In 1982, there was no comic book that I thought more highly of than NEW TEEN TITANS. It was a perfect synthesis of all of the elements that I liked in both the Marvel and DC titles of the day, a time when the two had very different flavors. But NEW TEEN TITANS bridged that … Continue reading FSC: NEW TEEN TITANS ANNUAL #1
In the fall of 1975, SHAZAM continued to limp along. The once-promising launch of one of the greatest and best-remembered comic book characters of the Golden Age had been reduced to being a quarterly reprint title, kept alive only due to the success of the similarly-named Saturday Morning live action television program. This was something … Continue reading BC: SHAZAM #22
It was at this point that I graduated from sixth grade and from grade school entirely. This was considered a bit of a momentous occasion, and so I wound up getting gifts from many of my relatives--gifts that mostly amounted to cash. I wound up with over $100.00 in my pocket, more money than I … Continue reading BHOC: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #8
Another benefit to my new comic-buying locale, the Stationery Store in the new supermarket mall, was that it also carried all of the limited series that started to appear at this time. Inspired by the television success of projects such as ROOTS, which aired for a limited span of time and was promoted as a … Continue reading BHOC: WORLD OF KRYPTON #3
A year or two ago, I was on a convention panel where I was able to tell former X-MEN editor Louise Simonson just how much she'd screwed all of those X-MEN editors who came after her with her performance in that role in 1982. An incredible number of high-quality releases came out of the X-Men … Continue reading FSC: MARVEL AND DC PRESENT THE UNCANNY X-MEN AND THE NEW TEEN TITANS #1
As I've mentioned before, my friend David Steckel, whom I'd met through the Sachem School District's gifted student program, was a much a fan of the Fantastic Four as I was. What's more, he had inherited a bunch of comics from an older relative who had outgrown them, so he had an assortment of older … Continue reading BC: FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #10
One of the other benefits of my new Stationery Store comic book purchasing location was the fact that I could reliably get comics that I'd only been able to follow ad hoc up to that point. I'd been a mostly regular reader of SUPERMAN FAMILY for some time, but I'm not quite sure how, as … Continue reading BHOC: SUPERMAN FAMILY #197
One of the benefits that came with my new Stationery Store outlet that stocked a wider variety of comic books than the town 7-11 did was exposure to a broad range of material. The 7-11 had stopped carrying any oversized comics (which is how I had missed FANTASTIC FOUR #200 some months earlier) including all … Continue reading BHOC: DC SPECIAL SERIES #17
I'm not certain after all these years where I might have read about it, but by 1982 I was more plugged into comic book fandom than I had been and was reading the occasional fanzine and promotional magazine. It might even have ben spotlighted in Dick Giordano's editorial Meanwhile column. Wherever I saw the notice, … Continue reading FSC: BATMAN ANNUAL #8
And finally we arrive at the nadir of the SHAZAM run that I was experiencing all at once thanks to it having been loaned to me by my grade school buddy Donald Sims. Sales on the series had clearly been poor, and yet the character was starring in a successful Saturday morning live action series. … Continue reading BC: SHAZAM #21
The Tom Brevoort Experience 