Hex upholding its rep as the Greatest Comic of All Time.
Okay, trying to not worry about problems about to hit the comics industry, between a distributor’s ongoing collapse and tariff-caused price and supply issues, so I’m going to look back at relatively happier times. Like, the October 1985 Bud Plant retailer catalog and its ordering tips for shop owners!
As I’m sure most of you know, since I keep bringing it up, I started working in comics retail in 1988. However, even prior to that I had an interest in the goings-on behind the scenes in the industry and other people’s commentary on same, hence my early adoption of ‘zines and mags like The Comics Journal. As such, I’m always looking for more information from that period, as to what perceptions were of certain titles and publishers and such.
As always, going through these tip sheets raise questions that I want to ask my former boss Ralph, from whom I was buying comics during this period. I’ll post follow-ups next time, if necessary.
This time I’m going up through the DCs, and then I’ll do the rest of the list later in the week. Okay? Okay! Then away we go:
First, here’s the great logo for the column this issue, “The New Mutips,” which is high-larious.
The first tip here, for the Robert Williams 3-D comic from Ray Zone:
…reminds me of what a big deal the 3-D gimmick was at the time. A later entry in this list (not pictured here) notes that the market for 3-D comics is “saturated,” but apparently a wild Robert Williams 3-D comic would stand out enough to be recommended so highly here.
At my Previous Place of Employment, we had a section in the back issue bins just for 3-D comics, and it was pawed through on the regular. We even had a large stock of 3-D glasses that we gave out with each purchase of a 3-D comic. (And when that old shop shut down, did I claim all those 3-D glasses for my own self? Maaaaaybe.)
Now, Fish Police was, for a time, a very hot comic. Hot enough to eventually become a…well, short-lived TV show, but hey, how may small-press comics from the mid-1980s got on TV? …Um, aside from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Like, I’m sure TMNT goosed some executive into looking for other possible hit comic-to-other-media properties, and thus Fish Police.
Anyway, this is one of those comics I wish I’d read at the time, because it does look like it’d be right up my alley. Ah well, maybe I’ll luck into a run of it here at the shop someday.
Speaking of lucking into a run, that’s exactly what happened with Elementals, where about 90% of the series showed up in a donation to the store, and I pulled them aside to read, someday, in the far off future when I can actually find the time. It was always one of those series that intrigued me, but just never jumped on board as it was running. Ah well, at least I have (most of) them now.
It’s interesting reading here that there were delays in production and a perceived drop in quality in one of the early issues. So much so that the ordering recommendation is not based on that “lower quality” issue, but on the one before it. Now, I have read at least the first half-dozen issues of the series, and I don’t recall #4 being “off” from the others around it, but maybe I’ll take another look with this in mind.
Hoo boy, on the topic of late books, I knew Continuity had its timeliness issues even as a mere Comic-Buying Member of the General Public, and not the aloof and powerful comics retailer I am today.
As a fan, I didn’t really follow anything by them, as none of it appealed to me. The anthology book Echoes of Futurepast may have been the one title I would’ve read, due to Arthur Suydam’s involvement (I was a big “Cholly and Flytrap” kid, having read those stories by Suydam in Epic Illustrated), but I just never got around to picking it up.
I do recall that some of the Continuity books did have their followings and sold well, like the two mentioned here. Plenty of folks had them on their pull lists when I started working at the shop. The eventual Deathwatch 2000 crossover event kinda put an end to all that, I believe.
Gasp! I read DC Digest, at least occasionally at the time! I’m guessing these did better on newsstands than in comic shops, hence the reaction in the tips column here. Anyway, when my eyes were up to it, these digests were nice little collections, and many of the early ones helped catch me up on DC’s history.
Textual evidence that Hex (the post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventures of our favorite weird western cowboy) was in fact a not-unpopular book! It’s remembered as a freak occurrence today, a bizarre footnote in Jonah Hex’s history, but for a while there, people did buy it. Heck, I bought it! Still have ’em all! Of course, the series ended 10 issues later, so not enough people bought it for long enough, but for a brief period of time, the beauty of Hex graced our shelves.
Omega Men #38 would be the last issue, sadly. And this person ain’t wrong…this was a really good sci-fi superhero series. Actually, the whole series makes for a good comic, but once Todd Klein and Shawn McManus come on board with #26, it becomes something great. It’s so hard to believe this run of theirs was so short.
The first issue featured, of course, the Golden Age Superman, recently given the bum’s rush out of DC’s continuity by that self-same Crisis on Infinite Earths. But, you know, they got classic Superman artist Wayne Boring to draw this, so I’m not complaining.
I honestly don’t recall if Booster Gold was perceived as A Hot Item at the time. I know it got a little more promotion than most DC debuts (I still have my “Go for the Gold – BOOSTER GOLD” pinback button), but I feel like it’s probably more appreciated in retrospect than it was at the time. (In fact, if you want to know more about Mr. Gold, you can’t do better than this site right here.)
