As the back issue marketplace for certain key old comic books began to truly heat up in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and sums undreamed of were beginning to be demanded for and gotten for comics of a relatively recent vintage (comics that are in much greater supply than the Golden Age books that … Continue reading Lee & Ditko: The Non-Prototype of Uncle Ben and Aunt May
Here's another forgotten, fannish collection, a story that was serialized across three issues of the long-running fanzine The ROCKET'S BLAST COMICOLLECTOR. It was produced by artist Brad Caslor, who would eventually go into animation as a storyboard artist and director. But here, he channels the individual styles of close to a dozen other creators to … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: The Massacre of the Innocents
I've had to clean out my office recently, and in doing so I've unearthed a small treasure trove of interesting items that have been buried for several years. So with the holidays before us, I expect that I'll be posting a bunch of stuff before through the end of the year. Consider it a bonus … Continue reading Making The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man
In response to yesterday's post concerning DAREDEVIL #1, I received an e-mail from my friend Mark Evanier. Mark is one of the most knowledgeable people I know about classic comics and in particular the people who worked on them. He had a number of insights that he wanted to bring up, not just about yesterday's … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ditko & Everett & Brodsky: A Guest Post on DAREDEVIL #1 and Related Matters
Some recent comments by reader and historian Ferran Delgado prompted me to go back and to take a closer look at DAREDEVIL #1, the last of what we would consider the formative Marvel titles to be launched and one that was plagued in its delivery by a variety of delays. I've written about those delays … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Ditko & Everett & Brodsky: The Long Road to DAREDEVIL #1
Just the same as the last three times: here's a collection of the covers to more international editions of Marvel material that I've gathered over the years. These are often fascinating for how they're colored or the manner in which the publishers used localized talent to do their own interpretations of the Marvel characters. So … Continue reading Great Covers: Marvel Around The World 4
Dell was a powerhouse in the industry from the mid-1940s all the way up to the start of the 1960s when a series of bad decisions cost them their market share and also bifurcated the company into two competing operations, Dell and Gold Key. Their big money was made on their Disney comics, and they … Continue reading Brand Echh – Nukla #1
Continuing on with comics I bought during my first trip to Bush's Hobbies in Ronkonkoma. I was a huge fan of the Golden Age of Comics and the histories of the assorted characters that I was following--I wanted to know everything, to read everything. In particular, it had been the original Human Torch who provided … Continue reading BHOC: FANTASY MASTERPIECES #7
I think it's no great secret that for a good portion of its run, the Ant-Man/Giant-Man strip in TALES TO ASTONISH was troubled. Struggling, really. More so than any of the other Marvel characters of that era, Hank Pym's series, borne out of a one-off fantasy story, was retooled and reworked far more often than … Continue reading Lee & Ditko & Orlando & Rockwell: the Multiple Car Crash of TALES TO ASTONISH #61
The response to last week's piece on the complicated and complex origins of Spider-Man and all of the behind-the-scenes activity that stretched back for almost a decade before the character would eventually reach comic book newsstands was incredibly well received. In the space of a week, it's become one of the most-viewed posts on this … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Simon & Ditko & Oleck: The Spider and the Fly Extra
The Tom Brevoort Experience 