collecting

All times are approximate.

filed under Categories collecting, death of superman 13 Comments

So the amount of time that had passed between the release of this comic:


…and this comic:


…is kinda/sorta about the same, give or take a handful of months, as will have passed between the release of this comic:


…and the new Action Comics #1 coming this September:


First, to save me some “um, actually”-ing in the comments, please note I said “about,” not “exactly.” It’s close enough for my point, or what passes as my point.

Second, it’s a bit “one of these things is not like the other,” I realize, since one is a debut issue and the other two are reboots of one kind or another, though you could read the “Death of Superman” event as an equally-influential revitalization of the franchise.

But when looking at the spans of time involved here…the debut of Superman (and, if not the launch of the Golden Age of Comics, at least its most significant event) in 1938, followed eighteen years later by the launching of the Silver Age* with the debut of the new Flash (itself only seven years after the cancellation of the Golden Age Flash series, and five years after the G.A. Flash’s last appearance in All-Star Comics).

My only point to this really is that, when I was younger, and was first learning about all these events in comics history, it certainly felt like we were talking about longer periods of time. Given all the talk and bandying about of the terms “Golden Age” and “Silver Age,” it came as bit of a shock to realize that only about half a decade separated the two eras. I mean, that’s barely longer than it took Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk to finish.

Conventional wisdom is that the customer base for comics turned over fairly quickly in those days. The kid who bought the last issue of the Golden Age Flash Comics, #104, had probably outgrown comics before Showcase #4 rolled along, and the kids who bought Showcase #4 probably had never seen the previous Flash. I mean, I wasn’t there, and I’m making some assumptions, and I know some people probably carried over from one “Age” to the next. But that was the general belief.

Compare to today, when most people who buy comics have been buying for years at a time. In my case, using the Superman example…I was buying the comic in the early 1980s, I bought the Man of Steel mini in 1986 which restarted Superman’s history from scratch, I bought (and am still buying) all the main Superman series from then ’til now, and I plan on picking up the new relaunched Superman titles in a couple of months. That’s bit of an extreme case, but comic fans following characters or series for years at a time is more the rule than the exception, nowadays. At least, those folks are the primary target of the superhero publishers. The “crossover event leading into the next crossover event” publishing strategy is obviously not one they could have pulled off in, say, 1948, when the audience turnover would have meant people reading the end result of this strategy without having been there at the beginning.

I picked the Death of Superman issue as an example because that’s a relatively recent event that a number of us recall happening during our comics-reading (and for some of us, our comics-retailing) history. It’s a pretty solid timestamp in our memories, a “where were you when…?” kind of thing. (Where was I? Explaining to an enormous and increasingly-irritable crowd of people “uh, only one customer, please.”) It doesn’t seem like that long ago to me, and yet the time that has passed is longer that the original run of The Spirit and the original run of Fawcett’s Captain Marvel.

Boy, this kind of got away from me. Another point I was intended to make was “it was a lot easier to get away with reboots back in the day” because, well, anyone complaining was probably going to stop reading comics soon anyway, and there were always more readers coming to replace them. Yet another point was simply realizing that less tempus had fugited than I thought when it came to certain historical events in the comics industry. That last point is simply the result of age, I’m sure…when I was 15, a five year span sure seemed like an eternity. Today: well, I’m pretty sure I’ve got socks that are older than five years. (Shut up…they’re in good shape!)

But if there were a primary point to all this babbling, it is simply that I was somewhat amused by comparing the two timespans above. And yes, I know not everyone who’s reading this has been reading comics for decades. Let me wallow in my dotage in peace.
 

* Some people mark the beginning of the Silver Age with the first appearance of the Martian Manhunter. And, y’know, that’s cool with me.

Oh, by the way, all images are from the Grand Comics Database. I was too lazy to dig out my copy of the original Action #1 to scan.

A swirling whirlpool of nerdiness, slowly dragging us in.

filed under Categories collecting, swamp thing 14 Comments

Here’s some follow-up to this entry about sorting my Superman comics, about which Tom Spurgeon said “isn’t for anyone,” and man, ain’t that the truth. That was a weird, obsessive thing for me to do, wasn’t it? Ah, well. ‘Course, that’s not going to stop me from doing it again, because some of you had questions:

  • Chris McAree asks

    “I was wondering what you, or any of the other readers of this blog do when a box early in the alphabet becomes overfull? When your Avengers box can finally hold no more do you start a brand new box after finally getting those ten missing issues from the Roger Stern run, or carefully and meticulously move the last ten issues from box ‘A’ into box ‘B’, box ‘B’ into box ‘B2,’ (cause god knows there are a lot of Batman issues out there!) and so on until you have wasted a couple of hours a finally reached box ‘Z is for Zatanna?’”

