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§ February 14th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on 100 Things I Love About Comics!
Fred started it with these two strips.
Alan then lovingly crafted his own inimitable version.
Several others also rose to the challenge. (EDIT: And here are quite a few more mighty fine Top One Hundred (give or take a few dozen or so) lists that I have doggedly tracked down across the immensely vast and far-flung digital reaches of the ever expanding comics weblogosphere, and many points beyond.)
And now, at long last, and after great deliberation: my very own list of 100 Things I Love About Comics:
1. Swamp Thing
2. Adam Strange
3. AiT/Planetlar
4. Amazing Heroes
5. American Flagg! by Howard Chaykin
6. Jim Aparo
7. Archie Comics from the ’50s & ’60s
8. Atari Force
9. Atlas Comics (the ’70s company, not the pre-Marvel one, though that’s good, too)
10. Bacchus by Eddie Campbell
11. Kyle Baker
12. Carl Barks, the Good Duck Artist
13. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns & Strikes Again by Frank Miller
14. “Batman’s Time Travel Crimes on Venus”-type stories
15. Bone by Jeff Smith
16. Chester Brown
17. The Original Captain Marvel
18. Cerebus by Dave Sim & Gerhard
19. The Comic Reader
20. The Comics Journal
21. Concrete by Paul Chadwick
22. John Costanza
23. Peter David
24. DC Comics Presents #84 – Superman & the Challengers of the Unknown drawn by Jack Kirby & Alex Toth
25. Detective Comics #500
26. Don Rosa
27. Doom Patrol by Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani
28. Eightball by Dan Clowes
29. Eighty-Page Giants
30. Evan Dorkin
31. Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers by Gilbert Shelton, Paul Mavrides & Dave Sheridan
32. The Fantastic Four by Stan ‘n’ Jack
33. Matt Feazell and The Amazing Cynicalman!
34. Fin Fang Foom and other Marvel monsters
35. Flaming Carrot by Bob Burden
36. The Flash by Carmine Infantino
37. Fox and The Crow by Jim Davis (no, not the Garfield guy)
38. Ramona Fradon
39. Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez
40. George Perez
41. Nat Gertler’s About Comics (esp. Licensable Bear)
42. Gil Kane
43. Grimjack by John Ostrander, Tim Truman, and friends
44. Groo the Wanderer by Mark Evanier & Sergio Aragones
45. Hellblazer
46. Fred Hembeck!!!
47. Herbie the Fat Fury by Ogden Whitney
48. Los Bros. Hernandez
49. Hex by Michael Fleisher, Mark Texeira, & Keith Giffen
50. Howard the Duck by Steve Gerber (accept no substitutes!)
51. Tony Isabella
52. Jack Kirby’s Fourth World
53. JSA
54. Justice League of America #200
55. Legion of Super-Heroes
56. MacKenzie Queen by Bernie Mireault
57. Mad Magazine
58. Elliot S! Maggin
59. Marge’s Little Lulu & Tubby
60. Marvel/Miracleman
61. Sheldon Mayer
62. ‘Mazing Man by Bob Rozakis & Stephen DeStefano
63. Scott McCloud
64. Megaton Man by Don Simpson
65. Mike Mignola
66. Alan Moore
67. Grant Morrison
68. Mr. Monster by Michael T. Gilbert
69. Nancy by Ernie Bushmiller
70. Nexus by Mike Baron & Steve Rude
71. Not Brand Echh
72. Off-brand funny animal comics from the Golden/Silver ages
73. Bob Oksner
74. Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz
75. Planetary by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday
76. Plastic Man
77. Quasar #1 through about, say, #25, by Mark Gruenwald & others
78. Ralph Snart by Marc Hansen
79. Rudy by William Overgard
80. Scott Saavedra
81. Kurt Schaffenberger
82. Dori Seda
83. Superman-family comics from the Silver Age
84. Walt Simonson
85. Snarf
86. Spider-Man by Steve Ditko
87. Stanley and His Monster
88. The very idea of Super pets
89. Superman Annual #9 (1983) drawn by Alex Toth!
90. Superman vs. Muhammad Ali by Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams, Dick Giordano & Terry Austin
91. “Swanderson“
92. Tales of the Beanworld by Larry Marder
93. Turok, Son of Stone
94. UFO Encounters and UFO Mysteries
95. Rick Veitch
96. Berni(e) Wrightson
97. Zippy the Pinhead by Bill Griffith
98. Neilalien…
99. …my fellow members of the Associated Comics And Pop Culture Webloggers of Ventura County, CA And Outlying Environs (Dorian, Corey, Tom, Ian, Sean, and Fred)…
100. …and everyone else on the Comicsweblogosphere!
