Mikester

Just a little housekeeping.

filed under Categories cartoons, fanzines, golden age, I cast magic missile, scans 9 Comments

So, remember those British Dungeons & Dragons ‘zines I posted about a few days ago? I threw them on the eBay, and most of them brought in $10 to $15 apiece, with a couple in the $30 range. But that Dragon Lords #1, with the signatures?


I started that at $8.99, by the way. Figured I’d get about ten or twelve bucks for it. …Guess I’d better break into that additional case of Dragon Lords #1 I have in the back room…!

Now, about that housekeeping promised in the subject of this post…I’ve had a few scans just sitting on my computer’s desktop, awaiting my use here, and I’m never seeming to get around to creating posts about each of them. Thus, I’m just going to throw them all into this post. Enjoy!

We had this copy of Choice Comics #2 from 1942 in our shop for all of, oh, I don’t know, five minutes before selling it off, but I managed to get a couple of scans from it anyway. I enjoyed Bingo the Kangaroo’s dismissive response to superheroes on the cover there:


I mean, we were this close to Kangaroo/Parrot Buddy Comedy-Adventure being the dominant genre in the comics industry. If only things went slightly differently…if only.

I also got a scan of this tough guy:


This is pretty much what every angry ‘n’ anonymous commenter on every Internet message board and comments section looks like, so don’t mess with ’em.

Marvel recently released a bunch of “Avengers Art Appreciation” incentive variant covers for many of their titles, which featured the characters from the movie as depicted in a variety of art styles, and regardless of whether the comic sporting said variant had anything to do with The Avengers. But I thought this one by Steffi Schutzee in the style of Al Hirschfeld was nicely done:


They all look great, but Hawkeye is particularly amazing:


And finally…cast your minds back to the innocent, carefree days of 1975, where Six-Year-Old Mike sat in front of the TV in the living room, enthralled by the giant bird-monster featured in this episode of Return of the Planet of the Apes:


“Mom! Mom! Look at this!” Mike shouted to his mother, but alas, she didn’t come to the room in time to see the bird-monster cart away these…buffalo-things:


So, Dad, if you’re reading my site at home right now, be sure to call Mom over and show these to her, so she can see what she missed nearly four decades ago.

Oh, and this has nothing to do with anything, but I mentioned on the Twitter that I was reading this amazing article about the even-more amazing history of TV’s ALF, and pal Ian…remember pal Ian, he wrote some comics, I hear…he replied to me with a link to a YouTube video of the ALF cartoon’s theme. I’d never heard that before, and it ain’t half-bad. Thanks for exposing me to that, Ian…I take back most of the bad things I’ve said about you!

The Avengers movie sucked, and here’s why.

filed under Categories movie reviews, retailing 15 Comments

…Ah, I’m just yankin’ your chains, I thought it was pretty good. And, let’s face it, with a handful of popular superhero films functioning as prequels and the unavoidable advertising onslaught, the film could have been directed by the reanimated corpse of Ed Wood and still pulled in more money over the course of the opening weekend than most everyone who’s reading this has ever seen, combined. But, credit where credit is due, Whedon and the gang did a good job making all this nonsense entertaining and appealing to the general public, which kept people buying tickets past that first weekend. Of course, they had good characters to work with, thanks to Jack Kirby and the rest of the Marvel Bullpen, and in a good and just world it would have been “Jack Kirby’s” — well, okay, “Stan ‘n’ Jack’s The Avengers” and not Marvel’s The Avengers on the marquee.

And, yes, as you’ve likely heard, the Hulk is the best part of the film. Finally, it is understood by Hollywood that Hulk smashing stuff is fun, and the Hulk/Banner relationship can have some gravitas without dragging the rest of the film down with it. I fully expect this newly-remade golden egg-laden goose to be cut open for new Hulk movies, but perhaps I’m just being cynical.

I’m not going to go overlong on my comments about The Avengers, like I usually do for my movie “reviews,” but I did want to note a couple of things: first, when I saw Iron Man and Captain America teaming up to fight Loki, the 12-year-old part of Mike’s brain immediately thought “WHOA! COOL!” while the grown-up part of Mike’s brain thought “…what the hell am I looking at? Is this actually happening?” Fortunately, 12-Year-Old Mike won out, because, damn, it was Iron Man and Captain America fighting Loki. In live-action. On a movie screen. Played by actual adults. That hits me right in the nerd-spot.

Second, there’s this bit of business which really annoyed me ahead of my seeing the film. Thankfully, they were just very minor props whose sole use was as beacons for Iron Man’s costume, and we didn’t get any sales pitch beyond a long, lingering look at them onscreen, but still, I glared at them and thought unhappy things when I saw them. “Ooh, I know what you are!” I thought, clutching at the armrests of the theatre’s chair. …Okay, I actually just rolled my eyes a bit, but c’mon.

