This INCREDIBLE HULK ANNUAL (or KING-SIZED SPECIAL as it was blurbed this particular year) was yet another book that had been given to my friend David Steckel by an older cousin who had outgrown comic books some time earlier. The books David got from this relative were pretty haphazard--it's clear that his cousin wasn't really … Continue reading BC: INCREDIBLE HULK ANNUAL #3
Both my friend David Steckel and I were huge FANTASTIC FOUR fans--it was our favorite comic book series at the time we met, and one of the things that bonded us together. So in particular, it was issues of FANTASTIC FOUR and its reprint title MARVEL'S GREATEST COMICS that we borrowed back and forth, broadening … Continue reading BC: MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS #64
As I've related before, my buddy David Steckel had inherited a bunch of assorted comic books from older cousins who had outgrown them, and so his haphazard collection reached all the way back into the 1960s in a scattershot fashion. Among the books that he had, and which he let me borrow and read at … Continue reading BC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #5
I was very surprised to come across this second volume of Doctor Strange adventures in the Pocket Books line of paperback reprints in a local bookstore. These releases had seemed to have been tied to the appearances of the Marvel characters on television, and while the initial Doctor Strange volume had been released to capitalize … Continue reading BHOC: DOCTOR STRANGE POCKET BOOKS Volume 2
We'd previously devoted a piece to spotlighting and examining two of the lost pages from a story intended for INCREDIBLE HULK #4 that Marvel mainstay Larry Lieber had fished out of the trash after an irate Jack Kirby had torn them in half and discarded them back in 1962. https://tombrevoort.com/2026/08/01/lee-kirby-the-discarded-pages-from-incredible-hulk-4/ They turned up in an … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: More Discarded Pages from INCREDIBLE HULK #4
As I've mentioned before, my friend David Steckel had inherited a chunk of his comic book collection from older cousins who had outgrown comics, so he owned a handful of issues that dated back to the 1960s. He didn't have many of them, and they were a bit scattered, but they represented a bit of … Continue reading BC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #67
Marvel veteran Larry Lieber has been divesting himself of portions of his collection, and the bounty, listed at Heritage Auctions, has uncovered some amazingly wonderful things. Most recently, a heretofore-undiscovered third penciled page for Jack Kirby's pitch story for what became the NICK FURY, AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D. strip in STRANGE TALES. The first two pages … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Steranko & Lieber: The Birth of S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Man Called D.E.A.T.H.
One of the new mainstay players in the emerging Direct Sales market comprised of comic book specialty stories in the 1980s was First Comics. An outfit out of Chicago, First boasted an initial eclectic line-up but slowly and surely crystalized into a reliable player in the field. Debuting in 1982, among the series First published … Continue reading FSC: E-MAN #2
I also bought TALES OF SUSPENSE #66 during that trip to the Batcave comic book shop, and I did so for the most obvious reason: the copy I picked up was cheap. I bought it despite the fact that I already owned copies of the two stories that were published in it, in an issue … Continue reading BHOC: TALES OF SUSPENSE #66
One of the things that I was very obsessed with as a young comic book reader was age. Specifically, how old the comics that I was purchasing were. As much as anything, that's what led me to pick up this copy of STRANGE TALES #87 on my trip to the Batcave comic book store that … Continue reading BHOC: STRANGE TALES #87
