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Thursday, November 14, 2024

The Shock of the New: Batman and Robin: Year One - by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee

In general, I haven't really purchased many new comics since the early 1990's . There have been some exceptions to this and I will occasionally delve into titles like B.P.R.D (Dark Horse), the odd mini-series by artists I like, and I will almost always check out anything by the team of Mark Waid and Chris Samnee (Daredevil, Black Widow etc) . The latest offering by this team is "Batman and Robin: Year One" which is a pretty decent comic that reminded me of the bronze age Batman with Samnee’s Alex Toth inspired art. If you’re a fan of the bronze age Batman (with a modern twist) then you could do worse than pick this up next time you’re in your local comic book shop.
This is a 12-issue series so I may pick up a couple of issues and wait for the trade collection. Enjoy.

Monday, November 11, 2024

Gone but not Forgotten: Marvel (Panini UK) Pocket Books

From 2004 - 2017, Panini, who hold the licence to publish Marvel comics in the UK, produced a series of "Pocket Books" reprinting in full colour, several classic tales from Marvels back catalogue with many books running to over 250 pages for between £3-£4.99 each. I never actually saw these advertised in any of the then Panini Marvel monthly comics at the time and only came across (and purchased) my first pocket book “Spider-Man: The end of the Green Goblin” (see below) when visiting the Waterstones book shop in Glasgow. I don’t recall seeing any other Pocket Books again until around 2014 when I picked up the above “ Spider-Man: Countdown to Chaos” book for £1 in a charity shop, since then I have managed to purchase 6 other Pocket Books for only 50p each with my most recent one ("The Night Gwen Stacy Died") being bought last week.
The earlier books seemed to have had a few publishing problems with stiff card covers , pages being printed right up to the spine / gutter making it difficult to read (see above) and some pages printed upside down or out of order. However, the more recent books (after 2011) seem to have sorted these problems out. Below in no particualr order, are the pocket books I have so far managed to pick up:
Above: "To Crush the Kingpin" (2006) - Reprinting: Amazing Spider-Man #68 to #77
Above:"The End of the Green Goblin"(2004) - The first Panini Spider-Man Pocket book -Reprinting - Amazing Spider-Man #39 to #46
Above:Thor: "In the Shadow of Mangog!" (2014) - Reprinting: Thor #189 to #198
Above: Hulk - "The Coming of the Hulk!" (2004) - Reprinting: The Incredible Hulk #1 to #6
Above: "The Origin of Deathlok" (2014) - Reprinting: Astonishing Tales #25 to #28 and #30 to #35
Although Marvel are now publsihing many of their classic tales in more affordable (and smaller sized) trades, the Panini pocket books are a cheap way to check out these earlier comics with some editions appearing online for little money and for even less if you can pick them up in charity shops. I have never seen a full list of the titles soI have no idea how many books they published (at a guess I would say there must be around 50 books) but I do know that there are X-Men, Avengers, Fantastic Four, Captain America, Silver Surfer (cover above from ebay) and Dacula Lives books out there.

Thursday, November 7, 2024

My Famous Firsts: Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, X-Men, Flash, Cap America & others

I normally bore you all to death on here by talking about how I bought the first issue of a specific comic book title back in the day. However, the truth is that apart from on a few occasions, the event was usually marked by myself simply walking into a newsagent in my old home town, seeing a comic I wished to purchase, and buying it. Of course, there was always the fanboy elation at finding that first US issue but if you are a comic book fan then you know that feeling. Below are a few of my “famous first” purchases that have no specific memory or story attached to them. these along with my first US "Fantastic Four" comic (above) - #150 from June 1974 – cover by Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia, still hold memories of a diffenrt time. Enjoy:
Above: Ghost Rider #7 - Cover by John Romita and Gasper Salindino - from May 1974.
Above: X-Men #79 cover by Gil Kane & Frank Giacoia - September 1972 (I know I need to buy a replacement copy, this one is a bit tattered but it's my original)
Above: X-Men #96 - Cover by Marie Severin & Sal Buscema - December 1975 - I was never a fan of the original X-Men (I missed the Steranko and Neal Adams issues first time around) and my "first" X-Men issue 79 was a reprint, so this is my second first issue of the title. I really enjoyed the team of Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum on this title -This is a replacment copy as I read my original so many times that it is falling apart.
Above: The Flash #208 - Cover by Neal Adams - August 1971.
Above ; The Mighty Thor #205 - cover by Gil Kane & Frank Giacoia - August 1972.
Above: Warlock # 5 - cover by Gil Kane & Frank Giacoia -January 1973.
Above: Captain America #121 -Cover by Gene Colan and Joe Sinnott - October 1969 - This was one of the first US Marvel comics that I ever purchased (around 1970) and it is still a big favourite of mine.
Above: Teen Titans # 34 - Cover by Nick Cardy - August 1971 - Another classic comic book from the bronze age.
Above: The Demon # 13 - Cover by Jack Kirby - October 1973 - I was never a big fan of Kirby's 1970's stint at DC, but the Demon (and Kamandi) were pretty decent.

