The entirety of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's BATMAN: YEAR ONE story was must reading, and this final installment wrapped the story up beautifully--a story more of hard-boiled cop Jim Gordon than really of Batman (who doesn't appear in costume all that much throughout it. ) Mazzucchelli channels the best attributes of Alex Toth in … Continue reading 5BC: Five Best Comics of 1987
I was wholly in the tank for the Fantastic Four by this point, and my interest in them led me to purchase a copy of this Big Little Books release from a local Stationary store. It had been issued several years previously, during the period when the first FANTASTIC FOUR cartoon was airing on Saturday … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR IN THE HOUSE OF HORRORS
CAPTAIN AMERICA was a phenomenon when the series debuted in the very last days of 1940. It was by far the best-selling title that publisher Martin Goodman had in his Timely line of comics, and the character would go on to headline in other books as well--ALL WINNERS COMICS, ALL SELECT COMICS, USA COMICS and … Continue reading The Last Captain America Story
Whenever the conversation turns to the question of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and their collaborations during the 1960s and who was responsible for doing what--a question that I don't think can ever be definitively or conclusively answered--one of the misconceptions that I see come up time and time again is the notion that Lee … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: The Four Work Stages of Lee & Kirby
This issue of ETERNALS would most likely have been the third book in that 3-Bag in which I got INVADERS #13, based on when it was on sale originally and how I know I got it. Can you find the typo in the cover copy on this cover? It's a typically bombastic Jack Kirby cover, … Continue reading BHOC: ETERNALS #8
My brother Ken had eclectic taste in comic books. He was only ever so-so interested in them, mainly because I was--and that interest tended to flow in two directions. First, he wound up buying copies of more than a few comics that I already owned, so that he would have what I had. Alternately, he … Continue reading BHOC: ETERNALS #9
I'm pretty sure that this issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA came out of the same 3-Bag as yesterday's issue of INVADERS. It represents, among other things, my first real exposure to the writing of Jack Kirby. I had read a few Kirby stories before--an issue of KAMANDI several years earlier, a reprint of a Golden Age … Continue reading BHOC: CAPTAIN AMERICA #206
This issue of POWER MAN, my first, would have been another comic that I got from by grade school friend Don Sims, likely in a trade involving multiple books. I say that because I wasn't especially interested in Luke Cage at this point. I knew who he was, based on his appearance in FANTASTIC FOUR … Continue reading BHOC: POWER MAN #38
Don Sims was the first other regular comic book reader that I ever met, and we became fast friends for a few years--easy enough since we were in the same 5th and 6th grade classes. Like me, he not only read comics, but he made his own, a creative compulsion that united us once we … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #144
It's been a few weeks since I started analyzing the narrative techniques that Jack Kirby used in a particular story--this meeting between the Human Torch and Captain America (or, more properly, shared the analysis that I developed to show to younger Marvel editors.) And, honestly, part of the reason for that was some of the … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: The Narrative Techniques of Jack Kirby 2
The Tom Brevoort Experience 