This is the third installment of Italian creator Leonardo Ortolani's fan-created wrap-up of the FANTASTIC FOUR mythos created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. This chapter was published in the fanzine MADE IN USA #9 in 1993. We're getting to the meat of Leo's Alan Moore-style reinterpretation of the events of the series here. As … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: The Last Fantastic Four Story, Part Three
This is the second installment of Italian creator Leonardo Ortolani's four-part fan-drawn final adventure of the Lee and Kirby Fantastic Four. It was originally published in the fanzine MADE IN USA #8 in Italy in 1993, and hasn't ever been made available in English as it was an unlicensed production. While the first episode was … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: The Last Fantastic Four Story, Part Two
This is a bit of a forgotten masterpiece, both because it saw limited distribution, and because it was published in a non-English speaking country. Between 1992 and 1994, in the pages of the Italian fanzine MADE IN USA, devoted to American comics, cartoonist Leonardo Ortolani (often better known by his simple signature, Leo) was such … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ortolani: The Last Fantastic Four Story, Part One
As usual, it was an exciting day when a new issue of FANTASTIC FOUR turned up on my 7-11's spinner rack. We were in the midst of an extended "FF breaks up" storyline, one that had been running virtually since I began buying new issues, and I was very much invested in what was going … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #193
I ordered a copy of this MARVEL TREASURY EDITION featuring the Fantastic Four from the Superhero Merchandise catalog--or as the firm would later be known, Heroes World. They had bought out Marvel and DC's back-stock of their various Treasury Editions and would sell them for years thereafter, often advertising in the comics themselves. I eventually … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TREASURY EDITION #2
It would have been shortly after Christmas that I found this next issue of what was then my favorite comic book title, FANTASTIC FOUR, on the 7-11 spinner rack. This is another issue that I'm sure my younger brother Ken also had a copy of--he would mimic my purchases a week or so later for … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #192
I bought this issue at my local 7-11, and some time later, my brother Ken also bought himself a copy for some reason. This was the second new off-the-racks issue of MARVEL'S GREATEST COMICS that I purchased, having jumped on board the FANTASTIC FOUR/Marvel train not long before. This issue reprinted FANTASTIC FOUR #95, whereas … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS #76
In an article printed in THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #61, a writer by the name of Michael Breen makes the assertion that FANTASTIC FOUR #6 had not only been penciled and largely plotted by Jack Kirby, but the final lettered script was written by Jack as well. This was at a point before the Marvel … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: The Mystery of FANTASTIC FOUR #6
Continuing to go through the comics I bought during my first trip to my very first comic book store, the Heroes World outlet in Levittown, I also grabbed up these three consecutive issues of MARVEL'S GREATEST COMICS. These were the rest of the story begin in issue #66, which I'd previously bought and represented good … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS #67, 68 & 69
At this point, you'd be right to detect a pattern here. We're still talking about the comics I purchased during my very first visit to my very first comic book shop, Heroes World in Levittown. I had bought the earliest issues of FANTASTIC FOUR and FLASH that I could manage, and so I turned my … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS #24
The Tom Brevoort Experience 