§ February 13th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
Sure wish I’d caught that I’d somehow typed “Captain American” in our auction listings before I plugged them here. Oops. Well, I was tired…that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.
Speaking of our eBay auctions, I was Googling around doing some research on one of the items we listed (already sold, sorry!), and found this great Robin Hood site. Included is coverage of the character’s comic book and comic strip history, and even features reprints of a couple classic stories.
EDIT: Also found this page, while researching something else: a gallery of UFO comic book covers.
§ February 13th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
Just so no one’s too offended…I didn’t post that cover yesterday as some kind of blanket mockery of furries. As pal Dorian and I have discussed amongst ourselves in the past — of all the fandom “cliques” that exist and that we’ve dealt with over the years, furries are probably the group that tends to be the most problem-free for us. Nearly all the ones we’ve encountered have been polite and well-spoken, and just happened to like anthropomorphics. Hey, that’s cool with us.
I only posted that cover because it’s downright fantastic. As Will puts it, “when you’ve got the words ‘lesbian’ and ‘unicorn’ on your cover, aren’t the words ‘extra’ and ‘special’ just redundant?”
Well, that’s a surprise! Just on a whim, I e-mailed Fred Hembeck with my guess as to the “ringer” in his second “100 Reasons Why I Love Comics”…and I got it right (under Feb. 12)! Obnoxio Vs. The X-Men was just one of those oddball funnybooks Marvel published in the early ’80s, and my memory was that it was pretty much reviled in the fan press of the time. I didn’t remember Fred being the lone voice in the wilderness, singing the book’s praises…plus even if you did like the comic (like, yes, I did), would it really belong on your top 100 list? Just seemed wrong…and it turned out I was right. Way cool.
By the way, I also liked X-Men and The Micronauts, even though 1) I wasn’t reading X-Men, and 2) I wasn’t reading Micronauts, though I liked the toys. I just enjoy weird takes on established characters, I guess.
One thing I was thinking about as I was watching the new episode of Justice League Unlimited — as much as I love Jack Kirby’s Fourth World stuff, actually seeing it in animated form makes me realize just how damn weird it is. I mean, Vermin Vundebar? The heck? Jack, honestly, what was up with that? I liked Arte Johnson as the voice of Vermin (especially with a certain in-joke (also noted by TV Tome) that made me do a double-take even before I knew Johnson was on the show), and Ed Asner reprising his role as Granny Goodness…well, that’s still darn strange.
A couple years ago, I bought a record off of the eBay that I never got a chance to listen to, as it arrived in my mailbox at about the same time I was moving into our new house. I put it aside for when I had time for it…and then, of course, I forgot about it. However, as I was digging through my record collection the other day for another album (Rhino Records’ L.A. In, which pal Nat makes an oblique reference to), I found that long-lost record. It’s The 1975 San Diego Comic-Con, a recording of interviews with various show guests. Here’s the track listing:
SIDE ONE:
1. Opening comment: Ray Bradbury
2. Introduction: Alan Light
3. Ray Bradbury
4. Stan Lee
5. Jack Kirby/Jim Steranko
SIDE TWO:
1. Special interview: Jerry Siegel
2. Chuck Norris
3. June Foray/Daws Butler
4. Robert Bloch
5. Will Eisner/Stan Lee
6. Close: Alan Light
Intriguing, no? I’ll give it a spin when I have time later in the next couple of weeks (hopefully), and file a full report right here. Watch this space!
But first, this commercial message….
Speaking of the eBay, he said segue-ingly, feel free to pop in on our shop’s auction listings! New items added every week: comics, books, toys, and, right now, for some reason, jazz CDs. Don’t ask. Anyway, my promise to you: any items purchased from our auctions (or indeed, just straight from the shop…send me your want lists!) will be lovingly processed, packaged, and hand-addressed by yours truly. Bid early, bid often!
And we’re back. Just so I don’t feel like a completely shameless huckster, let me also point you in the direction of Jolly Johanna’s list of sale and trade items. Lots of fine stuff there, and she has a want list of goodies you can offer her in trade.
§ February 12th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
Genus #20 (September 1996) – art by Dashe
§ February 11th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on In which Mike finds another meme to get behind, and has a question for you, too.
Now this is something else…inspired by Fred Hembeck’s wonderful cartoons (under February 10th), Alan David Doane posted his awe-inspiring image featuring his own list of 100 things he loves about comics. (And I’d like to say thanks to ADD for including my little ol’ site on there.)
