An entry from my Marvel blog of the mid-2000s asking and answering the question: at what point did I as a reader become aware of the personalities behind the stories I had been reading? Behind the Curtain April 28, 2007 | 1:00 AM | By Tom_Brevoort | In General I really did intend to do … Continue reading Blah Blah Blog – Behind the Curtain
An awful lot has been written about longtime inker Vince Colletta, most of it not good. These days, the man's primary claim to fame is having inked several years' worth of Jack Kirby's pencils on THOR. In doing so, Colletta would routinely simplify backgrounds and eliminate details or even whole figures in order to make … Continue reading The Unknown Vince Colletta
Here's another book I got out of a 3-Bag. This was likely the reason I bought the 3-Bag in the first place, as FANTASTIC FOUR had become my favorite comic book series and the Thing was on his way to becoming my favorite Marvel character (though at this moment, I was still more partial to … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #24
I bought this issue of MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE as usual at my local 7-11 as MTIO was now on my regular buying list, thanks to the Thing being the headline character. But I can't say that the series was all that wonderful during this period. More often than not, the stories were quick throw-away affairs that … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #40
A short-lived publication from the early 1980s, FantaCo's CHRONICLES series of fanzines devoted each issue to a specific Marvel title (until their final annual, in which every comic book series published up to that time was reviewed.) These fanzines were pretty great, chock full of interesting information and articles as well as checklists and indexes--and … Continue reading Brand Echh – Fantastic Four Chronicles #2
Comic books are a petty business, it must be said. And the same freedom to imagine and play that allows for the creativity in conceptualizing new stories about characters who, let's face it, were designed to appeal to children also somehow invites the darker side of itself--the version where grown-ups behave like petulant children on … Continue reading 5BC: Five More Mean Caricatures of Comic Book Creators
As we left off yesterday, this was the second of the two AVENGERS issues that I purchased simultaneously on a Saturday in 1979 and which made me a regular reader of the title going forward. If I had to guess so many years later, I would suppose that it was the artwork which made me … Continue reading BHOC: AVENGERS #171
It was a weekend, I remember that much. I had a little bit of cash in my pocket (no idea where I would have gotten it from) and so I made an extra trek down to my regular 7-11 haunt to look at the spinner rack and see if there might be anything worth picking … Continue reading BHOC: AVENGERS #170
I bought this issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA on my regular weekly trip to the 7-11 on New Comics Thursday, as I had the previous two issues. As we'll see, this was a bit of a patchwork issue, the result of pages not being completed in time for the prior one. Marvel was having shipping difficulties … Continue reading BHOC: CAPTAIN AMERICA #221
Comic books for years were considered a juvenile medium, and that sensibility often extended to the behavior of the practitioners in the field. Like those who work in any other industries, not all comic book creators get along, and on occasion some of them have felt the need to take their aggression out in public, … Continue reading 5BC: Five Mean Caricatures of Comic Book Creators
