Twenty Children’s Shows That Made An Impact On Me

It's another holiday, so it's time for another one of these semi-purposeless lists. When I was growing up back in the 1970s, the options for entertainment were slim for a kid. There were only three main broadcast channels, plus PBS and a couple of syndication stations. Nothing like today, when there are entire stations dedicated … Continue reading Twenty Children’s Shows That Made An Impact On Me →

WC: ACTION COMICS #329

Now this was a cover that promised to live up to the title of the series; ACTION COMICS! Surely if Superman was about to go into a kill-or-be-killed battle to the death bereft of his super-powers and brandishing a sword and shield, the story within was going to be chock full of action, right? Well, … Continue reading WC: ACTION COMICS #329 →

WC: SUPERMAN’S PAL JIMMY OLSEN #77

SUPERMAN'S PAL JIMMY OLSEN is a resolutely strange series, albeit one that was incredibly successful for two decades thanks to the lasting appeal of Superman and the performance of actor Jack Larson as the cub reporter on the syndicated ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN television program. Every young reader of the period knew exactly who Jimmy Olsen … Continue reading WC: SUPERMAN’S PAL JIMMY OLSEN #77 →

The Last Sub-Mariner Story (of the 1950s)

In 1953, after an absence on the newsstands of four years, Martin Goodman resurrected his company's three big successful super hero characters from the 1940s; Captain America, the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner. By all accounts, this decision to bring back these heroes appears to be in response to the strong reaction the new ADVENTURES … Continue reading The Last Sub-Mariner Story (of the 1950s) →

BHOC: SUPERMAN #327

It would have been at about this time that I read the Pete Hamill column in the New York Daily News that is reproduced at the link below, which had a huge impact on me. As I describe in that piece, while Hamill's writing about his friend Casey was intended to underscore the emptiness and … Continue reading BHOC: SUPERMAN #327 →

TV Guide: How They Make Superman Fly

it cannot be overstated how much of an impact the 1950s ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN had in keeping both the character and the entire comic book business alive and vibrant throughout that decade and the next. While the Man of Steel was a red-hot fad at the start of the 1940s when he first burst onto … Continue reading TV Guide: How They Make Superman Fly →

WC: SUPERMAN’S PAL JIMMY OLSEN #36

Here is another issue of SUPERMAN'S PAL JIMMY OLSEN that I got in my Windfall purchase of 1988, when I bought a long box of around 150 silver age comics for $50.00, the best lucky stroke I've ever encountered in terms of collecting vintage comic books. It seems strange to modern sensibilities that a character … Continue reading WC: SUPERMAN’S PAL JIMMY OLSEN #36 →

WC: SUPERMAN’S PAL JIMMY OLSEN #23

This issue of SUPERMAN'S PAL JIMMY OLSEN was I believe the oldest book that I got in my Windfall Comics purchase of about 150 prime Silver Age comic books for $50.00 in 1988. It's really a pre-Silver Age 1950s issue in tone and spirit, and a good example of the kinds of stories the Superman … Continue reading WC: SUPERMAN’S PAL JIMMY OLSEN #23 →

More of the Sales Figures of DC’s Irwin Donenfeld

After the piece we ran a couple of weeks back on former DC publisher Irwin Donenfeld's big book where he would chart the sales figures of the various DC titles on an issue-by-issue basis in an attempt to ascertain what elements might make a given issue of a comic book sell better, a bunch of … Continue reading More of the Sales Figures of DC’s Irwin Donenfeld →

BHOC: ACTION COMICS #484

This issue of ACTION COMICS was heavily advertised in DC house ads in the weeks leading up to its release, and so I was prepared for it to show up on the spinner rack at my local 7-11. And as you'd expect, it was being promoted as the for-real, no-fooling story of Superman marrying Lois … Continue reading BHOC: ACTION COMICS #484 →