This next book isn't one that I ever actually borrowed from my next-door-neighbor Johnny Rantinella. But it was one that I saw over at his house and flipped through extensively--enough so that I can clearly recall several details about it. I had only begun reading JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA with the preceding issue, and would … Continue reading BC: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #110
Especially in the first half of the 1970s in which I grew up, comic books were a ubiquitous item. Almost every kid read them, at least a little bit, and they were on sale in every candy store and convenience store you were likely to encounter. This changed as the decade went on and those … Continue reading BC: BATMAN #263
I continued to make my way through the complete run of SHAZAM that i had borrowed from my grade school friend Donald Sims one week. While it's taking us months to go over these books, I read them all in two, maybe three days when I first borrowed them. This next issue was a return … Continue reading BC: SHAZAM #12
I'm not 100% certain who I borrowed this issue of BATMAN from. it might have been my grade school friend Donald Sims as with most of the books that we've been looking at recently. But I suspect that it was actually my next-door-neighbor Johnny Rantinella. Johnny was a year younger than I was and a … Continue reading BC: BATMAN #257
This issue of DETECTIVE COMICS was another that I borrowed from my grade school friend Donald Sims to read. I wasn't a big Batman reader particularly, but something about this issue evidently made me want to take a closer look at it. I had no idea that it was significant, containing the first appearance of … Continue reading BC: DETECTIVE COMICS #411
In 1978, plans for a massive expansion of DC's publishing line, which were being promoted as the DC Explosion, crashed and burned as an unusually heavy winter took its toll on comic book sales. The DC line was slashed rather than expanded, and a bunch of staff members were laid off. This became known as … Continue reading CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE #2
The question came up again this week, prompting a bunch of discussion (often blaming one person in specific for perceived slights): why did the announced and eagerly-anticipated 1983 crossover book starring the Avengers and the Justice League of America never see print and remain uncompleted? There are a bunch of fan rumor and innuendo and … Continue reading Why Did The 1983 JLA/AVENGERS Crossover Not Happen?
Continuing our look at the obscure 1966 strip Blooperman, which incorporated a number of parody ideas from comics fandom, many of which had been originated by Marvel writer/editor Roy Thomas years earlier. Once again here, the character's designed Jon D'Agostino draws the small vignette of Blooperman on this cover for GO-GO #5. Writer Gary Friedrich … Continue reading Brand Echh: The Fannish Adventures of Blooperman, Part Three
Continuing on in our survey of the four Blooperman stories published by Charlton Comics in the mid-1960s and how they intersected with certain elements of fandom, today we're taking a look at the second adventure of the dimwitted character, published in GO-GO #4. The character's visual creator Jon D'Agostino drew Blooperman on the cover, but … Continue reading Brand Ecch: The Fannish Adventures of Blooperman, Part Two
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
The Tom Brevoort Experience 