BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #207

My year of frustration continued with FANTASTIC FOUR #207, another issue of my favorite title that I first saw out in the world in spinner racks the week that it came out. But having won a free subscription to the series, I had to wait until my copy finally made its way to me through … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #207

BHOC:INCREDIBLE HULK #236

I expect that I picked up this issue of INCREDIBLE HULK on my weekly bicycle trip down to my neighborhood 7-11 on Thursday afternoon, which is when the new comic books arrived back in those days. It was a series that I was following, more because it was a part of the larger Marvel Universe … Continue reading BHOC:INCREDIBLE HULK #236

BHOC: CAPTAIN AMERICA #234

The new issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA continued on with what would turn out to be a six-part storyline, which was something of a rarity for this period. While you'd get soap opera subplots that might run for months and even years, the A-stories in the Marvel books would typically be dispatched in a couple of … Continue reading BHOC: CAPTAIN AMERICA #234

5BC: Five Attempts to Replicate Spider-Man

It was clear early on that the most important and successful new super hero character introduced during the Silver Age of Comics was Spider-Man. The work that Stan Lee, Steve Ditko and John Romita had put into the series had paid dividends, and the wall-crawler was soon a worldwide icon able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder against … Continue reading 5BC: Five Attempts to Replicate Spider-Man

BHOC: INCREDIBLE HULK #235

He'd been teased over the course of the previous month, but this issue of INCREDIBLE HULK firmly brought Jack Kirby's creation Machine Man into the Marvel Universe proper. The character had debuted in the last couple of issues of Kirby's 2001 and possessed ties to the mythos of that film. But after 2001 had run … Continue reading BHOC: INCREDIBLE HULK #235

MOVIEMAKING ILLUSTRATED: THE COMICBOOK FILMBOOK, Part Two

Continuing back with our look at this 1973 release that explained elements of filmmaking storytelling and composition by using visual examples selected from contemporaneous Marvel comic books. This was a volume that could be found in many an artist's drawing space during the 1970s. A sequence illustrated by Larry Lieber. Here are two sequences by … Continue reading MOVIEMAKING ILLUSTRATED: THE COMICBOOK FILMBOOK, Part Two

BHOC: CAPTAIN AMERICA #233

So my weekly sojourn to the neighborhood 7-11's spinner rack turned up the next issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA, a title that I was then reading regularly. The book was in the middle of an extended six-part storyline, not that I knew that exactly at this moment. This is a solid cover but somehow lacking in … Continue reading BHOC: CAPTAIN AMERICA #233

BHOC: INCREDIBLE HULK #234

Another issue featuring Marvel's TV sensation THE INCREDIBLE HULK dropped on my local 7-11's spinner rack, and I bought it dutifully, even though my interest in the title was only middling. But I had signed on aboard the series at some point previously, and through this era, that tended to keep me steadily buying the … Continue reading BHOC: INCREDIBLE HULK #234

BHOC: CAPTAIN AMERICA #232

I didn't know it at the time, but CAPTAIN AMERICA was in the midst of what would turn out to be a six-issue epic story. These things weren't typically announced ahead of time. Rather, stories sometimes ended in a To Be Continued and eventually, they ended and you knew how long they would be. In … Continue reading BHOC: CAPTAIN AMERICA #232

5BC: The Five Best Comic Books of 1972

When I did the initial wave of these 5 Best write-ups concerning the best comic books of each year, I confined myself to just the years when I was a fan and a reader, 1973-1989. I didn't think that it was proper for me to go beyond that, as I was a participant in the … Continue reading 5BC: The Five Best Comic Books of 1972