Pretty sure these were all unused inventory back-up stories that longer had a home after the main Atari Force series ended. Regardless, this, and the parent series, were outstanding comics and went away too soon. Even the original digest-sized comics that came packed with Specially Marked Atari 2600 Game Cartridges were fun. I would gladly have read a hundred more issues of this, but am happy with the few that we got.
Oof, harsh burn on the Seven Soldiers. In fairness, All-Star Squadron, a book devoted to the World War II adventures of super-heroes on Earth 2, floundered a bit following Crisis‘s removal of any extraneous Earths beyond the one featured in all the other DC Comics.
Okay, I’ll wrap it up next time, along with some extra info from Ralph should he be willing to tolerate my grilling. Everyone stay safe out there, and I’ll see you on Wednesday.
I seem to recall that Booster Gold was pretty hot for the first few issues – my local store sold out of #6, which was when they revealed his origin (instead of doing it in #1, which was pretty clever). It was annoying, cos I missed it. Ran out of puff very quickly after that though.
Those Secret Origins, in the lower issue numbers, would sport some beautiful, beautiful covers for a while!
The ‘Elementals’ reading guide is nice and straightforward:
If Bill Willingham wrote and/or drew it, read it.
If he didn’t, avoid it like Ebola unless you have a sadistic interest in seeing just how suddenly a popular title can be utterly destroyed.
I haven’t read those Elementals books in eons, but I recall that issue # 4 being both good and clever, in that it actually incorporated the delay between issues into the story. If I remember it correctly, the group had actually been held captive by the villain for a year of their own time (the approximate time of the gap between issues), and spent that time dealing with their captivity and plotting escape. I remember liking the story and I don’t remember any dropoff in the quality of the art (though now I am curious to look at it again, not that I have the time to do it…)
Agreed that those early Secret Origins issues were so something special. As a fan of Earth 2 I was really happy to see a plethora of Earth 2 origin issues, and appreciated that Roy Thomas was trying to publish every other issue (at first) with Earth 2 origin stories based on the actual
sequence of when characters first appeared: 1938 characters, 1939 characters, 1940 characters, etc. The Superman, Batman, Crimson Avenger, Black Condor, Doll Man, Blue Beetle, Spectre, Sandman, Green Lantern (Alan Scott), and Hawkman stories I thought were very nicely done.
That seemed overly harsh, re: The Seven Soldiers of Victory appearance in All-Star Squadron. Again, Thomas was trying to incorporate Golden Age characters in chronological order (JSA, SSoV, etc.) into the All-Star Squadron series. He did a very good job. The main problem with All-Star Squadron was that after Rich Buckler, Adrian Gonzalez,Jerry Ordway, and Rick Hoberg were no longer the artists, the series experienced a dip in quality art-wise. Also, as a kid I loved the Seven Soldiers of Victory three-part story that appeared in JLA no. 100-103 as part of the annual JLA/JSA team-ups; it is among the best of the Bronze Age JLA stories.
The Elementals was hot back in the ’80s but when I come across issues now and re-read them, I am less impressed. I think that Justice Machine, also published for a time by Comico, is a much better read.
I was never a fan of the DC Universe until later in my comic collecting days (after high school). The only DC book I ever bought before that point was Legends of the Dark Knight because I really liked the Batman movie, and this was a Batman comic I found read from issue #1. I was interested in Vertigo Comics in high school before I even considered sampling further DC Comics (while realizing that comics like Sandman, HB, ST, AM were under the DC banner before Vertigo launched).
When I finally did decide to start to try to look at the DC Universe, I was drawn to the back-issues for Secret Origins and All-Star Squadron. I found it a great introduction to the vast history of the DC Universe, even post-Crisis. I started buying all of the 1980s post-Crisis DC back-issues to catch up.
The All-Star Squadron series was hit very hard by Crisis. Thomas didn’t know how to continue his book at that point, and it was eventually cancelled. Thomas lost Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman. He tried replacing the series with Young All-Stars as a continuity plug, and while he had some interesting ideas with YAS, it was never going to live up to the pre-Crisis issues of All-Star.
As far as Hex, as someone who had no idea what was happening in the comic scene during my childhood (I just wanted to read Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men and GI Joe comics), I had no idea Hex was ever popular. I didn’t even know of the existence of Hex back then.
I did eventually buy back-issues of the series sometime in the 2000s for a buck a book. It was easy to conclude based on availability and price that the series was an oddity considered a major misstep for the Jonah Hex character.
I wish I’d read more small press stuff in the ’80s. I feel like it’s too late now to really appreciate a lot of it. Like, am I really going to get into Fish Police? Probably not. I do like that cover, though.
