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
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
While my subscription to FLASH had run its course, I still had a few issues of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA coming to me. And so this one arrived in my mailbox one day, having made the slight transition to the DC Explosion format. Which is to say, it came down in price by a dime … Continue reading BHOC: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #158
This was another issue of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA that I got in my Windfall Comics purchase of 1988, in which I bought a box of around 150 Silver age comics for the princely sum of $50.00. It was one of six sequential issues, #15-20, that were part of the buy. As JUSTICE LEAGUE had … Continue reading WC: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #16
The DC Explosion was finally upon us! As advertised for months leading up to this moment, DC's entire line of titles increased their cover price to 50 cents from 35, adding an additional 8 pages of story to each issue. This was an attempt to combat the low profit margin that comic books were able … Continue reading BHOC: FLASH #265
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 SUPERMAN'S PAL JIMMY OLSEN was another book that came to me as part of that Windfall Comics purchase of 1988, where I ran into a guy at my local post office who sold me a box of 150 silver age comics for fifty bucks. There were more Superman family books in that … Continue reading WC: SUPERMAN’S PAL JIMMY OLSEN #54
I only became aware of this story recently, and it has an aspect to it that may have been overlooked to some. So I'm going to feature it here. In the postwar era, the public's taste in comic books shifted away from super heroes towards other genres. Notably, humor comics became quite popular, and like … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: ALL FUNNY COMICS #16
This is a relatively effective cover for an issue of DETECTIVE COMICS in this period, even given that the series tended to look a bit antiquated when placed on the comic racks next to the other contemporary DC titles. That use of the close-up of the Robot Brain with Batman and Robin trapped inside it … Continue reading WC: DETECTIVE COMICS #324
This particular issue of BATMAN was the only one I got in my Windfall Comics purchase of 1988 that featured editor Julie Schwartz's "New Look" revamp version of Batman and Robin. After years under former editor Jack Schiff and with sales dwindling, irwin Donenfeld shifted the Caped Crusader over to Schwartz's editorial control. Even at … Continue reading WC: BATMAN #167
The Tom Brevoort Experience 