Even by 1982, there was no figure more associated with the growing success of the X-Men than writer Chris Claremont. While Claremont hadn't come up with the book or any of its characters, he joined the series as its regular writer in very early days, and continued onward for an unbroken 16 year stint in … Continue reading THE X-MEN COMPANION #1: Chris Claremont Interview
In 1982, there was simply no hotter book in the Direct Sales marketplace than UNCANNY X-MEN. Riding off of the tremendous success of the Dark Phoenix Saga, the series was rocketed to the absolute pinnacle of the sales charts, at least in comic book specialty shops. X-MEN was super hot, and so the publishers of … Continue reading THE X-MEN COMPANION #1: Roy Thomas Interview
This issue of FANTASTIC FOUR was the last one among the box of 150 Silver Age books that I bought in my Windfall Comics purchase for $50.00 in 1988. It was a story that had already read years before in its MARVEL'S GREATEST COMICS reprinting, which was one of the back issues I bought on … Continue reading WC: FANTASTIC FOUR #32
Now this was a good issue all around, one that catapulted the new X-MEN into the upper tiers of my favorite comics of the era. I'd been growing more enchanted by this strange new team for a couple of issues now, having had to work out who everybody was on the fly a little bit … Continue reading BHOC: UNCANNY X-MEN #113
MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE was a title in a serious deadline crunch at the time this issue was put together, which is why new editor Roger Stern asked staff member Ralph Macchio for ideas for stories to fill it. This two-parter was Macchio's first writing credit, though he'd work for Marvel for over 35 years as an … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #43
I picked up this issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA on my usual weekly Thursday sweep of the spinner rack at my regular 7-11. But before that, I'd gotten to have a noteworthy though frustrating experience. The weekend before, my father had learned that Stan Lee was going to be making a personal appearance at the Cartoonerville … Continue reading BHOC: CAPTAIN AMERICA #225 and Stan Lee at Cartoonerville
A few more excerpts from THE ART OF JOHN BYRNE, Volume One as published by Sal Quartuccio under his SQ Productions imprint. Byrne wouldn't begin working on Superman for six more years, and was thought of as a real true blue Marvel artist at the time, so this piece from the inside front cover was … Continue reading THE ART OF JOHN BYRNE, Part Two
By 1980, John Byrne had been working in the industry for over half a decade, and the popularity of his work had begun to soar. In particular, his penciling on X-MEN helped make that comic book a huge seller within the growing Direct Sales marketplace of hardcore fans. As the 1980s went on, Byrne became … Continue reading THE ART OF JOHN BYRNE
More, more, more old photographs of comic books on sale or being consumed by the readers in the era in which they were first published. Believe it or not, that's the young John Byrne
If there's a moment that truly crystalized the Direct Sales marketplace and helped to forge it into a meaningful distribution pipeline for comics, it was with the release of X-MEN #137 in which creators Chris Claremont and John Byrne wrapped up what is today known as "The Dark Phoenix Saga" in a double-sized issue that … Continue reading FANTASTIC FOUR #286 John Byrne’s Way
The Tom Brevoort Experience 