It's been a long time since we last looked at the unique work produced by veteran creator Manny Stallman on the short-lived Raven strip that ran in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents for the Tower Comics imprint. As opposed to the rest of the title, which was steeped in the clean and elegant linework of creator Wally Wood, … Continue reading Brand Echh – T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #10
If you were to ask me today about what constituted the best work that EC put out during its short but well-remembered time, I'd say without question the war titles edited and overseen by Harvey Kurtzman. They followed the EC tradition of tightly-plotted stories with punch endings, but they also had a point of view … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #9
When the title was launched by EC in the 1950s, SHOCK SUSPENSTORIES was intended to be something of a sampler series for the line's variety of offerings. So each issue would present an assortment of tales in the horror, science fiction and crime genres. But the stories that gave the series its identity inevitably ran … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #8
EC's science fiction titles were the weak link in the publishing line at least from a sales point of view. They never performed at much beyond a break-even level. But publisher Bill Gaines liked them, and so he kept them running regardless, using capital from his more profitable titles to underwrite them. Gaines was rightly … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #5
So it was around this time that I ordered a set of EC Classic Reprints from the Superhero Merchandise catalog. I wasn't in any way a fan of the mystery/horror series that were then coming out, mostly from DC. But I had read about the heyday of EC in the pages of THE COMIC-BOOK BOOK … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #3
Flo Steinberg came to the notice of comic book fandom during the early 1960s, during the initial flowering of what became the Marvel Age of Comics. As Marvel's corresponding secretary, she was, among other things, charged with answering the volumes of fan mail that came in for editor Stan Lee, and so the various active … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: BIG APPLE COMIX #1
Back at Christmas 1978, I was working my way through the fourth and latest release in the ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS line of Trade Paperbacks from Simon & Schuster: THE SUPERHERO WOMEN. This book was a bit more of a mixed bag than the earlier ones and relied more on material that was more contemporary--the … Continue reading BHOC: THE SUPERHERO WOMEN
Here's a very nice cover to JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY that features Wally Wood inking Jack Kirby's cover pencils. Kirby and Wood didn't really get to work together much during the Marvel Age--Wood was way too valuable as a penciler in his own right, given that he was capable of plotting as well, a skill set … Continue reading WC: JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #122
Taking a look here at the back half of FOOM #3, the third issue of Marvel's in-house fan club magazine as packaged and produced by Jim Steranko. In the days before formal indexes and Marvel Masterworks volumes and the internet, these Indexes to the major titles were a bit of a godsend for information freaks, … Continue reading FOOM #3, Part Two
In 1972, Marvel Comics entered its second phase. Editor Stan Lee had been promoted to Publisher and, momentarily, President, and Roy Thomas had been made his successor. What's more, former owner Martin Goodman was gone, as was the limitation on how many releases the company could put out which had been imposed upon them by … Continue reading THE CLAWS OF THE CAT #5: The Lost Issue
The Tom Brevoort Experience 