It's been well covered over the years that in 1964, with sales flagging thanks to editor Jack Schiff clinging to an outdated approach to the character as the Silver Age blossomed, the reins of the Caped Crusader's two titles were handed over to editor Julie Schwartz, in the hopes that Schwartz, who'd had a lot … Continue reading WC: DETECTIVE COMICS #329
It's an argument that comes up every couple of months like clockwork, especially when some new film or television project is announced. There are always those that espouse that Batman, in order to be treated realistically, should carry and use a gun. And these people inevitably point to the character's earliest days as justification, talking … Continue reading When Batman Used A Gun
As more and more of these pieces get written, we begin to get down to those titles that had a number of different issues within that Windfall Comics box that I bought for $50.00 back in 1988. Which is to say, expect to see a preponderance of Mort Weisinger-era Superman titles in the weeks ahead. … Continue reading WC: ACTION COMICS #305
This issue of BRAVE AND THE BOLD was the first released under the auspices of the DC Explosion, which saw the line increating its cover price to 50 cents a copy from 35 while adding additional pages of material. Here, the Human Target, a feature that briefly ran in the back pages of ACTION COMICS … Continue reading BHOC: BRAVE AND THE BOLD #143
This was another wonderful issue of MYSTERY IN SPACE that I got in my Windfall Comics purchase of 1988. Just looking at the book, you can get a sense as to how much more invested editor Julie Schwartz was when working on science fiction material. He'd started out as an SF fan, and eventually found … Continue reading WC: MYSTERY IN SPACE #68
I've spoken before about how the very first comic shop I ever encountered, the Heroes World outlet in Levittown, New York, was situated in the same shopping complex where my father worked for Chase Manhattan Bank. What this meant practically is that I could occasionally prevail upon him to stop by the store on his … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #102
This issue of MYSTERY IN SPACE, another book that I got in my Windfall Comics purchase of 1988, sports another of those great halftone covers that DC production man Jack Adler was experimenting with. The added texture does give the piece a nice painterly quality, as well as far more subtlety than the typical DC … Continue reading WC: MYSTERY IN SPACE #55
This is one of the best and most memorable covers in the run of THE FLASH, and a good example of the appeal of the early Silver Sage DC line. Putting aside the actual image concept for a moment, look at how beautifully artists Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson use tone and texture on this … Continue reading WC: THE FLASH #133
While it's perhaps lost its uniqueness a little bit given the sheer number of latter day crossovers between characters originating at different companies (and in some cases, in different forms of media) it would he difficult to understate the significance of SUPERMAN VS THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. For those who were there when it came out, … Continue reading The Outline for SUPERMAN VS THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
Another title that I got a few issues of in my Windfall Comics purchase of 1988 was MYSTERY IN SPACE. It was one of a pair of titles edited by Julie Schwartz (the other was STRANGE ADVENTURES) devoted to science fiction adventures, a big genre in the late 1950s. This was the earliest one in … Continue reading WC: MYSTERY IN SPACE #54
