It's somewhat difficult to believe today, but comedian and movie star Jerry Lewis headlined his own DC comic book for about twenty years, the first half-dozen in conjunction with his then-partner, Dean Martin. Amazingly, more copies of Jerry Lewis were being sold and consumed than of the Atom or Hawkman or the Doom Patrol, all … Continue reading Lost Crossovers: Jerry Lewis Meets Batman and Robin
I've spoken before about my snobbishness when it came to comic books that didn't feature super heroes. As a young reader, my tastes were extremely narrow. I was in the game for super hero stories--not for westerns, or war stories, or suspense tales, or science fiction, or barbarian adventures or romance comics or monsters of … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL PRESENTS #9
It must be said that in the early 1960s, BATMAN was a weird comic book. The Caped Crusader was still popular, he was holding down regular positions in not only his self-titled series but also in DETECTIVE COMICS and WORLD'S FINEST (and occasionally appearing in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA whenever his editor Jack Schiff's back … Continue reading WC: BATMAN #146
In the early 1940s, as a myriad of would-be publishers heard about the overwhelming success of Superman nd rushed into the marketplace offering their own get-rich-quick versions of a comic book super hero, the reality is that nobody quite understood just what factors made Superman work. And so, everything was tried, and creativity--both good and … Continue reading 5BC: The Five Most Unique Super Heroes of the Silver Age
If there's one thing that DC has loved to do over the years, it's to explore strange story avenues and then abandon them. In some ways, that's become their history ever since CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS--it feels that you can't go but a few years anymore until everything you've read is thrown out and they … Continue reading 5BC: Would You Believe Five More Forgotten DC Retcons
We've been talking a lot about the unofficial crossovers between characters and the homages that were done. But beyond that, there's a whole other category of instances in which one company either appropriated or parodied or referenced the characters of another. These instances tended to take many different forms--there was one memorable instance, for example, … Continue reading 5BC: Five Times DC Referenced Marvel Characters in Interesting Ways
It's been a little while, but who could ever forget our old friend Ego-Man, the ridiculously inside baseball strip parodying Stan Lee in the pages of SICK Magazine in the late 1970s. Exactly who these stories were meant for (apart from creators Arnold Drake and Jack Sparling) is anybody's guess, but they didn't run for … Continue reading Brand Echh – Sick #124 – The Death of Ego-Man
It seems as though--for good reason or bad--people got a kick out of seeing the Ego-Man story parodying Stan Lee from SICK magazine last week. And so, since there were a number of these done, I thought I would show you another one. In this case, the inaugural installment, from SICK Magazine #120. The Grand … Continue reading Brand Echh – Sick #120 – Ego-Man
In 1978, presumably because Stan Lee had begun to break through into the mainstream with his comic book huckster routine, writer Arnold Drake created the running character Ego-Man in the pages of SICK magazine, then published by Charlton. It was anything but a loving parody of the field and those in it, in particular Stan, … Continue reading Brand Echh – Sick #123 – Ego-Man
Now this is an important comic book for me–but that didn’t stop me from trading it to my neighbor Johnny Rantinella at some point. Later on, I wound up trading again to get it back. And why? The Doom Patrol, baby! Near the pinnacle of my personal favorite DC series, this was my first encounter … Continue reading BHOC: SUPER-TEAM FAMILY #7
The Tom Brevoort Experience 