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So I’m pretty sure we’ve got the majority of the Free Comic Book Day comics in our hands by now…huge stacks of boxes awaiting my sorting into age-appropriate bags (explanation here) once I have some free time the shop.
…
Sorry, had to pause for a moment while I laughed. And then cried. A lot.
Anyway, I think all we’re waiting for now is the Darkness freebie and some of those Green Lantern Heroclix I was poking fun at a while back. Hopefully they’ll pop up on the invoice for next week’s shipment, and not on the invoice for the shipment the week after Free Comic Book Day.
For those of you who don’t know, Free Comic Book Day is the first Saturday in May, which, by the way, also happens to be the day Employee Aaron marries his lovely significant-other Kempo, despite my efforts and substantial bribes to get Aaron to change the date. And since neither he nor Kempo want to move the ceremony to the shop, I’m going to have to leave the store for a while to attend the wedding.
Not sure of how I’m going to have this worked out, exactly, but the wedding is relatively close to the store and I should only be away for a couple of hours. During that time I will be calling upon the talents of pal Andres to be Substitute Mike and handle the comic-related inquiries and requests in my absence, so that the other employees at the shop who are more familiar with the games end of the business will have at least one comics expert on hand to keep things running smoothly. (Well, Ralph should be around, too, hopefully.)
Regardless, this will the first Free Comic Book Day where I won’t be in attendance the whole time, and thus I expect to find only a smoking crater in the ground where the store used to be upon my return from the wedding.
As for the comics themselves…I may do a little more comprehensive overview of this year’s FCBD offerings a little closer to the actual day, but so far I think my favorite book is Fantagraphic’s Mickey Mouse by Floyd Gottfredson. Yes, a collection of comic strips from 1935 is my top pick for this year. Go figure.
• • •
I would like to note the
very sad and untimely passing of actress Elisabeth Sladen, who was best known as the loyal companion Sarah Jane Smith from
Doctor Who. Her performance of the character spanned decades and Doctors, originally appearing with the 3rd and 4th Doctors in the 1970s, and returning for the 21st century revival of the series. Eventually Sladen and her character spun off into
The Sarah Jane Adventures, a popular adventure show aimed at younger viewers.
She was a woman in her 60s starring in her own sci-fi action-adventure show, and that’s pretty awesome.
So long, Elisabeth.
It always amused me that, in the old Answer Man columns Bob Rozakis used to do in DC Comics a decade or three back, there would be a non-stop parade of folks asking what their comics were worth, and it seemed like most of the time they were worth about thirty cents to a buck:
Of course, this was a while back, before the comics the readers were most likely to have were given labels like “Bronze Age” and “Copper Age” and priced upward accordingly. But enough questions like this appeared to be submitted that, if memory serves, a separate column was created just to handle the pricing inquiries. I think maybe I once saw a reader ask about a comic that turned about to be, like, five bucks or something.
I like the matter-of-factness response to this next question:
And I like the very
specific nature of this next inquiry:
In the, oh, 30+ years since this was asked,
has Black Lightning made it to the Fortress? I haven’t the foggiest.
I’m also picturing that this was just one of a series of questions the reader sent in. “Has Firestorm been to the Fortress?” “No.” “How about Animal Man?” “Um, not yet.” “Metamorpho?” “Not sure, really.” “Okay, has Johnny Thunder?” “Oh, from the Justice Society? Lemme check….” “No, I mean Johnny Thunder, the cowboy hero.” “…Don’t you have anyone else you can bother?”
• • •
In other news:
From House of Mystery #195 (October 1971), which puts it only three months past the cover date of Swamp Thing’s first appearance in House of Secrets #92:
“Moss Being” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue like “Swamp Thing,” but it’s no sillier a name, I suppose.
BOUNCING BOY HEROCLIX FIGURINE:
Gaze into Bouncing Boy’s unforgiving glare:
I don’t play the Heroclix game, but I have a little shelf filled with a selection of figurines from the game I like. Swamp Thing and Man-Thing, of course, and Howard the Duck, and Lockjaw…haven’t got my hands on Devil Dinosaur yet, but it’s just a matter of time.
I’m not sure if I like the Bouncing Boy figurine enough to add my personal Heroclix display, but…man, that’s just a bit weird-looking. Though on this page you’ll see someone has repainted his Bouncing Boy figure to look like Fat Albert, and I don’t even know what to say to that.
For more on Bouncing Boy, please refer to my tribute to his moustache, and to this remarkably appalling question I had about his powers.
THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR
IS SLUGGO HIMSELF
from Nancy and Sluggo #181 (March-April 1961)
- BLOG FROM ANOTHER UNIVERSE: #1 – Mark Millar’s Invisibles; #2 – Rob Liefeld’s Big Numbers; #3 – Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four #5000.
- That little stuffed bull, Bully, who is stuffed, little, and apparently also a bull, puts his horns to Charlton Comics’ pin-up-book-disguised-as-a-narrative Partridge Family series.
