1. Finally saw American Splendor, the film based upon the life and work of Harvey Pekar. Good film, if a little depressing (every time they cut back to a scene in Harvey’s apartment, I kept thinking “for Pete’s sake, open a curtain!”).
As a result of my having managed a comic shop for as long as I have, every time I see a comic book store on TV or in the movies, my eyes immediately shoot for the backgrounds. What old comics do they have? What posters do they have up? Are there any anachronisms? In the scene that takes place at Joyce’s comic shop, I did spot on the wall and on the counter a couple Concrete promo items that I’m pretty sure didn’t exist in the time period that scene took place. (You can see one pretty clearly over Joyce’s shoulder as she’s saying that she hasn’t had a chance to read the new American Splendor.)
It’s a sickness, I know. I can’t help it. I’m still bothered by the anachronistic comics in Drugstore Cowboy.
1a. A friend of mine once went to a “Scream Queens” signing at Golden Apple several years ago, and took a couple photos of the event. One photo showed a couple of the Scream Queens themselves sitting behind a glass counter. When he showed me that photo, what did my eyes automatically gravitate to? Yup, right to the comics in the case. “Say, look at that old Justice League….”
It’s pathetic, really.
2. You know what I’d like to see? A Modok Pez dispenser.
3. I keep trying to come up with something to say about the recently-released The Best of The Legion Outpost, but all I can come up with is “who exactly is the target audience for this book?” Okay, there’s me (a longtime Legion fan, and a collector of old fanzines), and at least one of my customers. Are there enough people like me (heaven forfend) to support a book like this?
However, if you are sort of curious about this item, let me give you at least one reason why you should pick up this book:
Seven page Hero History of the Legion of Super-Pets, individually and as a team.
…complete with what looks like commissioned sketches of said team, by Joe Staton, Karl Kesel, Ramona Fradon, Sergio Aragones (whose contribution I’d mentioned before), Joe Linsner(!), and others. The history stretches up into the late ’80s, covering the Superman revamp (and its effect on Krypto), Ambush Bug’s less-than-reverent treatment of the characters, and so on.
The article did point me in the direction of an issue of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen I don’t believe I read (#29), in which Krypto, now an elderly dog, enters some alien Fountain of Youth and becomes young again. Thus, DC’s editors were saved the trouble of having to explain a large audience of children how Krypto could still be around in Superman’s time, when he had been young Kal-El’s pet way back even before Krypton exploded. Alas, we don’t have this issue at the store, so it eludes me for the time being. On the want list it goes!
