This is the fourth and final installment of the final Fantastic Four story that Italian creator Leonardo Ortolani produced for the tenth issue of the Italian fanzine MADE IN USA in 1994. It was set immediately after the final FF story produced by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and was intended as a climactic finale … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: The Last Fantastic Four Story, Part Four
This is the third installment of Italian creator Leonardo Ortolani's fan-created wrap-up of the FANTASTIC FOUR mythos created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. This chapter was published in the fanzine MADE IN USA #9 in 1993. We're getting to the meat of Leo's Alan Moore-style reinterpretation of the events of the series here. As … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: The Last Fantastic Four Story, Part Three
This is the second installment of Italian creator Leonardo Ortolani's four-part fan-drawn final adventure of the Lee and Kirby Fantastic Four. It was originally published in the fanzine MADE IN USA #8 in Italy in 1993, and hasn't ever been made available in English as it was an unlicensed production. While the first episode was … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: The Last Fantastic Four Story, Part Two
This is a bit of a forgotten masterpiece, both because it saw limited distribution, and because it was published in a non-English speaking country. Between 1992 and 1994, in the pages of the Italian fanzine MADE IN USA, devoted to American comics, cartoonist Leonardo Ortolani (often better known by his simple signature, Leo) was such … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: The Last Fantastic Four Story, Part One
EC Comics were never the biggest sellers even during their heyday, but they were consistently the market leader in terms of the quality of the material they were routinely putting out and the manner in which they attracted a dedicated audience of somewhat-older readers. There's a reason why those five years' worth of EC Comics … Continue reading THE LAST MAN
The closest contender to Supersnipe for self-reflective comic book series of the Golden Age of Comics was the "Comics" McCormick feature, which ran for about half-a-dozen issues of TERRIFIC COMICS ("Loaded with Action!") beginning in 1944. "Comics" McCormick was the brainchild of Ed Wheelan, a former newspaper strip artist who had originated the Minute Movies … Continue reading Introducing “Comics” McCormick
Among the mostly-forgotten series of the Golden Age of Comics, there are a few which self-reflexively turned their gaze on the comic book industry itself, and what effect it might be having on its youthful readers. Perhaps the best-remembered of these was Supersnipe, a character who made his debut in Volume 2 #3 of Street … Continue reading Introducing Supersnipe
I watched the Hulu documentary BATMAN AND BILL the other night, about the struggle to get credit for Batman's co-creator Bill Finger, and it put me in the mind of this story which saw print in AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS #10, an issue of DC's house-produced fanzine. I have a really strange love/hate relationship … Continue reading The Cruelty of Through The Wringer
This is going to be kind of a weird one. The upcoming SHAZAM movie looks like a lot of fun, and I'll no doubt be there on opening weekend to watch it. But it does complete the character's transformation from his original conception as Captain Marvel into something else. Based on everything we've seen so … Continue reading SHAZAM! Captain Marvel and Billy Batson
The Tom Brevoort Experience 