Joe Simon was the editor of SICK magazine, one of the assorted knock-offs of the extremely popular MAD that crowded the newsstands in the late 1950s and 1960s. Simon had largely moved away from his involvement in the comic book field, though around the time this issue was being worked on, he had been drafted … Continue reading Brand Echh – Sick #42
Starting in the late 1960s, DC maintained a whole line of "mystery" title, the inspiration of editor Joe Orlando, who saw an opportunity in the marketplace for books that would approximate the thrills of the long-dead EC line and their brethren. Individually, any of the issues within this line would be hit-or-miss, depending on which … Continue reading Great Covers – HOUSE OF SECRETS #91
A post from my now-vanished Marvel blog concerning my history with Doctor Who. The Doctor is In April 28, 2007 | 1:00 AM | By Tom_Brevoort | In General I'm a big fan of the British series Doctor Who. The old show, the new show. I've been watching it since the very early '80s, and … Continue reading Blah Blah Blog – The Doctor Is In
Here's another book that came into my hands through parlay with my grade school friend Donald Sims. And boy, you can't imagine a cover on a comic today having such an overt plug for a film not connected in any way with the publisher. But in the 1970s, it was fine, all part of the … Continue reading BHOC: PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #2
We've talked about Quicksilver in the past, and how this perennial back-page filler for Quality Comics' NATIONAL COMICS was brought back decades later by writer Mark Waid in the pages of FLASH and transformed into a virtually new character, Max Mercury. Quicksilver had never been a headliner, but he was a reliable supporting player, and … Continue reading The Last Quicksilver Story
The fannish desire for a unified field theory of fictional comic book universes is strong, and a fun game to play--especially when considering meetings between characters at rival publishing houses, characters who in all likelihood will never get to interact on the page (or at least not in the way the fans might desire.) Some … Continue reading 5BC: Five More Times Marvel Referenced DC Characters In Interesting Ways
A post from my Marvel blog of the past talking about the rise of online interaction with the fans. Online April 28, 2007 | 1:00 AM | By Tom_Brevoort | In General Everybody in this industry has a real love-hate relationship with the Internet. You wouldn't believe how often we all tell one another to … Continue reading Blah Blah Blog – Online
Here is yet another comic that I got in trade with my boyhood pal Donald Sims, a reprint of one of the best issues of the period. And the thing that made it one of the best issues was the inking of John Romita. This was John's first assignment back at Marvel--he had told editor … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TRIPLE ACTION #17
As the Direct Market opened up at the beginning of the 1980s, a deluge of new publishers rushed in to ply their wares before this new dedicated comics-dedicated audience. One of the earliest companies in this period was Eclipse, founded by brothers Jan and Dean Mullaney. They had started out as publishers by printing Don … Continue reading Brand Echh: Eclipse Magazine #7
I thought that I'd gotten them all, but it turns out that there was one last straggler instance of an unscheduled reprint being run in the place of an intended new story in a regular Marvel title due to unforeseen delays. I missed it because it didn't happen in a color comic, but rather in … Continue reading An Addition to the Guide to Marvel’s Unannounced Reprint Issues
The Tom Brevoort Experience 