Thjs was yet another issue of SGT FURY that I got in the box of around 150 Silver Age comics that I'd purchased from a dude that I met at the Post Office for $50.00 cash money in 1988. While that box was a treasure trove of material, none of the issues in it were … Continue reading WC: SGT FURY #12
Continuing our look at the two-volume X-MEN COMPANION published by Fantagraphics in 1982, just as X-MEN was expanding from being the darling of the Direct Market to a full-on juggernaut across the whole of the industry. Writer and historian Peter Sanderson interviewed pretty much all of the principle writers and artists involved in the creation … Continue reading THE X-MEN COMPANION #1: Len Wein Interview
Eventually, after a week's gap caused by my having bought the new comics for that week while at Heroes World earlier, new comics that I did not already own started turning up at 7-11 again. And so, on my weekly Thursday venture, I bought this issue of PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN. It was a … Continue reading BHOC: PETER PARKER, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #22
This issue of SGT FURY was another book that my younger brother Ken purchased for himself on some trip to a local card store or the 7-11 or some such. He had a dalliance with war comics for a few months, and bought a number of random issues along the way. Eventually, all of those … Continue reading BHOC: SGT FURY #148
This issue of JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY was situated right at the transition point between the early Marvel style of storytelling and the more mature and measured approach the firm would take through its glory years. By this point, artist and largely plotter Jack Kirby had received a rate increase that permitted him to slow down … Continue reading WC: JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #115
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
Another new issue that I bought at Heroes World was IRON MAN #114. Not because I was particularly a huge IRON MAN fan, but because I went and bought all of the new books that they had that I didn't yet own before delving into the back issues. In retrospect, that may have been a … Continue reading BHOC: IRON MAN #114
This cover to WYATT EARP #6 by Bill Everett is cool in terms of just how much of a story it tells in a single image. It's got a good use to spotted blacks to draw the eye to Wyatt's face and head in the center of the cover. From there, his gaze carries the … Continue reading Great Covers: WYATT EARP #6
Dumb observation first: that blue molding on the corridor Reed and the troops are running down confuses my eye every time I look at this cover. Even after 40+ years, every time I look at it, my brain wants to decode it as somehow being a part of Reed's body, the only other 100% blue … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #198
While we were at the Heroes World that evening after I'd spent the day doing menial tasks in my father's office, I didn't just pick up back issues but also a few new books that had arrived. Because Heroes World was being supplied by the then-nascent Direct Sales distribution network, they got their new books … Continue reading BHOC: AVENGERS #175
The Tom Brevoort Experience 