Anyway, I thought that was such a good idea, I’m gonna steal it. Well, maybe not the “image for every entry” part (the bandwidth, the bandwidth!), but a full-on list of 100 things that I love about comics, posted on the most appropriate day possible, Valentine’s Day. Look for it on Monday…and I hope everyone else on the comicsweblogosphere chimes in with lists of their own.
Yes, I know, the fella what hates the “memes,” encouraging others to participate in one. “Irony sense…tingling!”
Of course, the challenge is to make my list distinct from ADD’s, as it appears we like a lot of the same things. Though how anyone can prefer the first Superman/Spider-Man team-up to the second…. (Oh, I’m only kidding!)
We received this Flash poster by Michael Turner on Wednesday, which got me thinking two things: 1) why’d they go with that picture, when this Turner cover is much more striking (and actually shows the Flash running), and 2) when was the last time I actually had a comic book poster on my walls at home?
Well, it’s been quite some time…more than ten years, at least, but the two comic posters I had on my walls were the Groo poster Marvel put out (the one with Groo fighting an army outside a castle…one of those huge, highly detailed crowd scenes Sergio Aragones excels at) and a group shot of the cast of Nexus, painted by Steve Rude. Oh, and there was a third that I had up for while…the movie poster for Comic Book Confidential (it looked like the image at the bottom right at this page). I can’t find any online images of the first two posters, and I’m not entirely sure where my copies of the posters are (it was a few moves ago).
And, yes, I do have Swamp Thing posters, but I’m just lazy and haven’t bought frames for them yet. Yes, frames, stop that snickering.
Anyway, all this meandering has brought me to my new Friday Question (here are the results to the last one):
Do you currently have any comic book posters on your walls at home? If so, which ones? Leave a comment…satisfy my nosy nelliness.
§ February 11th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Boring weblog stuff.
1. Lots of new comics weblogs popping up on the ol’ Update-A-Tron 3000, so I imagine I’ll be revising the sidebar there a bit in the very near future. Some definite additions: Two Dimensional, focusing on indie funnybooks; The Less Said The Better, by the mighty Don Simpson…yes, that Don Simpson; the fun and interesting Comic Book Wife; and the downright nutty SUPERFRANKENSTEIN (all capitals MANDATORY) by the esteemed Tom Peyer.
I may also have to start deleting some sites that appear to have been abandoned. A couple (like the much missed Grotesque Anatomy and the equally much missed Flat Earth) will stick around with the (ret.) tags, but there are a few that just seem to have dried up in short order, which is a shame. However, pal Sean is swearing up and down that he’s got something new coming up, so watch his space for details.
2. I don’t feel so bad about posting the music meme a few days back, if even Warren Ellis can get stuck doing it as well. I was beginning to wonder if anyone else in the online comics world had 20 gigs of MP3s on their hard drive….
3. I could reveal the identity of the person who brought this image to Franklin’s attention, but said person would then probably kill me.
4. Why are some people so down on weblogs? What’d we ever do to anyone? God forbid people have a way to express their opinions on comics.
EDIT: 5. I’ve been fooling around with the comments form template (now with a PREVIEW button…thank God for that!), so if you run into any problems with the comments-thingie, let me know.
§ February 10th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on New comics.
SPOILERS, maybe:
Oh, my…now this is comic of the week: Masked Commander. Picture, if you will, millionaire Bruce Wayne and his double-life as Batman. Now, picture Mr. Wayne as President Wayne, and that’s what you’ve got here. The President of the United States, secretly the Masked Commander, taking on threats to America that normal political channels cannot. The first story is standard issue set-up stuff (with M.C. taking on his arch-nemesis Anarchy, with an origin flashback mixed in) – it’s played completely straight, but it’s all just goofy enough to make me want to see the second issue. The best part is the “Marvel Universe”-type full-page entries on M.C.’s friends and foes…I think the entry on the friendly femme fatale named “Foreign Affair” is what finally sold me. Honestly, you have to see this comic…check out the preview.
Mad Magazine #451 features the Constantine parody (which I suppose I’ll enjoy more after I see the film itself), as well as Sergio Aragones’ “A Mad Look at Cheating.” Goon fans will want to know that Eric Powell provides a two-page video game ad parody (“Madison Avenue Smack Down!”). The Fundalini Pages section contains a “review” of The Anally Complete Peanuts, with a couple of sample strips that are just downright disturbing, in particular the one with Snoopy eating his own…well, anyway….
Grant Morrison brings us more of his inimitable nuttiness in the new Vimanarama mini-series from Vertigo…I’ll let other people discuss the deep, hidden meanings of the text. I just want to say that I’m always happy to see comic book work from artist Philip Bond.
