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I’m just winging it with the category names, I hope you all realize that.

§ December 4th, 2023 § Filed under 1990s Sins, publishing § 18 Comments

Continuing the discussion of “Most 1990s Comic” with more of your nominees, starting with a couple of comics that, in fact, weren’t nominated but just mentioned by LouReedRichards:


Well, okay, technically LRR only mentioned the second print of Fantastic Four #371 (Marvel 1992) with the red cover:


…which, yes, when photographed correctly, the details on the front cover do show up to some extent, like in the white cover. But under most practical circumstances the cover is unreadable, as LRR says. I mean, yes, if you pick it up in your hands and take a closer look, angling it in the light, you can make it out, sure. But as a cover, it fails in easily and quickly expressing information to anyone just looking across the rack. It does succeed in standing out (“oh hey what’s that big white square between Excaliber #58 and Fish Police #3?”) so it attracts attention by being an anomaly.

Anyway, I probably don’t need to tell you how covers work. I was trying to think of a “1990s Comics Sins” category for this one, beyond simply “Variant.” “Self-Defeating Variant” maybe in that you can’t read the cover…but like I said, it stands out regardless of anyone immediately knowing what it is (beyond awareness of any pre-publication hype) so it succeeds in that regard. Sigh. At least it’s not something they attempted very often (though the “gravestone” overlay on Amazing Spider-Man #400 deluxe edition would be of the same ilk).

• • •


Brought up by Chris and a couple of other folks, Deathmate is certainly about as 1990s as it gets, teaming the characters of the immensely popular Valiant Comics with Image Comics. Ordered in droves, sold in dribbles, the series was an immense flop, leaving retailers who ordered huge numbers stuck with unsold stock.

Now in my mind when I asked “pick the most 1990s comic” I was thinking “single issue” more than “entire series,” but I see I didn’t make that explicit. But if we had to pick a single issue from the run, it’d be a no-brainer to single out Deathmate Red, from 1990s champ Rob Liefeld, which shipped months late and after the rest of the series, even the final “Epilogue” issue, was published.

• • •

DK sneaks in two picks, which I’ll allow because I like DK, starting with


Doom Force Special #1 (DC Comics 1992), by Grant Morrison and a host of artists, including Keith Giffen and Mike Mignola on that great cover with an all-timer of a gag. As a representative of the 1990s, I don’t know if it would be my go-to example, but it is directly addressing what was going on in the industry at the time, a not uncommon tack taken by other books of the era, so I suppose it can get its own 1990s Comics Sins category. “Parody” is a pretty wide net, including some publications of…varying quality, but I think it fits here.

DK’s other “real” choice is Eclipso: The Darkness Within #1 (DC Comics 1992):


…part one of what would be a multi-part crossover event that runs through all of DC’s annuals for the year, ending in The Darkness Within #2. That would put this in the “Events” category, I suppose, but I think what stands out about this comic outs it more firmly in the “Cover Gimmick” section. It’s that twice-damned plastic jewel glued to the cover on the “direct market” edition, the thing that sticks out and puts a good diamond-shaped dent in the comic right before it in the storage box unless precautions are taken. (I think I put a backing board in front of my copy of this comic to ease said pokiness.)

As gimmicks go, this was…pretty out there, actually gluing a three-dimensional object to a cover. The only other comic I can think of that tried something like this was Sin #1 (Tragedy Strikes Press 1992) with its Band-Aids (or “Adhesive Bandage Strips”) but at least those are flatter than that gem. (Come to think of it, I should look at the condition of my copy of Sin to see if the glue has eaten through the paper yet.)

Anyway, that gem probably seemed like a good idea at the time. It is kind of neat, but still, what a thing to do.

• • •

Okay, let’s wrap this up for today with Customer Sean, who submits


New Mutants #98 (Marvel 1991), the introduction of Deadpool, drawn by the inimitable (or overly-imitable) Mr. Liefeld. That cover is certainly representative of a certain type of comic, a bunch of Kewl Characters standing around with Kewl Names.

