Really, that is an awesome caricature of Steve Ditko.
I personally own a total of four funnybooks published by Revolutionary Comics: two issues of Dennis Worden‘s Stickboy, and the above two books.
Now, I can understand why I bought Rock and Roll Comics #30 (July 1991), featuring the Cure. Beneath this punk rock/industrial exterior is a sensitive gothity-goth, bleak and moody. Well, okay, maybe not, but I’ve always liked the Cure (even saw them in concert a couple times), and when this comic came in, I thought, “eh, what the heck” and picked it up. As Rock and Roll Comics go, this one was okay, with the premise that Cure frontman Robert Smith has a near-death experience, and is taken on a tour of his life by Death. No idea how accurate it all is (by which I mean the biographical details, not the NDE), but the art’s not bad, and it all has a sense of humor about it, which makes it go down nicely.
But this Contemporary Bio-Graphics #1 (Dec. 1991) — I couldn’t tell you why I bought this. Was I in that much of a need of an “unauthorized and proud of it” biography of Stan Lee? It’s not nearly as polished, either in its art or its writing, as the Cure comic, with misspellings throughout, and going with an ugly font rather than hand-lettering, or even Comic Sans, was a mistake. But I suppose it’s worth it for these two panels:
One, a young Stanley Leiber plays his flute (EDIT: yes, I know it looks like he’s playing a clarinet, even though the caption in the panel says “flute”):
Two, this awesome caricature of Steve Ditko:
I’m pretty sure Steve Ditko didn’t look like this (judging by the photo and self-portrait on steveditko.com). But if he doesn’t look like that caricature, he really should.
I do have a Revolutionary Comics story…I was at some convention or other talking to one of the dealers, and apparently the fact that I worked in a comic shop had come up. Some fellow overheard and the subsequent conversation went like this:
Fellow: “Hey, you work in a comic book store?”
Me: “Yes, I do.”
Fellow: “What do you think of Revolutionary Comics?”
Me: “Well, they sell okay, but they’re kind of amateurish.”
Fellow: “Uh…I draw for Revolutionary.”
Me: “Um, wow, hey…how ya doin’.”
And we uncomfortably parted ways. Well, you ask a question like that without introducing yourself, you should brace yourself for an answer you might not like. It’s not like I was totally harsh on Revolutionary or anything, but I still felt kinda bad for insulting some guy I didn’t have anything against. So if he’s reading this…hey, sorry man, nothing personal.