    Well, my collection is sorted out, more or less, like this: several long boxes divided up by company, so I have a bunch of DC long boxes, about half as many Marvel boxes, a Gladstone/Gemstone box for all those EC reprints, a bunch of Misc. Indie boxes with the books ordered by company and then by title within, and so on. And then I have a bunch of short boxes sorted out by individual titles and/or franchises, like a couple of boxes for Justice League stuff, a Groo box, Swamp Thing boxes, etc. If one of those boxes starts overflowing, like the Justice League box, I start filing them into an overflow box shared by two or three titles that are also overflowing, until I get around to making a new box for that title.

    This, I think, makes it a little easier to add boxes when you need to expand, since you’re not shifting comics through the entire collection, but just through the section of the collection you need to open up some space in. …I have no idea if any of that made sense.

  • Longtime site reader “O” the Humanatee! has a couple of questions:

    “…When sorting alphabetically, does one use the common-sense title (say, Spider-Man rather than Amazing Spider-Man), the full title as it reads on the cover, or the title shown in the indicia? Should you group all titles starring a character together? Surely, it is an abomination against God to put Detective before Defenders just so you can group it with other Batman titles! Are you going to put Action in among your Lex Luthor comics?

    And what should I do when the title changes mid-numbering? What do I do with ‘Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes’ and ‘The New Teen Titans’? What, I beg of you? WHAT?”

    Usually I go by the title on the front cover, because I’m going to remember that more easily than the official title on the indicia. And, as I said in the response to the first question, I have some franchises lumped together in their own separate boxes…so all my Batman books are separated out, filed together alphabetically. (And before you ask, Superman/Batman is filed with my Superman comics.) (In the Superman “specials/annuals/minis” boxes, which come after the post-Crisis series boxes, because I don’t have enough Superman/Batman to justify a box just for it, oh God, I’m doing it again.)

    When a series undergoes a minor title change while keeping the numbering, I generally just keep filing later issues as if nothing happened, which is exactly what I did with your Tales of the New Teen Titans/Legion of Super-Heroes examples (and which also answers Thwacko’s later question about Peter Parker/The Spectacular Spider-Man). Plus, in both cases, I have Titans and Legion in their own boxes.

  • Anonymous took advantage of my triangle numbers category and commented

    “I looked at the Nov 2008 post about Superman triangle numbering, and the post included a comment about the Legion of Super-Heroes’ triangle numbering, saying something along the lines of ‘Remember when the Legion could support two monthly books?’ Without commenting on how successful the current Legion venture is, funny how the market actually IS currently supporting two Legion books.”

    That’s true, it is, but every time they relaunch the Legion franchise, it seems like there’s a brief surge of interest at first…and then it goes back down to what it was selling before, or a little less. The current titles are selling for us at what is about the lower edge of “mid-range” — not a best-seller, like Morrison’s Batman stuff, but not at the “why did they bother” range, like the dozen or so minis companies tying into forthcoming movies. Anyway, when I wrote that old post, that was more or less true, but the push given the Legion by the Final Crisis crossover, and the additional anticipated sales goose of the return of 1) the original continuity Legion, more or less, I think, and 2) old Legion scribe Paul Levitz returning as writer probably encouraged DC to take a chance with a second Legion book. But, given that one of the books is named Adventure, if the Legion thing there doesn’t work out, they can always replace it with a new lead without having to cancel it.

  • Michael G. notes

    “I empathize. Have you ever tried shelving Acme Novelty Library? The first 15 issues are all out of order and most of them won’t fit in the same box!”

    Ah, yes, those things. I have a pretty good-sized bookcase with a shelf large enough to hold even the tallest Acme volume, so I just have all of them together on that one shelf. It’ll do, it’ll do.

Woo boy. Here, after all that, let’s look, courtesy ProgRuin fan Todd, at some footage of the Sega Genesis Swamp Thing game prototype being demonstrated.

And, in other Swamp Thing news, Gail Simone describes her awesome, but ultimately not used, series pitch for the big green guy.

