In the early 1980s, after having spent a couple of years working outside of the field in animation, Jack Kirby was making a bit of a comeback. Pacific Comics, one of the new independent publishers that had begun releasing titles into the emerging Direct sales market of comic book specialty stories had agreed to publish … Continue reading FSC: SILVER STAR #1
A few years back, I wound up on an X-MEN convention panel along with Louise Simonson, and I was able to express just how impossible a bar she'd set for everybody who came after her as an editor on that particular line. In the space of a very short time, she'd finished up the DARK … Continue reading FSC: MARVEL GRAPHIC NOVEL #5
The early 1980s was a wild time to be a comic book reader, in that the establishment of the Direct Sales marketplace as a viable alternative to mainstream Newsstand distribution for comic books opened up the floodgates, with all sort of publishers with big dreams of finding success pouring through. On any given visit to … Continue reading FSC: SPECTRUM COMICS PREVIEWS #1
One of the new mainstay players in the emerging Direct Sales market comprised of comic book specialty stories in the 1980s was First Comics. An outfit out of Chicago, First boasted an initial eclectic line-up but slowly and surely crystalized into a reliable player in the field. Debuting in 1982, among the series First published … Continue reading FSC: E-MAN #2
As the Direct Sales marketplace of comic book specialty shops became a larger and larger part of the marketplace in the 1980s, any number of new young publishers threw their hats into the ring. This led to a bevy of new companies putting forward their own efforts in an attempt to find fame and fortune. … Continue reading FSC: THE CRUSADERS #1
In 1982, the comic book marketplace was expanding. The Direct Sales network of comic book specialty shops had proven itself as a viable alternative to mainstream newsstand distribution, and so suddenly all sort of publishers were jumping into this new market with a variety of releases, some more polished than others. It was an exciting … Continue reading FSC: DREADSTAR #1
In 1982, I was still ordering my comics through the mail order service offered by Geppi's Comic World in Maryland. I didn't yet have a driver's license, and my family's new homestead was in a new development that was too far away from any center of civilization to get to easily by walking or bike-riding. … Continue reading FSC: MARVEL AGE #1
BRAVE AND THE BOLD had almost run its course at the point when this issue first came out. It was something of a holdover of a rapidly-diminishing era, one in which comic books were largely an impulse purchase by entertainment-hungry buyers. In those days, team-up titles typically did well, giving a reader two characters for … Continue reading FSC: BRAVE AND THE BOLD #197
At the beginning of the 1980s, after a number of rough years, DC really began to get its act together and to modernize its approach to doing comic books. The primary instigator of this change was new publisher Jenette Kahn and the vehicle through which it became viable was the emerging Direct Sales marketplace of … Continue reading FSC: OMEGA MEN #1
By 1980, I started to attend comic book conventions in New York City. My father would take myself and occasionally a comic book reading friend or two on the Long Island Railroad into New York City and give us a couple of hours inside one of the cons that were going on there. These were … Continue reading FSC: COMICO PRIMER #1