I appreciate (early) Neal Adams as much as the next guy, but what is happening on that Armor cover? And why is every bit of text doubled? Yes, The Silver Streak is in the book. Got it.
I still have my Booster Gold pin too!
As others shared, Willingham Elementals were well-written and great art (I think I even had a letter published in one).
Omega Men. Loved it. Still have it.
And I so so wanted to like Adams/Continuity. The art usually good to great (duh)…but the writing…uniformly abysmal. While I have grown almost fond of Kirby’s horrible writing, the same cannot be said of the House of Adams
@Chris V
Good point about Thomas and All-Star Squadron/Young All-Stars. He was basically forced by the powers that be at DC to make a New Teen Titans/New Mutants/Legion teenage heroes pastiche comic set during WW II–as the prevailing wisdom was that teenage superhero comics were what was selling.
Given what he had to work with, he did an admirable job on the whole. Iron Munro (based on Philip Wylie’s “Gladiator”–which in turn inspired the creation of Superman) was actually a pretty good character as a replacement for the zapped out of existence Golden Age Superman, and Fury was an interesting replacement for Golden Age Wonder Woman. Flying Fox, while not really a Batman analogue, was still a good character in his own right–although it might have been cool if Thomas had borrowed Dell Comics’ Golden Age character “The Owl,” –if the character was public domain by then–to create a teenage analog character for the Golden Age Batman. Some of the other characters, like Dan the Dynamite and Neptune Perkins, were a bit harder to really appreciate–but Tsunami was also a decent character, and Sandy got to be the Robin and/or Bucky-type character.
It might have been cooler if Thomas had also used the Golden Age Kid Eternity, from Quality Comics, and also the Golden Age Wildfire (a teenage girl with human torch-type flame powers) from Quality Comics–although due to the Legion’s Wildfire Roy probably would have had to rename her (but he could have just repurposed the name of the Golden Age character from Fox Comics called The Flame, who was most likely in the public domain by then); also he already had created Firebrand II– Danette Reilly, as a flame-based All-Star Squadron member. I’m trying to recall if Roy even used the Star Spangled Kid in Young All-Stars…or Wing? Obviously, Golden Age Speedy (and Green Arrow, and Aquaman) had been zapped out of existence, along with G. A. Superman, Batman and Robin, and Wonder Woman, due to the “Crisis of Infinite Continuity Conundrums”…
As to Neal Adams’ Continuity Comics, beyond all of the late shipping, there was the fairly mediocre to awful writing. They got Elliott S. Maggin! to script a few stories, but mostly Neal and his son-in-law were “writing” the stories. I will give them props on dynamic layouts (often based on Neal’s thumbnail sketches) and mostly impressive art–albeit usually rendered in the “Pseudo-Neal Adams House Style” by a bunch of different artists. Urth 4 (who were originally going to be called “The Elementals”) was kinda fun, as a spinoff from Ms. Mystic. Also, the Zero Patrol, which reprinted a Spanish comic book translated and rewritten/repurposed by Neal, was interesting. Then there was Valeria the She-Bat…kinda like a Man-Bat knock-off. Armor and Silver Streak kinda seemed to me like Adams doing a pastiche on the original Hawk and the Dove–characters whom he had drawn in three Silver Age issues of Teen Titans. And, of course, the original Silver Streak was a Golden Age speedster from Charles Biro’s Silver Streak Comics. Arguably Megalith and Ms. Mystic, and maybe Samuree, were Continuity Comics’ best characters.
But Adams should have really hired some solid writers! And Jagger and Richards should have sued for copyright infringement on their “Sympathy for the Devil” lyrics being ripped off by the wannabe Trygon villain named Rage on that poorly-designed Armor cover–where, clearly, Adams was in need of some restraint!
Thanks, Mike!
I bought my copy of BOOSTER GOLD #1 off a gas station magazine rack, so no pin for me at the time. (I have since rectified that youthful mistake.)
For the record, BG #1 was released October 29, 1985, meaning that this tipster probably didn’t have any feedback about customer response to DC’s first post-CRISIS character before encouraging buyers to order “fairly heavily” for BG #3. It’s pretty well documented that once 1980s DC readers got to know Booster Gold, they found him… shall we say, unpalatable.
but hey, how may small-press comics from the mid-1980s got on TV?
Men In Black! After the movie, of course.
“Continuity”
WTF! HONG KONG??? why would they print em so far away?
“as none of it appealed to me.”
Yeah, it all looked like Neal Adams really needed an EDITOR.
“Textual evidence that Hex”
That book was tailer-made for a younger me! Of ocurse, I now know the reg. Jonah Hex was generally better than HEX.
“Omega Men #38 would be the last issue, sadly. And this person ain’t wrong…this was a really good sci-fi superhero series.”
