I wrote this post twelve years ago, on my 40th birthday. 40 April 28, 2007 | 1:00 AM | By Tom_Brevoort | In General Today I am 40. It doesn't feel like all that long a time, certainly no longer than it felt a week or a month ago. At the same time, it's one … Continue reading Blah Blah Blog – 40/1967
The postwar era provided challenges for many of the super-powered costumed crusaders who filled the pages of the nations comic books as, without a ready-made national enemy to fight, they were faced with a crisis of irrelevancy. And none encountered this existential ennui more directly than Captain America. Cap had been created to win the … Continue reading Captain America Musters Out!
It was one of the most exciting days of my young comic book collecting career. I found it in the bookstore in the Smithhaven Mall, a regular stop whenever my family went out shopping there, which was often. I had no idea that it was coming out--which is strange, because ads for it appeared in … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR POCKET BOOKS
The entirety of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's BATMAN: YEAR ONE story was must reading, and this final installment wrapped the story up beautifully--a story more of hard-boiled cop Jim Gordon than really of Batman (who doesn't appear in costume all that much throughout it. ) Mazzucchelli channels the best attributes of Alex Toth in … Continue reading 5BC: Five Best Comics of 1987
After two months of reprints and hastily-assembled album issues, the storyline in FANTASTIC FOUR once again began to move forward with the release of this issue. I have to say, I didn't particularly mind those diversions, since the reprint was new to me, and the information contained in that album issue gave me a greater … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASTIC FOUR #191
Like me, my brother Ken would occasionally pull books out of the Big Bin of Somewhat-Older Comics at the local drugstore. As he was into war comics at this time and the bin held only Marvel books, there was only one place for him to turn: SGT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS. It was a … Continue reading BHOC: SGT FURY #134
CAPTAIN AMERICA was a phenomenon when the series debuted in the very last days of 1940. It was by far the best-selling title that publisher Martin Goodman had in his Timely line of comics, and the character would go on to headline in other books as well--ALL WINNERS COMICS, ALL SELECT COMICS, USA COMICS and … Continue reading The Last Captain America Story
Whenever the conversation turns to the question of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and their collaborations during the 1960s and who was responsible for doing what--a question that I don't think can ever be definitively or conclusively answered--one of the misconceptions that I see come up time and time again is the notion that Lee … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: The Four Work Stages of Lee & Kirby
It's been a few weeks since I started analyzing the narrative techniques that Jack Kirby used in a particular story--this meeting between the Human Torch and Captain America (or, more properly, shared the analysis that I developed to show to younger Marvel editors.) And, honestly, part of the reason for that was some of the … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: The Narrative Techniques of Jack Kirby 2
Back in the days when he was the Editor in Chief of Marvel Comics, Jim Shooter had a particular story that he liked to use as an example when explaining to people what he thought needed to be on the page in a well-crafted Marvel story. It was this one, the Human Torch story from … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: The Narrative Techniques of Jack Kirby
The Tom Brevoort Experience 