It's been a long time since we last looked at the unique work produced by veteran creator Manny Stallman on the short-lived Raven strip that ran in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents for the Tower Comics imprint. As opposed to the rest of the title, which was steeped in the clean and elegant linework of creator Wally Wood, … Continue reading Brand Echh – T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #10
If you were to ask me today about what constituted the best work that EC put out during its short but well-remembered time, I'd say without question the war titles edited and overseen by Harvey Kurtzman. They followed the EC tradition of tightly-plotted stories with punch endings, but they also had a point of view … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #9
My Christmas gifts for the Christmas of 1978 weren't exclusively Marvel based, though they were pretty much all comic book based. I had also asked for and received two issues of Kitchen Sink Press's magazine devoted to Will Eisner's THE SPIRIT, #17 and #18, their two first. Prior to this, I had read one Spirit … Continue reading BHOC: THE SPIRIT #17
As we've spoken about before, the super hero fad of the mid-1960s was a juggernaut across popular culture. Reaching its peak during the frenzy surrounding the network premiere of the twice-a-week full color BATMAN television program, this hunger for all things super-heroic compelled publishers to make entries into the field of comic book publishing with … Continue reading Brand Echh: The Spirit #1
An entry from my Marvel blog of long ago, this one talking about the sincerity of the editorial voice. Also, it contains a reminder that the Blog was at one point up for a Harvey Award (although it didn't win its category.) Genuine June 26, 2008 | 1:00 AM | By Tom_Brevoort | In General … Continue reading Blah Blah Blog – Genuine
This is the third and final part of our look at the "Spirit Jam" story published by Kitchen Sink Press in THE SPIRIT Magazine #30 and overseen by publisher Denis Kitchen and associate editor Cat Yronwode. This was the first new full-length Spirit story produced since the reprint editions of the 1960s, and the first … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: THE SPIRIT #30, Part Three
From the mid-1960s all the way through the earliest days of the 1980s, Warren Publications provided a bit of an alternative to the mainstream comic book marketplace dominated by Marvel and DC (as well as Archie and Harvey and Gold Key, etc.) Warren's particular forte was in doing horror magazines, very much influenced, at least … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: EERIE #32
There was no greater success story in the world of comic books in the 1950s as MAD Magazine. Even in the world of magazine publishing, the only thing that perhaps bettered it was the rise of PLAYBOY. When Harvey Kurtzman and Bill Gaines switched the dying EC line's breakout hit from a comic book to … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: LUNATICKLE #2
Because he was such a popular and influential comic book creator, most everything that Alan Moore wrote for mainstream publishers has been reprinted and in virtually continuous print since he first started writing in the very late 1970s. But occasionally, there's a little bit of something that's been overlooked--partly because it appeared in an oddball … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: THE DAREDEVILS #8
We've spoken before about how Wally Wood, the master illustrator and cartoonist, was wooed by new start-up company Tower to create a series for them. What Wood and his collaborators came up with was THUNDER Agents, a fun hybrid of spies and super heroes that is fondly remembered by those who read them, even though … Continue reading Brand Echh – T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #9
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