For a 1990s Comics Sins category, maybe “Introducing a New Character,” perhaps? I mean, unlike other 1990s comics that would fit in this category (such as those series of annuals from both DC and Marvel introducing new folks) Deadpool actually caught on. Granted, it was more due to its handling by Other Hands than in its initial appearances, but still it’s not a bad visual, and the name “Deadpool” at least feels more like a name appropriate to the character.

Is it a Symbol of 1990s Comics like we’re talking about here? I feel as if its more recent position as a “hot” “collectible” comic that commands high prices is what I more immediately associate with this book. New Mutants #98 is absolutely Of Its Time, but it’s maybe evolved past that to be more representative of more recent industry shenanigans.

• • •

That’s plenty of my typing sticking into your eyes today. We’ll continue later in the week after a certain special something tomorrow. Thanks for reading, as always!

You’re going to see “Marvel” a lot in this post.

§ December 1st, 2023 § Filed under 1990s Sins, publishing § 7 Comments

Well, I’m not sure how I’m going to do this. I don’t particularly want to start another series of posts in the middle of wrapping up the “Favorite ’80s Comics” thing and you know my Variant Cover-age is still technically unfinished. But what the heck, let’s at let’s look at what you’ve got to say about what single comic book is the most 1990s.

As a reminder, I’m starting with the idea that X-Force #1 as the most symbolic of the comics industry of the decade, with both its artistry and the cynical marketing ploys of the publisher. I’ve written about the title once or twice and you can read more about what I think of the title there, if you are so inclined.

So let’s start off with none other than the dreaded, the infamous, the vastly-overordered Turok Dinosaur Hunter #1 (Valiant Comics, 1993) as first suggested by Matthew and seconded by several others:


Now have I talked about this comic before on this site? Friends, I have a category specifically for Turok. You can click that link and see what I’ve said in the past.

But, in short, Turok Dinosaur Hunter #1 is a very good example of retailers thinking past performance is indicative of future results. In this case, Valiant was a “hot” company in the early ’90s, goosed along by Wizard Magazine, with demand being high for both new and back issues, sometimes commanding huge prices. When it came time to place orders for Turok #1, it seemed like ordering high was a safe bet, not only because it was a new Valiant first issue and sure to sell, but because it was another revival of an older popular comic book character

And lots were ordered Lots of lots. I know at the shop where I worked at the time, we got an awfully robust pile of them. Again, in an effort to keep this reasonably succinct, I’ll just to the spoiler and tell you that this comic did not sell up to expectations. As I’ve said before, the comic actually sold pretty well in-store, at least for us, but just not anywhere near to what was ordered. A lot of retailers ended up dumping these in their bargain bins. Others…went to more extreme measures.

So let’s put this comic in the “Overordering” slot of 1990s Comics Sins, I suppose. It also had a gimmick cover (a chromium card attached to an embossed background) and while the gimmick was part of the problem, and perhaps fed into the hype that fed the orders in turn, “Overordering” is what this comic represents, at least to me.

• • •

Next up is Todd McFarlane’s Spider-Man #1 (Marvel, 1990), as suggested by Chris B:


I wrote a lot about this comic in my Variant Cover-Age series, and let’s not beat around the bush: the 1990s Comics Sin here is clearly “Variants.” Particularly the entirely pointless “bagged” variants…bagged not because they contain a trading card or something, but simply bagged to have another version of the comic to sell. The one pictured above even cost a quarter more, because…they could? The green bagged one cost the same $1.75 as the unbagged copies, so the black one…had no cover price printed on the actual cover, so that cost 25 cents more, I guess.

There are sub-categories for this particular comic, such as “Comic Built Around Hot Artist” or “New #1 for Established Character” (distinct from “Relaunched with New #1,” if you’ll allow me to split hairs). But “Variant” I think fits the best, a cynical ploy by a publisher to get collectors to buy multiple copies of the same book, for (in the case of the bagged versions) the least of reasons.