I could have sworn I’ve discussed the Partridge Family on this site before, but I think I may be confusing discussing the book in shop with writing about it on the site, which is become more and more of a problem the longer I do this internet thingie here. Anyway…well, you should go read Bully’s post first before you read my little bit of business. Go on.
…
Okay, my specific example of what I remember from the Partridge Family comic totally backs up what Bully was saying…there was a three page story that was laid out like this: page one, with story title something like “Lost at Sea,” and a full page drawing of David Cassidy saying “Boy, that was some adventure I just had, when I was lost at sea!” Page two, an actual attempt of a narrative, with four or six panels showing a boat being tossed about in a storm, along with some narration from David about what a terrible storm it was. Page three, another full page drawing of David, saying something similar to “I sure am glad I was rescued from being lost at sea!” THE END.
- So Anna has unleashed an Amethyst Tumblr, which serves as a nice reminder that this was a solid fantasy comic that deserves more attention than it gets. Though, as Anna mentions, the character is returning in the one Flashpoint event tie-in comic I plan on reading, Secret Seven. (I was planning on skipping Flashpoint altogether, but, you know, George Perez art. We all have our weaknesses.)
- Suddenly…TOPLESS JACK KIRBY.
- Sometimes I forget there was a Pac-Man cartoon. Or I wish I could forget, more accurately.
By the way, if you’re a Pac-Man fan, I’m about to ruin your whole day.
- Oh, hey, Life Magazine did a thing on our book Write More Good.
Life. Oh my goodness.
So we had a fella donate some boxes of comics to the shop the other day, because if it’s one thing we need, it’s more comics. Mostly it was ’80s superhero and girly comics, but there were some trading cards (in case you were wondering where that Jimmy Olsen card came from yesterday), and a handful of Marvel-produced retail bags, like this one from 1989:
I know Punisher was one of Marvel’s most popular characters at the time, but it’s still kind of weird seeing him there on the front of the bag instead of, say, Wolverine. Or Deadpool, if it were like a year ago.
And there he is again on the back of the bag:
Sorry, whoever it was who wrote the blurbs on the bag, I can say from experience that, no, people who liked the Punisher and Ghost Rider did not also like
Destroyer, or, at the very least, didn’t buy it. Maybe they
would have liked it if they’d bothered to look at it. Which they didn’t. …Would anyone out there like to buy some
Destroyer magazines? How ’bout a dozen or so? Of each issue?
Actually, I did sell a run of those mags to a customer over the last weekend. That works about to, oh, about one set a decade. So if you want any for yourself, you better move fast!
So on the Twitter the other day, when I wasn’t complaining about Superman movie villains or discussing my dream casting for the Wonder Woman TV show, I had this to say about Swamp Thing:
“So where is my ROOTS OF THE SWAMP THING HC Vol. 2 w/#14-#24 of the first series? That’s (mostly) Nestor Redondo art, friends!”
Volume one of Roots of the Swamp Thing came out a few years ago, reprinting the first thirteen issues (and House of Secrets #92, my twelth copy of that story!) and thus containing all of Len Wein’s writing work with the character. A theoretical Volume Two would be primarily illustrated by Nestor Redondo (with the last story by Ernie Chua and Fred Carrillo) – now, Mr. Redondo was a fantastic artist, and you can see a small sample right here (from Swamp Thing #18, September 1975):
…but alas, he’s not quite the “name” that Bernie Wrightson is, and I don’t know that there would be enough interest aside from weirdos like me and
this guy to justify the expense. But man, it sure would be nice to have those Redondo pages recolored and on nice, white (well, not browning newsprint) paper.
Also, this currently-imaginary Volume Two would end with these two stories, which would probably leave new readers with…well, maybe not a bad taste in their mouths, but certainly a quizzical one. …A quizzical taste? Sure, why not. Moving on….
A Showcase Presents Swamp Thing trade paperback would be possible, squeezing 24 issues into one black and white volume. Sure, I’d rather have it all in color, but this may be the only way to get the non-Wrightson stuff reprinted, by pairing it with the Wrightson issues.
I’m not holding my breath for this run of Swamp Thing appearances to be reprinted anytime soon, however. But, you never know…if there’s a sudden bump in interest in Swamp Thing due to current DC Universe events – oh, wait, SPOILER ALERT – maybe some of this stuff will get some new exposure.
Something else I was reminded of when I was going through my Swamp Thing issues, and I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it before: there were only about six years between the end of the original series and the launch of 1982’s Saga of the Swamp Thing series. It sure seems like it was longer, doesn’t it? (Much in the same way there was only about eight years separating the Golden Age Flash from the Silver Age one.) The last Swamp Thing series ended in 2006, about five years ago, so I think we’re about due for a new one, in my own completely unbiased opinion.
In site-related news, I’ve started the arduous process of going back and “tagging” the appropriate posts with the “swamp thing” tag, so you can access them all with one clicky-clicky. …Turns out I’ve talked about Swamp Thing a lot, so this may take a while.
from Brave and the Bold #122 (Oct. 1975)
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