Another older issue of FANTASTIC FOUR that showed up one day in the drug store's big bin of slightly-older comics. This was the oldest issue I had found to date. Reading these stories, particularly in this sequence, was a little bit like putting a puzzle together. There'd be some bit of information presented in one … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #170
The big bin of slightly-older comics at my local drug store chain continued to toss up additional treasures as the summer went on, often ones older and older than the ones that had preceded it. So the next issue of FANTASTIC FOUR I found therein was this one, the oldest I'd yet encountered. That's a … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #172
A new issue of what was rapidly becoming my favorite comic book turned up at my local 7-11, and at this point I was clearly an avowed FANTASTIC FOUR reader, if not truly a full-on Marvel convert quite yet. (That event would take place in a few weeks.) A lot of that had to do … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #188
Back at the Drug Store, I was astonished and elated to find this issue of FANTASTIC FOUR in my latest dive through its big bin of somewhat-older comics. And the reason is that this issue pre-dated all four of the FANTASTIC FOUR issues that I’d previously found there. It was evidence that it was possible … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #176
So, having read and enjoyed my first three issues of FANTASTIC FOUR, I did what any self-respecting comic book reader would do in that situation: I went back to the drug store just as soon as I could and got more. I had seen that the Fantastic Four were also featured in MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS, … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS #58
This was the third of the three issues of FANTASTIC FOUR that I pulled out of the big bin of after-market comics at my local drug store on my first intentional foray into the world of the Marvel Universe. And in truth, it was the issue that I liked the least, though in aggregate I … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #179
Picking up where things left off yesterday, this was the second of the three consecutive issues of FANTASTIC FOUR that I bought out of the huge bin of affidavit-returns on sale at my local drug store, my very first legitimate Marvel purchases. I hadn’t stopped to think about or analyze my feelings towards what I … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #178
We have reached a momentous moment in my personal comic book history at long last: the point at which I started to buy a Marvel comic. It was a dull day in the summer, I had nothing going on, and so, desperate for some attention, I finally broke down and decided to read the Marvel-related … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #177
TRIBUTE TO LEGENDS The following is the last of a series of columns originally written for a proposed revival of the Comic Reader a couple years ago. But the magazine folded before ever putting an issue to press, and they’ve been languishing on my hard drive ever since. We’re running them here as originally written, … Continue reading Joe Sinnott
The Tom Brevoort Experience 