Mikester

Time to finish up that 1984 “Battips” distributor flyer from Bud Plant, with ordering suggestions for retailers. (Here are parts one and two.)

HARSH. This issue of Daredevil probably sold okay at the time. That’s kind of an eye-grabbing cover.

Well, that was almost two years’ worth of “Rocky Grimm, Space Ranger,” the post-Secret Wars stories of the Thing toolin’ around the Beyonder’s battleworld. Now, I recently reread those stories in ye olde Thing Omnibus, and I think they hold up. BUT using this one data point provided here I suppose in “real time,” as these issues were coming out, folks were getting a little tired of this change-of-pace storyline and wanted Bashful Ben back in his usual stomping grounds. (See also “The Trial of the Flash,” another paitence-testing storyline.)

I do still get occasional requests for both this one and the Life of Pope John Paul II, but “Pope Comics,” as this person put it, must have sold a whole lot more since I see those in collections and Mother T. — well, not at all.

Don’t know if that was a typo or a change in plans, as #265 is the actual first appearance of Silver Sable (and even got a 2nd print to ballyhoo the fact). It’s possible the story was pushed back, as #264 has “fill-in issue” written all over it. Anyway, nobody cares about Silver Sable anymore, sorry.

“Steady on” nuthin’. RAISE THEM ORDERS, TRUST ME

Interesting to see the note here that sales were “softening” on what was essential Marvel’s flagship title. And the implied “long, continued storyline (derogatory).” As far as stories being “too grim” — friend, hold onto your beanie, 1980s X-Men comics will look like the Care Bears compared to what’s to come.

This story is great, by the way. Track these down if you can.

Oh, I think this is the issue where we get Byrne’s retelling of Doom’s origin that kinda/sorta incorporated the “single scar” theory of Jack Kirby’s. Anyway (SPOILER) this is the Kristoff version of Doom (sigh…long story) and not the real Doom but it’s fairly surprising that even then, an appearance by Victor Von would be enough to get those orders bumped up way high.

Oh, come on. I won’t stand for this slander of our pal Sal. The man did fine work on Simonson’s Thor, and his style was a nice match to Simonson’s own art. The book looked great for that entire run.

Here’s a panel from this very issue:

Sal Buscema is fine.

“There’s no way this character would ever become popular with the general public via a series of movies that will literally make billions. ORDER LOW”

I admire the honesty. Anyway, big clue as to how unique a comic this was. I suggest seeking out pal Tegan on Tik Tok and seeing her short videos about this very series.

It honestly surprises me that people thought this way about Coyote. I know it didn’t last long, but thought it was held in higher regard than that. Ah, well. It seemed like an okay comic.

Whoooops, hate to tell you this about that Galactus story, but….

Pretty safe to say that Alan Davis went on to become a funnybook artist of Some Note.

In the meantime, I do want to note the passing of a couple of important individuals.

James Earl Jones passed away at the age of 93, which, if one must pass away, that’s a good old age to do. I know he’s done so much in so many varied roles, but c’mon, I’m the exact proper age to remember him most fondly as the voice of that most evil of heavy breathers, Darth Vader. That deep, rumbling voice epitomized Space Evil in a way very few could have.

Mark Evanier has a nice story about when he and the Garfield cartoon crew encountered Mr. Jones. And I’ve been recommending that folks check out that one episode of Big Bang Theory on which Jones guest-stars. I know comic fans aren’t…big on BBT, but Jones is clearly having a great time in this very silly and hilarious episode, and you should at least watch it for his performance. (And the other Star Wars guest star who shows up.)

The other passing is that of John Cassaday, a superior comics artist whose sense of design classed up any comic he worked on. He supplied countless covers, he drew Astonishing X-Men, he drew Planetary, he did so much, and I’m sorry he’s gone so soon. My conlences to his friends and family.

This may be my favorite cover of is…granted, it’s not the most dynamic of his illustrations, but that great Wolverine face tells a story all its own:

So long, James and John.

So, continuing the the look at this Bud Plant “Battips” insert with order suggestions for retailers…but first, let me address this one comment from adrian:

“I wouldn’t mind reading a few entries into Robotech Comics.”

Boy, adrian, I’d sure like to, except I unfortunately don’t have a lot to say. Yes, yes, I know longtime readers have come to expect when I say “I don’t have a lot to say” or “I’ll keep this short,” I’ll then launch into like a 3,000 essay. But honestly, in this case I don’t have much to talk about simply because my interaction with Robotech comics is mostly selling them and replacing back issues in the bins from the back room at the old job.