• • •

Here comes ScienceGiant with his excellent contribution of Spider-Man Maximum Clonage Alpha (Marvel, 1995) with its chromium cover:


My initial instinct was to put this in the category of “Gimmick Cover” (as opposed to “Variant”) since, I mean, look at it. Well, the pic above doesn’t really do it justice. You have to see it in its full shiny metallic glory for the full impact.

But it’s not just the fancy cover that makes it 1990s. It’s that it’s part of a “Big Event” (in this case, the ever continuing Spider-Clone Saga, that in some ways is still going on even now). I can see my category idea falling apart already, but “Gimmick Cover” and “Big Event” seem to be hand-in-hand here as far as 1990s Comics Sins go.

• • •

I think Thom H. has an interesting entry here that he explains quite well, Fantastic Four #375 (Marvel, 1993):


Again, the scan doesn’t quite get across the shiny foil-y bits of the cover, but I think you get the important points. To wit, per Thom H.:

“A lesser-known but equally offensive example of ’90s excess: Fantastic Four #375 (prism foil cover featuring shoulder armor, giant guns, an unnecessarily ‘sexy’ costume, and multi-pocket jackets).

“Once ‘kewl’ ’90s style has infected comic book’s first family, I feel like it’s truly reached its zenith.”

Yeah, that about sums it up. (Though I have to point out “375th anniversary,” just to be pedantic.) I think the content here is more important than the gimmick (or is it variant…did the newsstand cover have the foil highlights too, I can’t tell from the scans), so this would probably go in the “Kewl Style” category.

To be fair, it’s more about the accoutrements and the clothing than the actual artwork, which is by Paul Ryan and is perfectly fine. We’ll be getting to another “Kewl Style” category member shortly where the art itself is the key to its submission.

• • •

But not too shortly because that’s it for today. We’ll continue back here on Monday. Thanks for reading and participating, pals!

The Progressive Ruiin Swimsuit Special remains an unrealized dream.

§ November 27th, 2023 § Filed under publishing, zines § 4 Comments

Just a reminder: reader Daniel pointed out that Kwakk.info, which had featured search engines for Amazing Heroes and The Comics Journal, has been greatly expanded. Now it includes Wizard, Hero Illustrated, Comics Interview, Comics Scene, Comics Feature, Marvel Age, FOOM(!) and The Comic Reader(!!!).

The Comic Reader database is the one I’m most excited about, being a huge fan and collector of that particular ‘zine. This search engine covers issues #75 through the end of the run, #219, with some scattered earlier issues.

When looking at the Amazing Heroes page, I noticed in the little rotating cover gallery they have there a cover from the post-Fantagraphics era of the magazine, when it was acquired by another publisher. Now when I went to look this up on Wikipedia, that article claims the title was obtained by Personality Comics, but “nothing came of it.”

Except something did come of it…Personality (under its Spoof Comics imprint) published at least two issues of new(?) Swimsuit Specials in 1993 (numbered 4 and 5), like this one:

And there were at least four issues of Amazing Heroes Interviews published in 1993 from “Amazing Heroes Publishing,” which I am presuming was another imprint of Personality:


I don’t have these on hand…I seem to recall looking at these at the time and thinking “…nah” (hence the “borrowed from eBay” images)…and I can’t find a lot of info on them online aside from finding sale listings. I think the interviews are new…doing a search on some specific phrases from the Walter Koenig interview only turns up references to the later magazine, not the original Fantagraphics series. And speaking of which, many online sources refer to the interview mag as “Fantagraphics,” though that doesn’t look like their trade dress. Maybe someone can set me straight.

So there you go. Despite Wikipedia’s assertion, another publisher did use the “Amazing Heroes” name, if even justr briefly. Perhaps amending the reference to “almost nothing came of it” would be more appropriate.

• • •

Anyway, speaking of thirty years ago, I’ve been monitoring your responses to my quest for the most 1990s comic and I do plan on addressing the ensuing shenanigans there. I personally still think the ’90s remain Rob Liefeld’s world, and we were just living in it, though I waffle a bit on which comic is the most representative. I said Youngblood at first, but am now leaning toward, teeth gritted and my contorted footless body backed by speedlines, towards X-Force #1. It’s the perfect storm of both artistic and marketing…let’s say “qualities” of the time.