Finally…did I mention that this post may contain spoilers? Because freakin’ THANOS, man:


I’m totally in the bag for Jim Starlin, especially for Thanos, and if we get full-on Thanos action in the next movie, as implied by that mid-credits scene, that will indeed be an Oscar-winner…in my heart. I mean, just picture this on the silver screen:


You’re right, it would be beautiful.

So, anyway, The Avengers…a fun superhero movie, and probably in the top…oh, six or seven superhero movies ever made, I’d guess, somewhere after these two.

Speaking of Thanos, I’ve had a handful of people coming into the shop over the last couple of weeks asking after 1) Infinity Gauntlet, 2) Thanos Quest, and 3) Iron Man #55 (the first appearance of Thanos), usually saying something along the lines of “I bet these are really popular thanks to the Avengers movie!” Well…not really, no…those particular titles have been in high demand for the better part of twenty years. I don’t think I’ve had every issue of Infinity Gauntlet in stock at the same time more than a dozen times since the series wrapped up way back when, and copies of Thanos Quest blow out the door almost as quickly as we buy them. And it’s been a while, but I’m pretty sure nobody cared too much about Iron Man #55 ’til after Thanos came back in the early ’90s…now I almost never see copies of it.

To answer Andrew‘s question from the other day, about the Avengers movie effect on sales…actually, I don’t think I’ve seen that big of a bump. We’re doing very well right now, but I’m not getting that “we’re only here because of the Avengers movie” vibe from anyone…except maybe the people looking for “key” Thanos comics. Avengers Vs. The X-Men is doing exceptionally well, though that’s more preaching to the converted than bringing in new readers. I am getting some kids here and there picking up Avengers comics that probably normally wouldn’t, and, you know, I’ll take it.
 

images from Silver Surfer #34 (February 1990) by Jim Starlin, Ron Lim & Tom Christopher; Warlock Special Edition #6 (May 1983), reprinting Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2 (1977), by Starlin & Joe Rubinstein; movie poster from Internet parts unknown…I just like the sound of “Los Vengadores”

If he were really evil, he would have just run over the dog.

filed under Categories adam-12 21 Comments

 

WHAT’S THIS?

 
SPURNING HER PARENTS…FOR SATAN?


 
HANDS TIED…BY THE LAW!


 
REBUKED BY SATAN!


 
SUDDENLY…AN INJURED CHILD! A DOG ON THE RUN!


 
THE SEARCH BEGINS! TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!


 
A MYSTERIOUS FIRE…AN EVIL RITUAL!


 
A CLOSE SHAVE FROM SATAN!


 
SATAN BURNS RUBBER!


 
UNDONE BY A CONVENIENT CANINE!


 
TOO SHORT TO BE SATANIC!


 
THE END…


 
OR IS IT…?


 

from Adam-12 #5 (November 1974)

You go ahead and read your Avengers Vs. The X-Men…

filed under Categories collecting, x-men 19 Comments

…and I’ll read my 1993 trade paperback of X-Men Versus The Avengers:


I kind of miss the days when Marvel would put spangly foil logos on their trade paperbacks. (Of course, this ain’t a patch on those all-foil covers Marvel put on their Age of Apocalypse trades.)

ALSO: haven’t looked at panel one of any of these new Avengers Vs. The X-Men comics or tie-ins, but I feel pretty safe in saying there probably isn’t anything in them as cool as that battle between Ursa Major and Doctor Druid from the older series:


I’m sure there are only another, oh, three or four dozen more comics to go in this current Avengers/X-Men hoohar…hopefully there’ll be room to revisit this classic rivalry.

I don’t trust the dude on that Fibs ‘n Squibs cover.

filed under Categories collecting 8 Comments

So we recently obtained a bunch of these mini-books:


We’ve had other copies of these mini-books before…tiny squarebound booklets measuring about 5/8 by 7/8 inches, published in the mid 1960s. The format (at least in the superhero ones) was generally an illustration on one page with text on the facing page, though any attempt to actually read the darn things would risk the danger of, at best, cracking what passed as the spine, or possibly even pulling the entire booklet apart.

The line didn’t just contain Marvel superheroes, but other joke and story books as well, which are named here in this period article, and shown here in an article from the same publication a couple of decades later. It looks to me like this company, Creative House Publishing, licensed the properties from various comic publishers, mixed in their own in-house content (or obtained the joke and story and other content from sources I’m not aware of) and marketed them in this unique format via bubblegum machines and what have you.

Each title featured multiple variations on cover color…here you can see the multiple covers for the Nick Fury book. That brings me to this point: I had been under the impression, from information provided in Overstreet and online, and just from previously having copies of these in the shop before, that each cover was single solid color. You may have noticed that most of the covers in that first pic up there aren’t solid colors, like these two Nick Fury books:


And here’s a better look at one of the non-superhero presumed-variants:


I’ve not seen mention of these particular variations before. I doubt they’re counterfeits, because who’d go through the trouble, really? The person we obtained these from said that, according to his research, these may have been special promotional variations given to the distributors who handled these items, but I’ve yet to find confirmation.