JSA #70 – isn’t that a great cover? Dave Gibbons has managed to make one of the silliest costumes of the Golden Age look…well, still silly, but very nicely drawn.
I sure wish I can take a peek inside our copies of The Thrilling Comic Book Cover Art of Alex Schomberg, but alas, both the regular hardcover and the slipcased edition are sealed in shrinkwrap.
Lady Pep by Julie Doucet – I like Julie Doucet’s comics, and read every issue of Dirty Plotte, but I think I’m going to have to pass on this collection of photos of her art pieces. It’s a nice presentation in a handsome package, but it’s still just pictures of everyday objects with drawings on them. Maybe I’m just a philistine who can’t appreciate art, but it does nothing for me. Sorry!
Speaking of art, it’s a good week for the porn comics, what with Housewives at Play and Menage a Trois and Alruane…why, you’re spoilt for choice, you are. I should note that the artist on Alruane is actually pretty good…I wonder if he’s done any non-naughty work?
(EDIT: Leave it to pal Dorian and me to cover the dirty comics this week!)
We finally got in the new printing of Blankets. Hope people are still looking for copies.
During a discussion at work, somehow I managed to come up with the concept of “Ultimate Marvel Knights.” Aaaaaah! Maybe it can be published by Marvel’s Icon line! AAAAAAAH!
§ February 9th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
What would H.P. Lovecraft say? (Yeah, we got these in stock today. How could I resist this cute little fella?)
Also…Young Avengers? Not as bad as you feared. Not ground-breaking, but no one ever said it had to be. If kids still read superhero comics (aside from the ones starring characters they’ve seen in movies) they’d probably enjoy it. And it’s selling well, too…pal Dorian noted that everyone he helped at the register today had a copy. Let’s see if they come back for issue #2.
Since Slave Labor released the first volume of Evan Dorkin’s
Bill ‘n’ Ted’s Most Excellent Adventures last week, I thought I’d take a brief look back at the very first Bill ‘n’ Ted comic from 1989. Written by Bob Rozakis and illustrated by
Mad Magazine‘s Angelo Torres, it’s a straightforward adaptation of the first film. It hits all the beats of the movie, but doesn’t really add anything to the material…of course, it really suffers in comparison to Dorkin’s fabulously-nutty adaptation of
Bogus Journey. In addition, the art seems scratchy and rushed…Torres’ caricatures are usually right on, but as a whole the production seems very rough.
I think this comic was only distributed in video stores, but I’m not 100% positive. I never saw it in the wild, having bought my copy from a convention bargain bin. It presumably was meant solely to advertise the video release, which kind of brings up a point that’s been made several times before…that comic book movie adaptations are pretty much useless now. In decades past, once a movie was out of the theatres, your only chance to see it again was if it was rerun on television. A comic book adaptation served as your connection to the film, a reminder of all those great scenes in, say,
The Boatniks, that you can relive in the comics’ pages.
Now, with the DVDs and VCRs and 700 cable channels all you kids are into, comic book adaptations have lost that edge. When you can own the actual movie, or be pretty much guaranteed of catching it on cable sooner or later, why bother with actual reading? You can still sell movie adaptations to a limited extent, by getting it out before the movie* or releasing it in that brief** months-long window between the movie’s theatrical run and its DVD release. The other way around this is by publishing comics based on the movie, featuring brand new stories starring the film’s characters rather than just a straight adaptation.
The Bill ‘n’ Ted comic pictured above is just a disposable ad for the video…an interesting artifact of the film’s cult popularity, but that’s about it. It does have a rare George Carlin comic book appearance (if not his only one) so it does have that to recommend it.
Oh, and I have this other item…a postcard produced by the “Bill and Ted’s Outstanding Past and Future Appreciation Society,” a San Dimas-based B&T fan club:
The back reads:
“While future issues are as yet unobtainable by non-time travelling entities, current issues are on sale now at your local comics dealer! Ask for Bill and Ted’s Excellent Comic Book, published monthly by the most triumphant personages at Marvel Comics!”
* I remember when Marvel got in a lot of hot water with Lucasfilm by accidentally releasing the comic adaptation of Return of the Jedi prior to the film’s debut, thus spoiling the surprises. Now, though, the Dark Horse Star Wars adaptations are released ahead of the movies. Apparently it’s not the problem it used to be.
** Very brief, in Elektra‘s case.
§ February 9th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Someday, I will look like this man.
from Kendor El Hombre del Tibet #80 (February 1980) by Daniel Munoz & Joel Kuri Garcia
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