The Selling of Superman: Correspondence between Jack Liebowitz and Jerry Siegel

I've been doing a deep dive of late into the early days of Superman, researching everything that is known or can be established about the development, purchase and evolution of the Man of Steel across his first decade, when he became virtually immediately a Pop Culture Phenomenon that conquered all forms of mass media simultaneously. … Continue reading The Selling of Superman: Correspondence between Jack Liebowitz and Jerry Siegel →

BHOC: GREEN LANTERN #110

I believe that I picked up this issue of GREEN LANTERN while on a shopping trip one Satuday. That's a pretty good, eye-catching and dramatic cover by artist Mike Grell. Grell had been a semio-regular fixture on GREEN LANTERN ever since the title came back from limbo in 1976, and his Neal Adams-influenced artwork was … Continue reading BHOC: GREEN LANTERN #110 →

WC: DETECTIVE COMICS #349

This was the latest issue of DETECTIVE COMICS that I wound up with in my 1988 Windfall Comics purchase, where I bought a box of close to 150 Silver Age comic books for $50.00. And it represents a bit of a quantum leap forward from the earliest one that was in that purchase, the strongest … Continue reading WC: DETECTIVE COMICS #349 →

FOOM #3, Part Two

Taking a look here at the back half of FOOM #3, the third issue of Marvel's in-house fan club magazine as packaged and produced by Jim Steranko. In the days before formal indexes and Marvel Masterworks volumes and the internet, these Indexes to the major titles were a bit of a godsend for information freaks, … Continue reading FOOM #3, Part Two →

BHOC: SUPERMAN #329

Picked up this latest issue of SUPERMAN during my regular weekly Thursday run to the 7-11 for new comics. It was a book that I'd followed steadily for some time. And yet, this turned out to be the last issue of the book that I bought for a few months. I don't quite recall what … Continue reading BHOC: SUPERMAN #329 →

Lost Crossovers: WOW COMICS #33

It was a relatively rare thing for the characters from one comic book or title to meet characters from another strip during the Golden age of Comics. Outside of the regular gatherings of the Justice Society of America in the pages of ALL-STAR COMICS, most heroes tended to remain in their own little worlds, battling … Continue reading Lost Crossovers: WOW COMICS #33 →

Crisis II – Julie Schwartz’s Idea

As we've been talking about these past couple of weeks, CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, the long-gestating DC 50th Anniversary project designed to streamline and tidy up their universe and their continuity was such an immediate and huge hit that plans were made even before the series had run its course to produce a sequel, a … Continue reading Crisis II – Julie Schwartz’s Idea →

BHOC: SGT FURY #149

For some reason, possibly simple inertia, I had started regularly reading SGT FURY even though I wasn't typically a fan of war comics. That was maybe all right, because SGT FURY was really only a war comic in its trappings, the way HOGAN'S HEROES was about the war. It was really a comedic super hero … Continue reading BHOC: SGT FURY #149 →

WC: ACTION COMICS #316

I feel like I've described the Mort Weisinger-edited Superman family of titles from the early Silver Age so many times by this point that there isn't really any way of doing so again. So take it from me, as silly and ridiculous and even childish as these comics seem, they were by far the best-selling … Continue reading WC: ACTION COMICS #316 →

FOOM #3

FOOM #3 was the third issue of the fan magazine put out by the Marvel fan club of the same name, edited and composed by Jim Steranko and evidencing his design sensibilities. It's a window into the world of the Marvel-that-was, the Marvel of yesteryear. When the venture was started, nobody involved was quite sure … Continue reading FOOM #3 →