BEHOLD: obtained from the eBay, a magnet of Sluggo with a bat ‘n’ ball:
Don’t know much about it…a quick Googling seems to date this magnet to the mid 1990s. It looks older than that to me, but that may just be because Sluggo is eternally a creature of the ’40s or ’50s.
I have another eBay-obtained Sluggo magnet coming in the mail, and there may be more yet to come. Watch this space for all the latest Sluggo magnet news!
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DON’T TAKE YOUR EYES FROM THIS SPACE. EVER.
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In other news:
- CO2 Comics has a neat archival comics project in the works…not of actual comics, but of the 1980s and 1990s zine Comics Interview. The 11-volume project is titled David Anthony Kraft’s COMICS INTERVIEW: The Complete Collection, with volume one, currently in release, coming in at a whopping 680 pages.
Comics Interview was a fine mag, each issue stuffed with interviews with comic creators, publishers, showbiz celebrities, and even the occasional fan. Some of the interviews included in this debut book include Steve Gerber, Keith Giffen, Berke Breathed, Joe Kubert, Walt Simonson, Don Rosa, Matt Wagner…man, there’s a lot of them. Just go to the site and click on the animated book cover-thingie and you’ll see the contents yourself.
I have to admit it never occurred to me that those old Comics Interview zines should be collected into a more permanent form, but it sure seems like a good idea and I’m glad its being done, rescuing all these interviews from obscurity. Maybe this’ll lead to more zines being collected…c’mon, complete Comic Reader!
- In the mood for something…spooky? Then treat yourself to an uncanny tale of mind-bending horror, courtesy El Gorgo!
- Bully, the Little Stuffed Bull, finds a thread and follows the heck out of it! What terrible secret unites the Fantastic Four with one of the most beloved films series of all time?
- Awesome Hospital wraps up Chapter Two of its ongoing webcomics saga, and if you haven’t been reading so far, it’s too late…TOO LATE! (Or you could just read the archives.)
And in Halloween-ish webcomic news…Cool Jerk‘s Paul Horn joins Kevin Church in a weeklong zombie-riffic adventure in The Rack. People live…people die, and The Rack will never be the same!
So pal Dana dropped by the shop on Wednesday to bring us some homemade cupcakes in honor of my birthday this past weekend, because she is awesome. Even more awesome was the birthday card she drew for me with the wraparound cover:
Yes, that’s Sluggo and Swamp Thing giving each other the high five. And they’re both wearing sombreros. Note that Sluggo is wearing a sombrero on top of the hat he normally wears. This is the greatest thing ever. (
Here’s a little context for the whole sombreros thing, in case you’d forgotten.)
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In other news:
- The spam catchin’ plug-in on my site seems to be catching genuine comments, and there’s no easily-implementable white list function to correct this issue. Until I can find a little time to tinker with this, if you post a comment and it doesn’t show right away, don’t worry…I go through the spam folder every day and I’ll find and approve your comment eventually. I apologize for the inconvenience.
- Sad to report that my non-readership streak of Antarctic’s books remain unbroken, as, despite my initial hopes for the title, a glance through Time Lincoln didn’t do anything for me. Sorry! No hard feelings, I hope…it’s not you, baby, it’s me.
And, as pointed out in the comments…the Time Lincoln logo is very reminiscent of the Time Warp logo. Probably should have realized that myself…I keep coming across copies of Time Warp at the shop, after all.
- I may have seen this image a couple of weeks ago, and have been dying to link to it once it was posted. And at last, here it is: Chris Sims and Rusty Shackles bring you an installment of Great Comics That Never Happened that has to be seen to be believed. I would buy the hell out of this comic. (SPECIAL NOTE TO MY DAD, WHO READS MY SITE EVERY DAY: Click on “Great Comics” link, Dad.)
I bought the five Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy books published by Kitchen Sink Press in the late ’80s/very early ’90s, spurred on by snippets of the books I’d seen in magazines, the admiration of the strip by one of my favorite cartoonists, (Bill “Zippy the Pinhead” Griffith), and my old friend Rob extolling the virtues of the comic.
I’d never thought much about the strip prior to that. I was aware of it, of course, but I was hardly an avid follower. But I thought “well, I’ve been amused by what I’ve seen so far, my friend Rob really likes it, and Bill Griffith likes it…I’ll give it a shot.” I started with Nancy Eats Food
, the first of the series. And in short order, I ended up buying the rest.
It’s difficult to explain just why I enjoy Bushmiller’s Nancy so much. I’ve read many essays by a variety of folks trying to explain (or perhaps justify) their own love for the strip, and I’m not sure I’m quite ready to add my own to the mix. I don’t know that I really even can pin down what exactly it is that endears the strip to me. The juxtaposition of apparent normalcy with bizarre circumstances? The dedication to the more-than-occasional shameless joke? The awesomeness of Sluggo? It’s all these and more besides, I’d say.
My enjoyment of the strip even extends to the comics, as you may have noticed, though the Bushmiller-ness of the strips is softened into the new “kid’s adventure” stories created specifically for those publishers, if they weren’t simply reprinting the original strips in color. But even in this lesser form, the occasional moment of weirdness still shines through. (And legendary cartoonist John Stanley contributed his skills to the cause, so you can’t go wrong there.)
I know I’m not the only fan: looking at the Amazon listing linked above for Nancy Eats Food, as well as for the following books – Bums, Beatniks and Hippies/Artists & Con Artists
, Nancy’s Pets
, How Sluggo Survives!
, and Dreams and Schemes
, I see some adventurous pricing at work, in the $30 to $60 (or even $100+) range. Okay, what they’re selling these for isn’t necessarily what people are buying them for, but it’s at least one indicator of demand. (And yes, all those Amazon links throw a little somethin’-somethin’ back in my direction should you decide to take the Sluggo Plunge. Buy the really expensive ones, if you do.)
I’m…well, I was going to say I’m surprised there hasn’t been a more extensive reprinting of these strips in recent years. Just a handful of books, like the Kitchen Sink volumes and this intriguing book
that I don’t yet have. But I’m not terribly surprised if only because Nancy may be just a little too “niche” to support an extensive “Complete Nancy” publishing program like Fantagraphics’ Complete Peanuts.
But boy, it’d be nice.