One thing I remember is that my former boss always said that Robotech comics (at least from the Comico era) seemed to sell better out of those back issue bins than new on the rack. An explanation for this may be that the primary audience for these weren’t necessarily New Comics Day regulars, instead only coming in every few months and catching up on what they missed. To be clear, it’s been too many years and I entered the comics retail biz near the end of these Comico Robotechs, so I can’t recall their sales with that level of granular detail.

However, Robotech’s always had its following, even as Malibu/Eternity picked up the franchise. Back issues of the multiple series sold relatively briskly for us, regardless of the publisher, at least ’til the ’90s comics crash.

Okay, now on to BATTIPS:

Welllllll…they didn’t sell forever, but they do remain classic comics. Interesting seeing these prices points this early on, even with the higher page counts.

A reminder that, no matter how diminished this sort of even has become over the decades, the original Crisis on Infinite Earths was in fact a Big Deal at the time. I can remember walking into the shop that would within just a few years become my place of employment and seeing that huge stack of Crisis #1 on the counter. And confirming with my former boss Ralph…oh yeah it sold well.

Gotta be honest, I totally forgot there even was this Man-Bat reprint. But you bet I bought that Deadman reprint series, collecting together all of the original stories and putting them on nice paper. Now at the time, I was in my mid-teens, so I don’t know if I counted as “an older fan,” but I ate these up. For some reason I was a big Deadman fan then (even before he started popping up in Swamp Thing so this was directly aimed at me.

Yes, this is the beginning of the Englehart run on this series, introducing new characters and concepts still in use even now (lookin’ at you, Kilowog). But this issue is also the debut of Mogo, The Planet What Is Also a Green Lantern (spoiler), in a back-up by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons,a pair soon to go on to do a particular maxi-series of some note.

Some shops at the time weren’t even ordering Sgt. Rock or any war titles, in case you were wondering why these comics are 1) hard to find and 2) expensive now. I actually bought #400, even though I wasn’t a big war comics guy. Plus, this is a nice eye-grabbing cover:

Yes, cut back on this issue featuring this new guy Todd…MacFarnee? Something like that. Anyway, we’ll never hear about him again.”

(Just pokin’ fun…who was to know, right?)

Good to see textual evidence from the time that word on the street was translating to Big Sales on the big green plant guy’s comic book. It certainly came a long way from being on the verge of cancellation just a couple of years or so prior.

Now, I read and enjoyed Sun Devils, but I feel like (aside from a story or two in some Superman comics several years ago) it’s pretty much forgotten. Surely with the periodic Dan Jurgens-mania that goes around, some attempt at reprinting this would have been made, but alas, it remains a bargain bin oddity. It does contain an early mainstream comics example of a gay couple, though (surprise) one of the pair dies in a real Women-in-Refrigerators moment. I’m sure it was just intended a Capital-D Drama, but we’re more aware of this sort of thing now, and it hasn’t aged well.

Yup, it’s time for another one of these…!

This was a stand-alone flyer sent out to retailers giving suggestions for their comics orders. No date on it, but judging by the books discussed this is for stuff coming late 1984/early 1985.

I’ve noted before that I can’t imagine distributors today doing this without publishers quailing at length regarding any thought of cutting orders, or being less than enthused about any new releases. The modern version is, like, Marvel telling retailers “you need to order LOTS of this, trust us!” which they’ve done one too many times for people to pay any attention.

Anyway, let’s look at a few entries of note here:

Mostly pointing this out for the price-increase timeline, and that bastard child price level of 65 cents. As I recall that was Marvel’s first post-60 cent cover price when DC had jumped up to 75 cents. Kind of a “ha, we’re still cheaper!” thumbing of the nose to the cross-town competition.

This got me to look at the price jumps in this period, and this is a very rough outline based on whatever the cover dates are on the books (which may or may not align with each other. And I’m just using as examples some of the companies’ established and long-running titles.

Avengers – went up to 65 cents with #254, cover date April 1985 (so early ’84, around January or February)

Archie – went up to 65 cents with #334, cover date March 1985 (again, like January 1985). Caveat: Archie seemed to be bimonthly at this point.

Batman – jumped up to 75 cents from 60 cents with #366, cover date December 1983 (so in the fall sometime).

That was quite a long time for Marvel (and Archie) to be undercutting DC’s pricing. I think DC’s push at the time was “hey, our comics are printed on nice white paper now!”

Marvel, or at least the Avengers with issue #264, goes up to 75 cents in late ’85.

I’ll have to look more closely at this (though I bet if I Google/Bing/Ask Jeeves-it someone’s got a chart of comic book cover pricing).