They DID improve it- (I used to have the whole run), but I guess it was too late, from a sales perspective.
“The first issue featured, of course, the Golden Age Superman”
Now, that series DID sell, and went on for quite awhile. Good stuff.
“While I have grown almost fond of Kirby’s horrible writing, the same cannot be said of the House of Adams”.
Yeah. Even at his worst, Kirby never let it degenerate into utter nonsense.
“And Jagger and Richards should have sued for copyright infringement on their “Sympathy for the Devil” lyrics”.
I think he would have been protected, our laws allow for parody.
I still dislike Booster Gold to this day–always thought he was a lame character.
Omega Men started off strong with great Keith Giffen art and just got worse and worse after Roger Silfer stopped writing it and Todd Smith stopped drawing it. I’m generally a fan of Doug Moench, but I think Omega Men meandered once he became the new writer, and then Todd Klein and Shawn McManus (and his odd Dr. Seuss-meets-Charles Vess art style) put the final nail in the coffin. By the end of Omega Men Primus wasn’t even recognizable as the original character he had been. Also, considering that Joe Staton co-created the characters, I think it’s a pity that he never got to draw the actual Omega Men comic. Or Pat Broderick, after his run on Micronauts, could have been a good fit as an artist for the Omega Men, but I guess that had him doing The Fury of Firestorm, and Lords of Ultra-Realm. Oh, well.
Fish Police always seemed too goofy and ludicrous of a concept for me to get into.
I find Kirby’s writing on his ’70s DC Comics to be charming, refreshing and very emblematic of his own personality and creative spirit and also very humanistic. Could he have benefitted from more editing? Sure. But at least he was bursting with ideas. His satirical side is also quite funny, what with Funky Flashman and House Roy. Hell, Kirby even inadvertently predicts the odious rise of Trump with his rube-manipulating character Glorious Godfrey–although I think the character was actually based on the preacher Jimmy Swaggart. And the Female Furies could have fit nicely in Zap Comix; that’s how outlaw they were.
It’s too bad that Kirby relied on so many writing tics (e.g., the multiple dashes, the constant exclamation points) because I agree that his characters and plotting were top notch. Just the idea to launch a whole new set of divine aliens out of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olson was genius.
Luckily, his art is usually able to speak for itself, so it’s easy to skip most of the dialogue and captions.
There should be a documentary called, “I’m a Fan of Neal Adams, but… : The Continuity Story.”
I’m not saying Jack Kirby’s scripting was the world’s greatest prose, but every so often we get a lyrical phrase like “tiger force at the heart of the universe” and it transcends straightforward prose to become the closest thing to poetry I’ve read in a Big 2 super-hero comic.
@Thom H.
I tend to look at Kirby’s New Gods saga as opera–and, in fact, it would be cool to see it adapted to an actual opera–it would be over when Granny Goodness sings…
But, also, to be fair to Kirby, Stan Lee used a lot of hype, hyperbole and exclamation points– along with his famous alterations–in his Marvel Age of comics. writing. And one can see where Kirby’s resentments towards Lee and Martin Goodman would have been festering for a long time, based on how he was treated, and no given a percentage of merchandising royalties.
I would say that Roy Thomas, Steranko, and Denny O’Neil really mark the beginning of more sophisticated writing in comics in the late Sixties, tapping into the counter culture and New Journalism school of writing.
Kirby was a product of the Great Depression and WW II, when comics were more slam-bang-action-driven and less plot-and-characterization-driven. Even so, Kirby and Joe Simon accomplished so much with various genres of comics. Also, I really love the Forever People and the fact that a middle-aged Kirby created super-hippies.
Also, Kirby belongs to a rare breed of writer/artists that includes Will Eisner, Wally Wood, Steve Ditko, Jack Katz, Jim Starlin, John Byrne, George Perez, etc.
“Glorious Godfrey–although I think the character was actually based on the preacher Jimmy Swaggart”.
He sure looked like Swaggart!
So when they said “looks worth ordering heavily” how often was that accurate and how often did the shops get stuck with a lot of dross?
@ Mike Loughlin
That Neal Adams documentary title idea is hilarious! I would say that Neal Adams definitely deserves his super-star artist status, especially for the late Silver and Bronze Ages of Comics–but even before Continuity Comics was created, Pacific Comics published one issue of Adams’s Skate Man comic, which was really horrible. Although, to be fair, the couple of issues that Pacific Comics published of Neal’s Ms. Mystic were decent. But things got even worse than Continuity Comics with Neal’s return to DC and the very odd Batman:Odyssey. A great artist, yes,and a guy who fought for Siegel and Shuster, and creators’ rights, which is all commendable–but not a great writer.
Also, re: “…tiger force at the heart of the universe,” perhaps Jack Kirby was a fan of William Blake–and The Beatles…?