman or Batman, depending on their particular psyche, and I was clearly in the Superman camp. I’d read some decent Batman stories over the years, but nothing that really enamored me of the … Continue reading BHOCOS: BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS #1
‘MAZING MAN #1 January, 1986 Forget WATCHMEN. Forget BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. The real DC publishing find of 1986 was 'MAZING MAN. Written by “Answer Man’ Bob Rozakis and drawn in a marvelously- developing style by Stephen DeStefano, 'MAZING MAN was a slice-of-life series about a bunch of New Yorkers, among them a good-natured … Continue reading BHOCOS: ‘MAZING MAN #1
POWER PLAYS #1 Summer, 1985 Somewhat ahead of its time, POWER PLAYS postulated a world in which random people start suddenly developing super-powers. Not really a traditional super hero book, the lead characters were all part of an encounter group designed to help them come to terms with their new abilities. The source of the … Continue reading BHOCOS: POWER PLAYS #1
CEREBUS #77 August, 1985 If there’s a worse place to having started reading CEREBUS, I don’t know about it. I seemed to have this sort of luck a lot, but managed to persevere through it to the good stuff beyond. CEREBUS, for those who don’t know, chronicles the adventures of a sword-wielding barbarian “Earth-Pig” in … Continue reading BHOCOS: CEREBUS #77
THE ENFORCERS #2 1978 I had first encountered the work of Larry Houston in CHARLTON BULLSEYE #4, where he’d both written and drawn the adventures of the Vanguards, a trio of intergalactic heroines. So I was quite delighted when I happened across two issues of his earlier ENFORCERS in the back-issue bins of Xanadu Comics … Continue reading BHOCOS: THE ENFORCERS #2
THIMBLE THEATER FEATURING POPEYE 1928-1938 THIMBLE THEATER featuring cartoonist E.C. Segar’s initial version of Popeye remains my favorite newspaper comic strip of all. Like most post-Television era kids, I grew up with the Popeye cartoons that ran in the afternoon–both those that had originally been produced for theatrical airings, and the later batch made especially … Continue reading BHOCOS: THIMBLE THEATER FEATURING POPEYE
THE DESTROYER Series begins June 1971 I’ve written previously about my general dislike for prose treatments of super heroic characters, feeling that they often fail to make up in content what they lose in visual appeal. But there are a few exceptions, though almost all of them work because they were designed as prose in … Continue reading BHOCOS: THE DESTROYER
It was because of Fandom that I got married. Well, not comics fandom, but that’s beside the point, really, since all fandom is pretty much alike. By the early 1980s, as is typical for kids of a certain age, I was beginning to drift away from comics a little bit. I never quite stopped reading … Continue reading Introduction to COMIC BOOK FANTHROPOLOGY, 2011
The Tom Brevoort Experience 