But you folks are bringing up some compelling arguments for other books. Like I said, I’ll get back to this and crown the ’90s King eventually (which may go to my choice, because this is my website and I’m a jerk) but keep on chiming in with your thoughts. I always appreciate them.

Yes, I know a buck each for Brigade is too much.

§ November 20th, 2023 § Filed under 1990s Sins, publishing § 30 Comments

So I related this story on my Bluesky account (follow me there if you can, and I have a couple of spare invite codes if anyone needs ’em) where a customer came in looking for a present for a friend of his. Said friend was described as a “big collector” of comics during the ’90s, and wanted to find a special comic that would essentially symbolize that time in this person’s life.

Well, of course the initial thought that ran through my head was to run to the dollar bins and pull out a full run of Brigade, but I couldn’t do that to a complete and presumably innocent stranger. Plus, of course this customer was looking for something “giftworthy,” so we’re probably looking at a single issue of a comic that was a tad more substantial (i.e. dollar-iffic) than some random ’90s thing that was better off as a tree fished out of the Boxes of Misfit Comics.

My next thought was something like Spawn or Youngblood, both titles that in their own different, yet surprisingly similar, ways were emblematic of the excesses of that particular partial decade prior to the market’s Big Crunch.

But before I could voice these suggestions, my customer spotted an item that fit the bill perfectly, a special comic that is near and dear to my heart. Yes, friends, it could only be one thing:


Yes ineedy, the Death of Superman, Superman #75, rears its head yet again. After a couple of questions from the customer (“Is it the original? Is the bag sealed?”) I had me a sale and he had him a piece of 1990s comics history.

Anyway, after telling this story (in a much-truncated less-that-300-characters fashion) I posed the following question to my Bluesky pals: “what would you pick to be THE most 1990s comic book?”

I had quite a few responses, including one or two for books like Starman, which, you know, while definitely good, I’m not sure that’s exactly what I was looking for here. I mean, yes, we shouldn’t ignore the fact that very nicely done, high quality comics were in fact published, but I tend to associate (as I said earlier) publishing excesses to the earlier part of the decade, and “the stink of desperation” to the latter. Perhaps unfortunately, for having lived through it as a funnybook seller, my perspective is a little more cynical. Which is on me, admittedly.

Perhaps my question is better phrased “what most exemplified the” (here’s that word again) “excesses of the era?” The “Death of Superman” issue is certainly one aspect of it, the immense hype and overwrought demand for a “collectible” item. Which would also apply to, say, Youngblood #1, where a talk show appearance the night before release drummed up business for a comic that…mmm. perhaps was not the medium putting its best foot forward for an audience that normally did not buy comics. (And I wonder how many of these new folks, if any of them even bothered to look inside, still picture that as what all comics are like.)

Now I had some good suggestions for other titles, like pal Ian dropping Darker Image #1 on us (a title that promised big things but ultimately never made it past that first issue). Or stuff like X-Men #1 or X-Force #1, selling millions of copies on the basis of multiple covers or card inserts, representing the gimmicky methods publishers used to push comic sales above and beyond and reasoable (or healthy) expectation. (And I don’t need to tell you the multiple cover strategy is still in play today, on much smaller scales but for basically the same reasons.)

Or titles like Alley Cat, part of that small trend of basing comics around models/actresses, who would often have their pictures featured on the covers. (A precursor to the modern trend of “cosplay” covers, I think.) No less a personage than Rusty Shackles brought up the comic based on the mostly-forgotten Barbi Twins, for which I owe him my revenge.

But I think, personally, it comes down to pretty much any comic by Rob Liefeld…Youngblood, or X-Force #1, or Deathmate Red (another suggestion), or titles like that. It’s what I picture in my head when I think of my 1990s toiling in the comics mines, in between slinging POGs and wondering what these new Magic: The Gathering cards were all about.

I’ll ask you the same question: what is the most 1990s comic? I don’t mean “what’s your favorite 1990s comic” — I’ll get to that question eventually, when I’m done with my ’80s countdown — but what comic do you look at and think “yeah, this is what the ’90s comic industry was like, for good or for ill.” Please let me know in the comments.

