When I first started writing about the books I acquired in my Windfall Comics deal, I mentioned that they were all super hero titles. But it turns out that isn't 100% accurate. Because nestled in there among assorted issues of FANTASTIC FOUR and JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA was this one issue of BRAVE AND THE … Continue reading WC: BRAVE AND THE BOLD #45
Will Eisner's THE SPIRIT is rightly hailed as one of the masterpiece comic series of all time. Between 1940 and 1952, Eisner and his studio of assistants produced a weekly comic book as a newspaper insert, as a hedge for newspapers against the growing readership of comic books. While the lead character of the Spirit … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: THE SPIRIT #30
This is a pretty stunning GREEN LANTERN cover by series regular Gil Kane. More than anything, it's the posterlike coloring that really makes it pop--those striking blues and magentas. The sketch for this cover was almost certainly done by Carmine Infantino, who had been brought on as DC's cover designer in an attempt to make … Continue reading Great Covers: GREEN LANTERN #61
This is another book that I got from my friend Donald Sims back in fifth grade. And honestly, it was a bit of a mess of an issue, though I enjoyed it quite a bit. KOBRA had started life as one of the last projects worked on by Jack Kirby before his return to Marvel. … Continue reading BHOC: KOBRA #1
When I think abut the Christmas season, I'm often put in mind of this issue of DETECTIVE COMICS, the seminal issue #500. I bought it on Christmas eve, 1980, and I don't know that any of the gifts I received the following morning were a match for that reading experience. It's all tangled up in … Continue reading Perfect Game – DETECTIVE COMICS #500
Here's another forgotten, fannish collection, a story that was serialized across three issues of the long-running fanzine The ROCKET'S BLAST COMICOLLECTOR. It was produced by artist Brad Caslor, who would eventually go into animation as a storyboard artist and director. But here, he channels the individual styles of close to a dozen other creators to … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: The Massacre of the Innocents
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
At the same time that my Uncle Jerry and Aunt Clem bought me the Flash Dollar Comic, they also brought a comic book for my younger brother Ken--this issue of STAR WARS. And like with my book, my Aunt dutifully wrote Ken's name on the cover, so that the world would forever after know that … Continue reading BHOC: STAR WARS #11
Comic books are a petty business, it must be said. And the same freedom to imagine and play that allows for the creativity in conceptualizing new stories about characters who, let's face it, were designed to appeal to children also somehow invites the darker side of itself--the version where grown-ups behave like petulant children on … Continue reading 5BC: Five More Mean Caricatures of Comic Book Creators
in the final years of the 1970s, the major comic book companies realized that centennial issues and other similar anniversary issues could be upsized and uppriced and bring in a heck of a lot more money for their respective companies. And so, this was the age where the centennial mega-special was really hatched. And it … Continue reading Perfect Game – JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #200