And just for comparison, here’s a close-up of one of the covers with the solid color:


At any rate, I’ve done some research on these things, but apparently not nearly enough. If someone out there has more information on them, particularly regarding the significance of the spotted ‘n’ speckled cover color variations, I’d like to hear it.

Satan Saturday #3.

filed under Categories saturday 9 Comments

THE INCIDENTS YOU HAVE SEEN ARE TRUE

THE NAMES WERE CHANGED TO PROTECT THE INNO…OH, WAIT, RIGHT

from Adam-12 #5 (November 1974)

Oh, nothing, just a bunch of 30+ year old role playing fanzines from the U.K.

filed under Categories I cast magic missile 16 Comments

Here are some recently-acquired goodies destined for the eBay that I thought I’d share with you first. It’s a bunch of digest-sized Dungeons & Dragons ‘zines, all hailing from England and thereabouts, and all featuring monsters, magic items, adventures, and of course, fantastic covers.

That’s definitely the editor’s signature at the bottom of the front cover of this ‘zine (dating from 1980):


…but I haven’t the foggiest what this word is:


Maybe one of you folks out there can decipher it.

From 1979 comes The Palantir #1:


…and there’s no way the cover for that first issue could have prepared you for the cover of #3 (1981):


Holy cow, just look at it.

This collection has a run of, like, eighteen issues of this series, but the cover of #1 (circa 1979/80) is absolutely my favorite:


The only way this could have been better is if the ‘zine had been called The Gelatinous Cube and had a pic of said cube on the cover. But this cover is admirable in its simplicity. Sadly, it’s not a ‘zine focused solely on the Beholder, with Beholder fan fiction, Beholder-themed interviews (“so what’s your favorite Beholder magical ability, Ms. Susan Anton?”), Beholder fan art, etc. So, you know, that particular niche is still wide open, friends.

Free Comic Book Day 2099.

filed under Categories free comic book day, grimjack 8 Comments

Oh man, I almost forgot to tell you about the coolest shirt one of our customers wore to our Free Comic Book Day event. I wish I had taken a picture of what he was wearing, but instead I’ll have to settle for images borrowed from this eBay auction:


Yes, that’s right, I had a customer sporting a Ravage 2099 shirt. And no, it wasn’t an old, ratty shirt he’s been wearing since the early ’90s. He’d picked it up off the eBay still sealed in its original package, much like the auction I’ve linked to.

Okay, the exact value of “coolest” may vary depending on your opinion of Stan Lee’s finest creation, but this was the last thing I expected to see a customer wearing, particularly in this Year of our Lord, Two Thousand Twelve. It gave me a good, surprised laugh, and thus, my most sincere kudos to that customer of mine.

The other side.

filed under Categories free comic book day, pal casie 5 Comments


Well, this appears to have been our biggest Free Comic Book Day yet, giving away thousands of comics and easily making back all our expenses, and then some. In fact, it seems as if we’ve finally come close to wiping out our reserves of some of the leftover FCBD books from previous years. That giant box of Avatar Robocops — gone at last!

Things did go pretty smoothly, aside from some frantic setting-up in the morning, hefting boxes around and just generally getting the store ready. No weird problems, no complaints, no people asking to go through all the boxes of the porn comics…it all went great. I ended up pulling a twelve hour shift instead of my planned ten-hour stint, so I’m plenty tired, but it was worth it.

The only bit of difficulty we encountered was our usually adequate-for-the-business single register getting desperately backed-up at one point early in the day, requiring the creation of a temporary “cash only” second checkout line at the front counter. I suppose as problems go, “too many customers wanting to give us money” isn’t a bad one, but I don’t like having our customers have too much of a wait time. The situation resolved itself soon enough, but I’ll consider that a lesson learned and we’ll plan accordingly next year.

Big Bad Matt Digges, artist of everyone’s favorite comic about an awesome hospital, Awesome Hospital, announced his intention on the Twitter to pop by the shop for FCBD as part of his weekend birthday celebration, which prompted me to declare:


He did indeed come by on Saturday, and, as promised:


Gentlemen, I do not make idle threats.

Plus, pal Casie, she of this swell green drawing, came by the shop and gave us cookies and cupcakes in this lovely decorated box:


A rear view, just to show off the Swamp Thing pic:


Wasn’t that nice? And anyone who claims I ate all the cookies and cupcakes is a big ol’ liar, and besides, they can’t prove anything.

In all, it was very busy and a lot of fun, and I saw a lot of new faces and a bunch of happy kids, so what the heck, I guess we’ll do it again next year. We just have to remember to (gulp) order even more Free Comic Book Day comics than we did this year. …I guess we better start savin’ up for it now!