Meanwhile, please enjoy this 1993 cable access comic book show I found on the YouTubes. WARNING: the DC Comics commercial at 11:55 will give you an aneurysm.

The ghost of Harlan is going to get me for putting his book so close to a Fantagraphics thing.

§ November 6th, 2023 § Filed under publishing, zines § 5 Comments

My apologies for skipping out on Friday’s post…I’d been a little under the weather, and I’m still recovering though I’m feeling much better now. Not COVID, thankfully (and I got the most recent booster just a couple of weeks ago), but still, enough to throw me off my game.

So I’ll just try to do a little catch-up today, noting some things of interest, like (courtesy Daniel T.) this search engine for the Amazing Heroes comics ‘zine. Well, the link takes you to a page explaining how it was made, with a link to the search engine itself. But it’s worth reading the behind-the-scenes because, man, if I spent this much time putting something together I’d want people to read about my travails, too.

But I’ve tested it out on a couple of things, and it seems to work fine. Now I have an whole run of Amazing Heroes and its associated specials here at home, and over the years, mostly because of writing for this site, I’ve had to dive deep into the collection to research somethin’ or ‘nother and it would take a while because unless I knew right off the top of my head where it would have been, I otherwise would only have a vague sense of where to locate it and I would spend an inordinate amount of time paging through the mags. Anyway, this was quite the project, and I hope it stays around.

Also of note, I just found out there’s a new edition of Harlan Ellison’s legendary anthology Dangerous Visions on its way early in 2024:


That’s a wild color. I discovered this via a post on Bluesky via J. Michael J. Straczynski, who says he’s providing a new introduction to the volume (which makes sense, since the infamously-unpublished Last Dangerous Visions is in his hands). Another new intro is by Patton Oswalt, which…I mean, sure, why not, I like him, I’m sure both he and JMS can provide a modern context as to the importance of this book, and the cutting-edge nature of the work at the time.

It’s been a while since I’ve read Dangerous Visions. I don’t even own a copy, which is why I’m happy to have this new edition (and my choice of hard or soft covers, apparently being released simultaneously next March). I do wonder how the stories have aged since the book was first released in 1967, and how much time may have blunted those cutting edges. I do own a battered hardcover of Again, Dangerous Visions which is probably due a new poke-through after sitting on my shelf for many a year. (Or I can wait for that book’s reissue next summer.)

I don’t want to relitigate the whole Last Dangerous Visions thing here, which you can read about on Wikipedia if you don’t know the details. But I do wish JMS the best of luck wrestling that beast…the Wiki entry does claim that Blackstone (the publisher of the DV reissue) will be releasing Last Dangerous Visions late next year, but surely no one can blame me if I say “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

I don’t know how unsuccessful it was, all my readers apparently bought Grendel from a newsstand.

§ October 30th, 2023 § Filed under fanzines, publishing § 6 Comments

Hi pals…I’m pretty wiped out today so I’m going to apologize up front for a less thorough post. But you folks really stepped up with some info regarding the woes of comics publisher Comico, researching and finding relevant articles in The Comics Journal that I didn’t.

What I was doing when looking through my Journals for the last post was specifically searching out articles along the lines of “COMICO DISTRIBUTES TO NEWSSTANDS.” I stuck mostly to Journals released around mid-1986 through mid-1987. However, if I’d kept going through December 1987, I might have found this feature the mag ran in December ’87, presented here courtesy reader Lars. This is more in the context of Comico’s large printer debt, which the article states

“…Was at least partly incurred as the result of an apparently unsuccessful nationwide newsstand distribution of such Comico titles as Jonny Quest, Grendel, and the three Robotech titles….”

The article also notes other reasons for Comico’s money woes, including the collapse of some distribution companies that owed the publisher money. That particularly rings a worrying bell right now, as the industry is currently splintering amongst multiple distributors after many years of just one company bringing us our comics. I mean, it’s a different situation now — it’s not likely Penguin Random House is suddenly going to disappear overnight — but those of us who remember distributors dropping like flies can’t help but think of those days.

