Another month had gone by, and so the subsequent issue of AVENGERS arrived at the spinner rack at my local 7-11 where I bought my new comics. I picked it up on one of my weekly Thursday trips down there for that purpose, Thursday then being the day when new comics arrived in those days. … Continue reading BHOC: AVENGERS #173
Another awesome assemblage of photographic images of comic book creators taken in years and decades past. Stan Lee with presentation board, circa 1976 John Romita, early 1970s John Romita and Stan Lee, circa 1970 Herb Trimpe, circa 1972 Mark Gruenwald at home, circa 1994 Not 100% certain who this is in the Marvel offices with … Continue reading Comics Creators in the Wild 7
DESTROYER DUCK #1 was a stopping point in a much larger saga, one that I'll recount the broad strokes of momentarily. It was also a benefit book published by Eclipse, work on which was provided free by all of the contributors in support of the underlying cause of the book in the first place. It … Continue reading Brand Echh: Destroyer Duck #1
This is another comic book whose cover is a bit unfamiliar to me. And the reason for that is that this is another book that I got in one of those plastic-wrapped bundles of coverless recent comics from my local Drug Store chain. I think that to this day, I don't possess a copy of … Continue reading BHOC: DAREDEVIL #146
This issue of AVENGERS was another book that I got in coverless condition from my local drug store and their new Bundles of Coverless Older Comics. Which means that I never got to see this George Perez cover in my youth--and it still looks slightly strange to me, for all that this was an issue … Continue reading BHOC: AVENGERS #164
The week this issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN came to my spinner rack in the neighborhood 7-11 was a big one for comic book happenings. In addition to the release of a regular slate of comic books, two other things were going on that grabbed my attention. The first was the launch of DC's new Newspaper … Continue reading BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #182 & THE WORLD’S GREATEST SUPERHEROES
Well, not really Jim Shooter's directly, not in the same was as the Irwin Donenfeld sales charts we looked at last week. But I'm reasonably certain that I cribbed these newsstand tracking sheets from Jim Shooter's old web page a decade or so back, and he would have been there when they came in--so we'll … Continue reading The Sales Figures of Marvel’s Jim Shooter
In the 1960s, one of the factors that enabled DC/National Comics to become the best-selling comic book publisher of the era was the shattering of Dell Comics. Dell had been a powerhouse in the field for more than a decade, far and away the best-selling comics company--a company whose wares were so known and trusted … Continue reading Brand Echh: Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom #5
I would have thought that I was finished with this subject for a while yesterday, but while cleaning up some files, I came across yet another artifact of the making of X-MEN #137 that I felt needed to be shared. At first, I considered simply going back and adding it into the original piece--but I … Continue reading A Tiny Bit More on the original ending to X-MEN #137
The Death of Phoenix sequence in X-MEN is a milestone moment in the history of comics, one that changed the very trajectory of the entire industry. We spoke about it at length in a post under the Perfect Game heading: https://tombrevoort.com/2020/06/13/perfect-game-x-men-137/ But just to quickly recap: creators Chris Claremont and John Byrne were heading towards … Continue reading The original ending to X-MEN #137 & 138 and the pencils of John Byrne
