Yes, buttons again. (Sorry, Jim!)
Those first two pins are for Doug Allen‘s Steven…man, I loved that comic, though the drinking cactus character that eventually popped up grated just a tad.
The Freak Brothers pin is from 1983, when I was probably far too young to be buying that comic book, but was reading and enjoying it anyway. Blame my dad…he’s the one who said, “hey, next time you’re at the comic shop, ask if they have any Freak Brothers!”
The “Bite Me Fanboy” pin is a tie-in to, I believe, the second Lobo mini-series (Lobo’s Back), since the button is copyrighted 1992, the year of that series’ release.
The first button is a 1995 recreation of a Superman pin from (I believe) one of the original Golden Age Superman fan clubs.
That 3-D button from ’87 apparently is an official piece of DC licensed material, though that “S” is remarkably off-model. I have no idea how I got this button, or where it originally came from.
The “Lex 2000” button was from DC’s “Lex Luthor as President” storyline, which I initially thought was a silly idea, but you gotta give DC credit for going through with it and sticking to it for nearly four years!
That last button has bit of a story behind it…at the time (late 80s/early 90s), DC was producing several button sets (essentially pinbacks hooked onto an illustrated cardboard backing, then shrinkwrapped). The Superman set featured four pins, each by a different artist (don’t remember them all, now…I believe there was a Wayne Boring, and perhaps a Kurt Schaffenberger). The pin I most wanted was the Curt Swan one, but didn’t feel like springing for the whole set. However, one day at the shop, a fellow came in, bought the Superman button set, opened it up, took one button out, and gave the rest back to the store. “Don’t want ’em,” he said. And that’s how I got my Curt Swan Superman pin…though in retrospect, I should have just bought the whole darn set.
This is arguably the most famous comic book-related button of all time: this iconic image from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen, the smiley face with the blood (or ketchup) splatter across one eye.
But that wasn’t the only Watchmen button; oh, no:
Like the Superman set I mentioned above, this item, released in ’86, features four buttons on a cardboard backing, shrinkwrapped. It’s also serially-numbered on the reverse side (mine is #005544), and has reproductions of Moore’s and Gibbon’s signatures. There were some problems regarding royalties on this item (and all other Watchmen merchandise), which caused some friction between Moore and DC. Hope that $4.95 per set was worth the trouble.
Everyone who has comic book buttons should have at least one Wolverine button, just for completeness’ sake. At least Paul Smith drew it. It’s from ’83, and there were a whole series of X-Men pins like this one (including a “Frodo Lives”-style “Dark Phoenix Lives” pin). There must have been about a million or so of these things manufactured, as I still come across them today in collections.