Anyway, thank you Lars for the scans, and thanks also to ChrisB for pointing out other issues of the Journal for me to check out. As Michael points out, the mag’s “Newswatch” section is pretty consistently amazing, and I found myself just paging through article after article being reminded of the many events of the time. This is one of the reasons I like ‘zines, reading about comics news as reported contemporaneously. As I noted on Bluesky, “this is my comics nostalgia.”

I plan on digging through more of these Journals and seeing if I can find any more articles of note, not just about Comico but other topics as well. Though I did spot an editorial by Gary Groth about the end of the black and white/investment boom which I also can’t wait to revisit.

Honestly, I love Canada, I once wrote a report on the country that I used, unchanged, in two different school years.*

§ October 27th, 2023 § Filed under publishing § 9 Comments

So a few of you folks popped into my comments to note that yes, you too bought Grendel off the newsstands back in ’86, along with Johnny Quest, another Comico-published property. (And then Matthew brings up the Canadian newsstand distribution of Melody: Story of a Nude Dancer, and, well, Canada being a lawless land is perhaps a topic for another day….)

Anyhoo, I spent my Thursday evening going through the mid-1980s portion of my Comics Journal, looking at the news sections and trying to find any mention of Comico’s newsstand distribution plans, along with any note of how those could have been a factor in the publisher’s demise. Alas, I found nothing, but with the caveat that one of my issues from that run is AWOL, possibly in the stacks of unsorted material that I am currently reorganizing at the house. And also, I could have just plain missed it. I should check my Amazing Heroes from the same period, when it’s not approaching midnight (as I write this), along with their Preview Specials, to see if there’s any mention there.

Well, hold on, I still have the Previews Specials here next to my desk, so let me poke through ’em real quick-like and see if I can find anything.

[TEMPUS FUGITS RIGHT ALONG]

Nope, no mention in the Grendel entries in those.

Anyway, suffice to say Comico was experimenting with distribution outside the comic book store direct market. Much like how Now Comics would also attempt it not too much later. I am curious if Grendel ever got any blowback from “concerned parents” or news crews lookin’ for controversy, as, as the articles I was seeing in Comics Journal of the period remind me, comic content and censorship in the industry was a real hot topic. Just news item after news item of shops being harassed, publishers issuing subject matter guidelines, creators parting ways (or getting fired for complaining) with DC after announcing their content-labeling plans, complaints about the Miracleman birth issue…it was a real mess. Even putting “PARENTAL GUIDANCE SUGGESTED” across the top of their comic, like Comico did with Grendel #1, wouldn’t stop anyone from startin’ any trouble with them. If anything, it would just make them a target.

That’s…probably a bigger topic than I have time to really tackle here. I was actually specifically reminded of the whole “look at the filthy comics your kids are reading!” hoohar that went around whenever comics started selling reasonably well in the last couple of decades. Lots of people always willing to hitch their agenda wagon to whatever seems popular, and if comics are popular, well, that’s a good hook to rail against the sinfulness in society and “protecting” the children. Of course now video games an’ such get much more attention, so those are more attractive to those types, so it doesn’t matter if Batman says a swear, or whatever.

So, the thing that specifically reminded me of this. I was looking up old San Diego Comic Con videos on YouTube and found this one, a San Diego news programs retrospective of their own coverage of the event over the years. It’s pretty neat seeing the sales floor and the people in costumes, and the coverage ranges from “comic books are weird” to “comic fans are weird” to “oh thank God normal celebrities and big movies are here,” but keep a lookout for the coverage in the 1990s where, gasp, adult comics are on sale here in full view of children!


So going back three or four topics, I’ll keep my eye out and see if I can’t spot any info on Comico’s newsstand distribution. Also, at one point Comico was piggybacking on DC for a bit, offering their books through DC’s distributor solicitations. That’s kinda weird too.
 
 

* BONUS: the two teachers were spouses.

Another lazy post.