At this point we just had the first issue, with this logo:

When the second issue comes out, the title has changed to the I-suppose-more-recognizable Robotech: The Macross Saga (incorporating the lettering style of “Macross” from #1):

And then with #3, we get what will be the standard logo for the Robotech Comico line:

Ultimately, in the back issue market that #1 is the most in-demand and pricey of the Comico Robotech books.

Interesting to see that Mage was getting some reader/sales demand, even before Grendel was involved. I know we had some discussion about whether or not Mage was a beloved classic, but it looks like at least for a time it was a relatively popular one.

Yes, it’s more T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Revival Talk! Some textual evidence here, backing up my former boss’s memories, that there was some anticipation for this comic given the creators involved. I mean, it certainly sounds like it should be good, right?

I like this as it shows how a distributor handled the whole PC -to-Eclipse title transfer after the former publisher collapsed.

Remember when two bucks was too much to pay for a comic? At a time when Marvel/DC/Archie was 60-to-75 cents? No idea how good they had it. I remember the first time I saw a $1 cover price on an indie book, and I was all “holy cow, I want that comic, it better be worth the money.”

And just throwing this in here just as a reminder that Badger was reasonably popular at one point. Like the PC/Eclipse thing, this was the time of the titles moving over from Capital to First Comics, though with like a year gap between issues (versus the about half-year gap on the PC/Eclipse transition).

Hi pals! Okay, going back to that March 1986 Bud Plant catalog and looking at the second page of those ordering recommendations for comics retailers. (Reminder: I had some brief follow-ups on that first post here.)

Now I have lots of these old catalogs. I can keep doing this for weeks, but I know that would drive you all crazy, and me as well. I do plan on dipping into these on a semi-regular basis as I find them fascinating looks into comics retailing history, and sort of nudge my own brain cells a bit to remember how some of this stuff played out. (Or I bug my former boss Ralph, from whence these catalogs came, to see if he remembers.)

I know we seemed to have plenty of these in backstock, and they would sell out of the bins occasionally, but I can’t say for sure if they flew off the new comic rack upon release. The initial rush of Turtlemania had slowed a bit by this point, so I don’t think throwing a Donatello or whathaveyou into just any book equaled Big Sales Numbers. Yes, look for your follow-up on this once I pester Ralph about it.

I really wanted more March Hare than what we got. Sadly, a #2 was never to be. (I write a little about it here in this obituary for Keith Giffen.)

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents is one of those properties that holds strong sway over the folks who remember (or have sought out via back issue bins) the original series and its handful of tie-ins, primarily inspired by the great artwork of Wally Wood and others. However, most attempted revivals seems to fall flat on their faces…I think DC and IDW were the latest attempts? It’s hard to keep track.

There were a lot of shenanigans regarding ownership of the property in the 1980s, such as what was going on with this very series noted in the above tip. That sixth Deluxe issue was never released.

Ouch. There was a time when giants of the past were not appreciated in the then-present, like Kirby and Ditko. It’s hard to tell exactly the tone of the tipster here, whether the world would not appreciate Ditko drawing Daredevil, or whether Ditko’s style as it was then did not suit the character.

Eh, I don’t know, looks okay to me (inks by Klaus Janson):

Okay, now this remains a very popular issue, almost just for that awesome cover alone. When that was available as a poster, it was like printing money. If Marvel’s listening (and their ears are everywhere — ew, gross) let me just say two words: FACSIMILE EDITION.

I mean, just look at this thing:

I cut that one off because the he does go into several solid reasons why the Classic X-Men reprint comic was a good idea, but that can be a whole other post on its own. Rather, I wanted to note the reference ot the Dreadstar reprints from the period, and I want to make sure I track down his comments on that because I can guess what he said. SPOILER: retailers and distributors weren’t thrilled with the Dreadstar reprints…not because of the contents, which are fine, but because of Marvel’s apparent “crowd out the competition” publishing strategy. You can read about it in Comics Journal #97 (where you’ll find a mention of my old boss Ralph in there).

While not getting the same attention as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles et al., I feel like Miami Mice is one of the better-regarded of that subgenre of the blank and white book, the “funny animal parody” comic. I mean, it was published by Rip Off Press, one of the classic underground companies, and appealingly cartooned by Mark Bodé. I’ve even sold copies of this out of my shop relatively recently.

I…I, um…that’s hard to say, honestly. One more question for Ralph: were people excited about the whole “New Universe” endeavor from Marvel at the start, or was it a whole lotta “oh, now what?” Like, was there enough interest to bump up sales on magazines with behind the scenes secrets and info like Comics Interview?

Just checked my own ‘zine collection, and I don’t have a Comics Interview #33 in there, but I do have #36, which has a big “NEW UNIVERSE” banner across the top of the front cover. So I guess there was enough interest to double-dip on the topic!