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Top Tens: The Halloween & horror covers of Bernie Wrightson

I first became aware of Bernie Wrightson (1948 - 2017 ) in the early 1970's , when he and writer Len Wein created comics most famous muck monster, Swamp Thing. Although I came to the Swamp Thing late with my first issue being #8 (Bernie's last issue on the title being #10) I did manage to console myslef by picking up several of his amazing covers and strips in many of DC and Marvel's mystery / horror comics - some of my favourites are noted below.
Cover above taken from the Grand Comics Database (my issues cover is badly damaged)

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Gone but not forgotten: Skywald: Naked ladies, Heaps and monsters

My first encounter with Skywalds’ “horror mood” line of magazines was in the playground of my secondary school in 1971 where I came across a group of older kids reading and waxing lyrical about one of their titles. It wouldn’t be until 1972 when I managed to purchase my first Skywald magazine, which were not that easy to pick up at 12 years old (and looking about 10) as they were considered to be “for mature audiences” . Luckily for myself, the staff in my local newsagents (Johnny’s) who knew me, were happy enough to let me have a copy of the 1972 Psycho annual. Although I never managed to pick up many Skywald magazines at the time the issue I did have contained some genuinely interesting horror tales, and more than a few illustrations of semi-naked ladies, what more would a 12 year old boy want!?.
Skywald made its comic magazine debut in December 1970 with the first issue of their black-and-white magazine-format comic book, “Nightmare” with their second title, Psycho, appearing just one month later followed by “Scream” in 1973 . All 3 titles included artwork by some of US comics most popular artists/writers including Gerry Conway, Mike Friedrich, Len Wein, Rich Buckler, Syd Shores, Pablo Marcos, Bill Everett, Tom Sutton and Ross Andru.
In amongst the standard standalone horror tales Skywald also produced strips featuring several return characters including their version of the 1950’s Hillman monster “The Heap” that first appeared in the second issue of Psycho (cover and splash page - by Ross Anru - above) . Although the origin of this version of the Heap was similar to the Hillman character, there were slight differences in that Jim Roberts (the Heap) was a crop duster pilot who crashed his plane into a secret government nerve gas storage facility. The resultant fire combined with the gas turned him into a shambling monster.
Other regualr strips included Frankenstein II. This strip first appeared in Nightmare #1 (splash page - by Tom Sutton - above) this strip was an interesting sequel to Mary Shelly’s original novel and took the monster on a quest find and resurrect his “father” Victor Frankenstein.
Lady Satan’s tales appeared in Scream magazine (October 1974 – cover below and splash page - by Pablo Marcos -above) and followed the tales of a witch called Black Anne who rejected the King of Hells offer of betrothal in order to father the antichrist.
In addition to their more mature black and white magazines Skywald also published a few colour comics including, Wild Western Action, Blazing Six-Guns, Jungle Adventures, and a single issue of the The Heap (see cover above and splash page below by Tom Sutton -images taken from eBay).
Allegedly it wasn’t poor sales that killed the company as they they sold very well with Nightmare lasting for 23 issues, with 3 annuals, Psycho clocking up a slightly more impressive 24 issues and 2 annuals and Scream lasting for 11 issues. Seemingly it was the introduction of Marvel’s black-and-white comic magazine line that signalled the end of the companies output. Marvel controlled the distributor Curtis Circulation, that Skywald had depended upon to distribute their magazines however, Curtis wasn’t about to handle their "owner’s" competition, so Skywald magazines were abruptly no longer available on newsstands, effectively killing the line.

Sunday, October 20, 2024

Gone but not Forgotten: Hell-Rider - Skywald Publishing

As we enter the Halloween season, I thought it would be a good time to look at one of the 1970's most underrated (and almost forgotten) publishers of horror and violent comics, Skywald. The brainchild of Israel Waldman and Sol Brodsky, Skywald (the name being a blend of their surnames) was primarily known as the publisher of contemporary gothic black and white comics referred to as "Horror Mood" . The core of the companies’ output were the titles Psycho, Nightmare and Scream however, they also published the short lived costumed " Hell-Rider" magazine (above: cover to issue 1 -August 1971) - by Harry Rosenbaum).
Hell-Rider(created by Mile Friedrich) was Vietnam war veteran and lawyer Brick Reeves who rode a flame-thrower equipped bike and with his temporary super strength ( obtained through the experimental drug Q-47) he would violently dish out his own form of justice (as can be seen from the above splash-page and the page below by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito).
Hell-Rider also featured 2 other strips “Butterfly" (by Gary Friedrich and Rich Buckler) who was the first ever African American super-heroine in comics and the "Wild Bunch" (by Friedrich and Esposito) - splash pages to both stories below.
Sadly, Hell-Rider would only last for one more issue before ceasing publication. Not long afterwards Mike Friedrich would be working for Marvel where he would co-create a similar bike riding hero that used fire...Ghost Rider.
Above: The seconds and final issues of Hell- Rider (cover from "Cover Browser").

The Shock of the New: Batman and Robin: Year One - by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee

In general, I haven't really purchased many new comics since the early 1990's . There have been some exceptions to this and I wil...