§ September 29th, 2023 § Filed under publishing § 15 Comments

So another night where things got away from me…I do plan on the next installment of the Final ’80s Countdown, which I’ll try to get to next week. But in the meantime:

Sean asked about the alternate history Spider-Man comics published in Mexico, post-Gwen’s death. Apparently Mexican fans, and the folks making the comics, weren’t having it, so they continued along with new stories where Gwen didn’t get thrown off a bridge by the Green Goblin and then get killed when Spider-Man grabbed her in mid-air, snapping her neck. This article in the Guardian tells you all about it (and even interviews the original artist of those stories).

It’s brought up in the article, but it is very surprising to me that an English translation hasn’t been released in the U.S. But then, Marvel has so much Spidey stuff produced in the U.S. to pull from for trades and hardcovers, the added expense of hiring a translator to redo all the text may be enough to put them off. So I guess y’all better start hunting the back issue bins to put together your own run. I think in the 35 years I’ve been selling comics, I’ve seen an issue from this series…maybe twice. So good luck!

Mike Loughlin notes that Wizard said about pricing foreign edition comics

“…The UK edition of the ’60s Avengers comic was worth less than the US edition.”

…and that was likely true at the time. But Wizard died off before the weird, almost frantic drive to find “hot” comics that afflicted collectors starting not all that long ago, and driven to extremes during the height of society actually acknowledging a pandemic was happening. Things not as hot before were a lot warmer now, including international “variants” of American books. It was, and still is, a weird time, what can I tell you.

Sean also asked if I could get into the alternate version of various characters like the Captain Atom and the Shadow published in Australia. I didn’t have to resond, but in swoops Chris B with some Aussie comical info.

Here’s one, as s sample:


I don’t know…Casual Day for the Shadow isn’t really that great of a look.

Computers make everything easier!

§ September 27th, 2023 § Filed under publishing § 3 Comments

Well, I’m left with almost no time to post at the moment because I spent the evening trying to figure out how to reset the password on my desktop Macintosh. Wasn’t getting “reset password” options on the login screen, and it took forever to find help online that wasn’t specific to 1) laptops, 2) phones, and 3) older Macs. Oddly, the password I’d been using forever (bad idea, don’t do as I do, kids) suddenly stopped working, and I’m not sure why. (When I had to reenter the old password later, after the reset, it worked fine.)

Anyway, all is good now unless it happens again tomorrow, but we’ll see. But I’ve changed the password to something a little easier to deal with, so nobody tell anyone that it’s now “seanmageeanisastinker,” okay?

All that said, I wanted to thank you folks for all the great comments you’ve been leaving lately. I do read every one, and I appreciate the civil discussion.

I’ll try to address a couple of questions from last time here.

First, JohnO asks

“Question regarding overseas reprints…what if it is a reprint of a key issue from the UK/Australia? Are those also ‘cheaper?’ Obviously, they go for less than the original but how much more are they able to sell for since they are in English? Thanks and keep up the great work.”

I actually got into this a couple of years ago, where the answer at the time was, in general, they were worth about the same, if not more, at least for the UK editions. The ones I was speaking of back then were essentially identical to the U.S. versions, likely printed at the same time, with only the cover priced altered. (There were some comics that were the U.S. editions, just ink-stamped with a UK price, which are priced as normal per their condition including said stamp.)

Basically, if they’re the same book otherwise, the cover price being printing in a different denomination doesn’t change things much, usually. When I had those Silver Age Marvels with the printed UK prices, I had no problem moving them at current U.S. market pricing.

Jim Kosmicki suggests

“I’m not in comics retailing anymore, but this really strikes me as a put it up on eBay and let the market price it situation, depending on what you have invested in it already.”

It is tempting, and I’ve done so in the past, but I’ve really been shying away from using eBay for selling of late. However, I feel like the fees are getting more and more burdensome there, and would rather avoid it if at all possible. I do still have a few things on there for the shop, but it’s mostly things I’m trying to unload that I couldn’t sell locally. This particular comic I’m pretty sure I can sell in-store without giving a giant megacorporation a quarter of my take.

