This was one of the more exciting acquisitions I made in my windfall acquisition of 1988--a super-early (single digits) issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN by the character's originators, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. And not to boast per se, but because it's the point of this whole series of pieces, remember that I got this book … Continue reading WC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #7
Charlton had been a player in the comic book marketplace going back to the days of the Golden Age of Comics. They were widely regarded as the shlockiest of publishers, whose paper and printing was markedly inferior to that of the competition. There was some very good work buried among the many Charlton publications, but … Continue reading Brand Echh: Charlton Bullseye #1
This was another book that I bought out of my drugstore's Big Bin of Somewhat Older Comic Books, all issues that had been reported as destroyed but instead which had been sold on the secondary market for a cut-rate price. This was one of a pair of DOCTOR STRANGE issues that I picked up at … Continue reading BHOC: DOCTOR STRANGE #21
We've spoken before about the launch of Captain Atom in the pages of Charlton's SPACE ADVENTURES series at the very beginning of the 1960s. The character failed to catch on at that point, and was eventually pulled from the series. That perhaps should have been the end of things. But the super hero fad just … Continue reading The First New Captain Atom Story
From the vantage point of hindsight, we view the Hulk as a super hero, the second in a string of new creations unleashed in the earliest years of the 1960s on an unsuspecting public, the building blocks for what would become known as the Marvel Universe. But that's really an impression that has been colored … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ditko: The Development of INCREDIBLE HULK
At this point, I expect that most of you know the drill here. But to hastily recap for those who do not: in the early 1970s, demand for Spider-Man stories was so strong in Mexico that the Mexican publisher of Spidey's translated adventures, La Prensa, got permission from Marvel to produce all-new adventures of the … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: EL SORPRENDENTE HOMBRE ARANA #150 and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #8
As many know, and as we've talked about here in the past, the Marvel characters first came to television in 1966, in the form of a syndicated animated series produced by Grantray-Lawrence. The series ran five days a week and featured five Marvel characters: Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, Captain America and the Sub-Mariner. But … Continue reading The Imaginary Spider-Man Episodes of the Grantray-Lawrence Marvel Super Heroes 1966 Cartoon
The distribution of new comic books in the late 1970s wasn't so wonderful. Only a couple of years earlier, it was possible to find comics in several local locations, and the number of titles available were plentiful. But somewhere along the way, comics began to lose their status, and disappeared from a lot of storefronts. … Continue reading BHOC: MACHINE MAN #3
Well it just goes to show: you never know what is going to resonate with an audience. Last week's kickoff installment of Comics Creators in the Wild received more notices and attention than I ever would have thought it would. So that being the case, I figured I ought to follow up on it sooner … Continue reading Comics Creators in the Wild 2
At the beginning of the Silver Age, super heroes were making a comeback. This trend would blossom into a full-on fad mid-decade thanks to the release of the BATMAN television show--positively everybody went super hero crazy there for a year or so. But even before that, there was a sense throughout the industry that costumed … Continue reading Brand Echh: Space Adventures #33
