In the late 1970s, things were not looking good for the comic book industry in general or for Marvel in particular. As "mom & pop" stores were steadily replaced by large chain outlets such as 7-11, the venues for comic book sales continued to dwindle. Comics were a small-margin business, and even those places that … Continue reading PIZZAZZ #1
I don't usually tend to talk much about the Marvel Studios productions here. And there's a good reason for that: in my position, I'm privy to certain information about these productions ahead of time, and secrecy is always a watchword. So it's best to simply avoid the topic entirely most of the time, so as … Continue reading Fifteen Thoughts About Spider-Man: No Way Home
Here we are with the third and final segment of this behind-the-scenes instructional booklet about making comic books produced by Charlton and sold by direct mail order only (though it was also offered as a subscription premium.) These descriptions of the various types of comic book stories are a bit funny in just how far … Continue reading The Comic Book Guide For The Artist-Writer-Letterer 3
Continuing our review and presentation of the Comic Book Guide For The Artist-Writer-Letterer which was produced by Charlton in 1973 and sold by direct order only (It was also offered as a freebie if you subscribed to any Charlton titles) These days, I would advocate for no more than 25 words per balloon, rather than … Continue reading The Comic Book Guide For The Artist-Writer-Letterer 2
In 1973, there was a growing segment of comic book fandom made up of people who aspired to enter the field themselves. A number had already crossed that threshold in the later 1960s, but the floodgates were thrown open wide in the early 1970s--for all that the field was in pretty bad shape and getting … Continue reading The Comic Book Guide For The Artist-Writer-Letterer
Here is an interesting oddity: a pamphlet created around 1953 extoling the hazards presented to the youth of America by the scourge of comic books. This sort of propaganda added fuel to the fire being espoused by folks like Dr. Frederick Wertham, and led over time to the televised Senate Subcommittee Hearings on Juvenile Delinquency, … Continue reading The Truth About Comic Books
The fortunes of DC Comics were not looking all that encouraging at the start of the 1970s. Comic book sales in general were continuing to erode, as both the number of outlets carrying comic books declined as the traditional Mom & Pop candy stores gave way to larger chains and the affidavit reporting system for … Continue reading Let’s Rap! The 1971 DC Reader Survey
I promised Jerry Ordway that I would do a piece on this particular story, and given that Batman Day was this weekend, it seems like a fitting moment to revisit this story. REAL FACT COMICS was a post-war innovation on the part of DC Comics. It was part of a small but widely-spoken-of effort to … Continue reading REAL FACT COMICS #5 and the True Story of Batman and Robin
Here's another vintage newspaper article on the burgeoning comic book fandom of the 1960s, this one a profile on a young pre-Marvel Roy Thomas. As most know, Roy went on to become one of the most popular and influential writers and editors of the 1960s and beyond--but at the time this piece saw print in … Continue reading A Serious Student of the Comic Books
People seem to have really enjoyed that first column written by Pete Hamill about a comic book collector whose life goes wrong, so I also wanted to share this earlier piece by Hamill, which was dug up by Ken Quattro. This piece saw print a decade earlier, at a time when the Silver Age of … Continue reading Batman Got Busted In Brooklyn
The Tom Brevoort Experience 