And will richards responds to JohnO by noting UK reprints of U.S. comics don’t sell for a whole lot, which reminds me I should make a distinction in my own response to JohnO above. I was talking about straight-up UK editions of U.S. books…not “reprints,” like that Superman/Batman book from Germany, which is a whole separate publication reissuing previously-published stories from the U.S. which will is talking about. Yes, the UK-specific reprint mags containing “key” reprint material don’t sell for as high premiums, but can sell for a bit depending on exactly what it is. Having, like he said, the first appearance of Wolverine in a UK reprint is enough of a novelty to get those prices pushed upward.

Okay, here’s hoping to no computer problems before the next post. Thanks for reading, pals.

There goes my Fables stage musical.

§ September 18th, 2023 § Filed under dc comics, publishing, retailing § 19 Comments

An update to Friday’s post about Bill Willingham declaring his Fables comic to be in the public domain: in a shocking turn of events, the publisher of Fables, DC Comics, has a problem with that. They released an announcement that basically says “Fables is ours, don’t even try it, we’re looking at you Rob Liefeld” and okay I added that last part, but still, they’re not into the whole “public domain” thing as one would expect.

And like I said, this ain’t gonna be settled ’til there’s been a lawsuit or three, so…um, don’t make up stories based on public domain fairy tale characters that even slightly resemble those published under the Fables label, I guess? And certainly don’t call it Fables.

Anyway, there may be a lot of probable…grey area to this story, as has been brought up in the comments to Friday’s post. We’ll see how this plays out.

To answer the question Sean brought up regarding who owns Willingham’s superhero team the Elementals: I actually Googled the phrase “who owns the elementals comic book” and up popped the name “Andrew Rev.”

“Comico’s publisher, Andrew Rev, purchased the Elementals property from Willingham in the 1990s.”

So I presume ol’ Andrew is still just sitting on the rights, and doing nothing with them. Or trying to do something with them and none of us know about it because it hasn’t been going anywhere. Ah well.

• • •

In other news, I’ve got medical stuff going on in the mornings for the first part of the week, so…posting may be light on Wednesday. I’m only getting this much typing done right now because I got an early start Sunday evening. But at least I wanted to show you this picture:


Believe it or not, I thought I was smiling. But I guess comics are Serious Bizness so my stern look of disapproval at all of you is the best I can manage.

So anyway, those comics. That Amazing Fantasy #15 and Amazing Spider-Man #1. About a year and a half ago a gentlemen brought in some Silver Age Marvel for sale and I purchased them from him. He and his family had inherited these and over a few weeks he offered up several comics to me that I of course had to buy. Then one week he showed me those two omics in the picture there. He wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to part with them just yet, but we talked about them and how we’d sell them and so on.

I saw him a few more times over the following months, buying other comics from him but he still wasn’t ready to part with those two books. Until he was, just recently! And before you ask…no, they’re sold, I don’t have them hanging around the store, so keep your Ocean’s 11-style shenanigans out of my shop. But I guess after all our dealings together he decided he liked the cut of my jib and asked me to handle these two beauties.

More and more stuff has shown up from this collection, and one of the unintended consequences of letting people know I had an Amazing Fantasy #15 is that I’m seeing and hearing from a lot of people about what I have to offer in my shop. Now, while I’ve been in this business for three and a half decades, I’m not a Big Name Retailer. I’m probably not even the biggest retailer in the county. So it probably came as a surprise to a lot of folks that this nobody with a tiny shop out in Camarillo, CA is suddenly awash in The Big Books.

This won’t last forever, of course. This collection will eventually run out (though there’s plenty of good stuff I still need to process) and once I no longer had The Big Books folks will move on. Unless more people bring me stuff like this after seeing…um, that I had stuff like this. I don’t know, we’ll see. But it’s been fun looking through these books that I haven’t had in my hands in a while.

…Like that Amazing Fantasy #15. Last time I held one of those in my hands was just before the big price jump in the…1990s, I think? Back when we had it for a few hundred dollars, as opposed to the…quite a bit more it commands now? Quite the item, and it was good to see it in person once again.

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