In 1988, Eclipse comics was celebrating its ten-year anniversary as a publisher. Founded by Jan and Dean Mullaney, Eclipse was one of the earliest entrants into the nascent Direct Sales marketplace of Comic Book specialty shops. The company was also a proponent of creator-ownership and offered a better publishing arrangement than the mainstream outfits of … Continue reading Brand Echh: TOTAL ECLIPSE #1
It cannot be overstated just how amazing an impact was made by writer Alan Moore on comic books. He came along at exactly the right time, just as the Direct Sales Market was making it possible to do comic book stories with greater sophistication for a somewhat older audience. It was a rare thing for … Continue reading Perfect Game – SUPERMAN #423
Having dedicated themselves to making strides within the new Direct Sales marketplace, an arena in which Marvel had up to this point been overwhelmingly outselling pretty much everybody, DC produced a number of issues of DC SAMPLER, an overview and preview of their line intended to be given out at comic book specialty stores across … Continue reading DC SAMPLER #3
I really liked Marv Wolfman's run writing ACTION COMICS. He was able to find a way to operate within the strictures of editor Julie Schwartz's likes while still bringing the sort of serialized storytelling and characterization that he'd learned over at Marvel to the stories. It probably didn't hurt that Marv and George Perez's NEW … Continue reading GH: ACTION COMICS #543
By 1983, SUPERMAN was feeling a bit like a product of a different age. While some effort was being made to modernize the Man of Steel, including having Gil Kane provide covers as he does here, the actual contents of the magazine were still very much of a piece with the kinds of stories that … Continue reading GH: SUPERMAN #382
The first DC SAMPLER must have proven to be a success, because for the next couple of issues, DC did it again--producing a free comic book-sized magazine promoting all of their upcoming series. You can really see that the switch-over to what DC would become was in full swing by this point, and there's a … Continue reading DC SAMPLER #2
As I got older, my tastes in comics began to change, or at least to grow more expansive. And so I wound up trying titles that might have done nothing for me before, like SAGA OF THE SWAMPO THING, The series was a bit of a hybrid, existing in a world halfway between that of … Continue reading GH: SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING #9
This issue of SUPERMAN was a noteworthy one, containing possibly the most memorable story the Man of Steel's creator Jerry Siegel ever wrote concerning his might-muscled powerhouse of a character. It's definitely well-remembered by those who read it in the era in which it was published. And it was another book that wound up in … Continue reading WC: SUPERMAN #141
This is, I think, one of the most discussed comic book stories of all time, so I don't know that I'm going to have a whole lot that's new to add to the conversation. What I can bring to the table is some personal perspective. I would have been 19 years old in 1986 when … Continue reading Perfect Game – BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, Book One
At the beginning of the Silver Age, super heroes were making a comeback. This trend would blossom into a full-on fad mid-decade thanks to the release of the BATMAN television show--positively everybody went super hero crazy there for a year or so. But even before that, there was a sense throughout the industry that costumed … Continue reading Brand Echh: Space Adventures #33
The Tom Brevoort Experience 