Mike Sterling's Progressive RuinThe reason cows are out of season since 1969

Assuming a relatively low value for the word “fuss.”

§ July 3rd, 2023 § Filed under fanzines § 7 Comments

Okay, you were probably expecting the next installment in the ’80s Indies Countdown thing today. Sorry, didn’t have enough time to do a proper job on it, so check later in the week.

Speaking of which, I just obtained what looks like full runs of both series of Elementals (with the trade paperback in lieu of the first few issues). Maybe I can finally read the darned thing and see what all the fuss was about.

And I did want to say a thing or two regarding the Comic Reader post on Friday. As ‘zines go, Comic Reader was a fairly reputable one, probably undeserving of my cherry-picking a news-reporting misstep of theirs from one issue. Like Snark Shark says in the comments, it may have just been “rumor mill” stuff, word on the street, however that rumor mill would have been formed in 1978. Other ‘zines, convention talk, someone in the Marvel office spilling the beans, whatever.

It is very possible all three items were, in fact, true at one point, or close enough. Marvel could have signed an agreement with the Rolling Stones to do a comic…and then the project was canned for some reason. (Or maybe the contract was about to be signed, and someone who thought it was a done real slipped the news to the fan press, but then it never happened.)

It’s also very possible that Marvel was circling around the idea of doing something with the Amityville Horror property. Sure, it was all bullshit, but it was hot bullshit at the time, and if Marvel thought it could make a buck off of it, well, why not? Patrick Joseph brings up the point that Marvel didn’t seem to be in the business of doing horror movie adaptations at the time, which may be why it ultimately didn’t happen. (Not that they were necessarily after the movie per se, but who knows?) I mean, there’s not much info in that single sentence about the possibility. “Negotiations” may not have been much more than “hey, how much will it cost us for the rights? …Will you take half of that? Okay, thanks anyway.”

As for “Schrödinger’s Meteor Adaptation,” well…the ‘zine this was reported in was cover-dated December 1978. The release date of the comic was October of 1979. A lot can happen in that span of months. That early on Marvel’s rights to adapt the movie may still have been in question, perhaps a definite “no” at the ‘zine’s press time before it became a “yes.” I don’t know how much lead time was necessary to slap that Meteor mag together, but I’d guess about eight months was probably pushing it.

Anyway, I just thought these three stories in such close proximity to each other was amusing and worth noting. And I don’t believe they were just conjured up out of nowhere…at worst, they were just running unconfirmed rumors. Best case scenario was, as I said, it may all have been true at one point, ’til it wasn’t. It’s still fun to see what folks were talking about at the time, and what projects (real or imagined) may have been planned for release. That’s why I enjoy collecting old fanzines, for stuff just like this.