It was a sad reality of the 1970s that for most of that decade, IRON MAN was a book that just wasn't very good. Today he's at the forefront of worldwide consciousness about Marvel thanks to Robert Downey Jr's performance as Tony Stark in the films--but in the 1970s, his series trundled along, a lower-middle … Continue reading BHOC: IRON MAN #81
Another batch of vintage photographs of comic book creators taken in years past. As usual, there are a number of these that revolve around Stan Lee, probably the most photographed creator of the era. Roy Thomas wearing the first Spider-Man personal appearance costume at a comic convention in 1966 A sleepy Herb Trimpe in the … Continue reading Comics Creators in the Wild 5
Once again, here are a batch of vintage photographs of comic book creators taken in years gone by. We might also call this feature "Stan and friends" since there are proportionately so many more Stan Lee photos from the past than anything else. Stan Lee in the Marvel offices, publicity photo circa 1980 Stan Lee … Continue reading Comics Creators in the Wild 4
Picked up the latest issue of GREEN LANTERN on my weekly excursion to my local 7-11 on Thursday, the day when new comic books came out. It would have been an automatic buy regardless, but that's really a pretty cool cover. The fragmenting of Green Lantern amidst Sonar's sonic waves is a visual effect I … Continue reading BHOC: GREEN LANTERN #105
This was yet another back issue that I picked up during my first trip to the Batcave, the very first full-on comic book specialty store that I had ever been in. I was drawn to this issue for a single, specific reason: somewhere in my travels, I had learned that this issue reprinted the 1950s … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #20
This was another comic book that I came into possession of through swapping with my buddy Donald Sims, and it was an acquisition of some great interest. In general, for me during this period, any comic book with a 20 cent price tag seemed old somehow, vintage--even though I had started reading during the last … Continue reading BHOC: X-MEN #87
An awful lot has been written about longtime inker Vince Colletta, most of it not good. These days, the man's primary claim to fame is having inked several years' worth of Jack Kirby's pencils on THOR. In doing so, Colletta would routinely simplify backgrounds and eliminate details or even whole figures in order to make … Continue reading The Unknown Vince Colletta
This was another comic that came from the drug store's Big Bin of Slightly Older Comics, this one selected by my younger brother Ken. He never got into comics quite in the same way that I did, but he dabbled with them throughout his youth in a way that was common for kids of that … Continue reading BHOC: TWO-GUN KID #126
This was another issue of AVENGERS that I dug out of my drug store's Big Bin of Slightly Older Comics one day, the oldest issue I had yet had an opportunity to read. I had only just taken the plunge into reading AVENGERS--never would I have thought that someday I would not only edit the … Continue reading BHOC: AVENGERS #139
This was the second of the two issues of MARVEL SPECTACULAR I picked up from my drugstore's Big Bin of Slightly Older Comics when I went looking for more Thor adventures, and it was the Thor story that I enjoyed the most up to this point--largely, I expect, because the antagonist wasn't some Asgardian god … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL SPECTACULAR #19