In which I add a title to a blog post 14 years later just so I have something to properly link to.

filed under Categories collecting, pal dorian, retailing

Sorry, no rundown of every comic title this week. I’m still recovering from the last four weeks’ worth of commentary!

To build on something my esteemed weblogging colleague pal Ian noted…I posted something* quite a while ago about how the “Giant-Size Man-Thing” jokes should probably be given a rest now that the joke has come full circle and actually been used in a published issue of Man-Thing. So, now that one of the Big Two has actually published a comic with the slightly unwieldy title of DC Countdown to Infinite Crisis, all those jokes, like the one Ian mentions, about crossovers with ridiculous names like “Atlantis Attacks the Secret Crisis of the Millennial Genesis of Champions,”** should hopefully come to a rest as well. Though, to be fair, the actual indicia of the comic reads DC Countdown.

Yes, that means I’ve read next week’s DC Countdown, since DC surprisingly included it in the retailer preview pack this week. Well, I can say that I enjoyed it for what it was: a semi-tour of current events in the DC Universe, and a lead-in to forthcoming events in various books. “To be continued throughout the DC Universe,” it says at the end. It’s certain to royally piss off people who were already pissed off by Identity Crisis, so keep that in mind before you buy it.

CONVERSATIONS AT THE STORE, ONE

Yesterday morning, after the new comics order has been broken down and counted, and I’m taking a moment to flip through the new Overstreet Price Guide:

Me: “I’m going to poke though the glossary and see if Overstreet has officially accepted the term ‘Bronze Age’…whoa, hold on.”***

Dor: “What?”

Me: “Not only does the definition appear without any disclaimers, they say the Bronze Age runs from ’70 to 1984!”

Dor: “What about the other ages?”

[brief discussion follows about the other comics ages, until….]

Me: “Lemme look up ‘Modern Age’ — huh? It’s ’92 to present?”

Dor: “What’s ’85 to ’91? [makes wild, sarcastic guess] ‘Copper Age?'”

Me: [after looking it up] “Holy crap, it is Copper Age!”

Conversation devolves into laughter and swearing shortly afterwards. Tape ends.

Later, poking through Overstreet, Dorian discovers an article about “Pioneer Age” comics, from the 1500s into the early 1800s. Oh dear.

I’m assuming “Bronze Age” ends at ’84 because of Crisis on Infinite Earths, probably as clear a demarcation between “eras” as you’re going to get in the early ’80s. And presumably 1992 is the start of the “Modern Age” as that’s the year Image was unleashed upon an unsuspecting world.

I’m not sure what was different enough about ’85-’91 to keep it from being listed as “Modern Age” as well…the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the subsequent black and white boom? The release of stuff like Miracleman and Watchmen and Dark Knight? The proliferation and success of certain indie companies, some of which were dead or dying in ’91 (like, say, First Comics)? Well, okay, I guess in retrospect, it was quite a different period from the Image/Wizard/speculator boom that followed…but still, “Copper Age?”****

Oh, and on the topic of actual prices in Overstreet…every time a new edition comes in, the first thing I look at is the House of Secrets listing to see how #92 (the first Swamp Thing) is doing. Looks like my copy is in the $600 range now. Cool. Er, not that I’m selling.

CONVERSATIONS AT THE STORE, TWO

Instead of a semi-accurate, partially-fictionalized transcript, I’m just going to tell you that pal Corey and Kid Chris had a discussion about Booster Gold as a Christ figure, and leave it at that.

Oh, yeah, new comics yesterday. The Manhattan Guardian, the newest Seven Soldiers of Victory spin-off, is quite good. And, well, I’m trying to keep current DC events out of my mind as I read about the adventures of the Giffen-era league in Justice League Classified, but, well, as I’ve said before, it’s kind of rough to see jokes about Sue Dibny’s pregnancy.

Ah, and I see what took New Avengers #4 so long to come out…they were busy constructing extra butt for this cover. And what’s up with the trade dress on the new issue of Rogue? The stripe across the top of the comic, with the little Comics Code Authority-esque stamp at the right hand side with Spidey’s face? A portent of things to come? Or did I just miss one of Marvel’s many press releases somewhere along the way? EDIT: Well, duh. Commenter Craig points out what should have been obvious to me. What’s odd is that I had two separate thoughts about this cover during new comics day: “hey, what’s with the trade dress” and “oh, look, it’s based on the cover to Uncanny X-Men #173.” Had the two thoughts ever encountered each other in my head at any point, I would have answered my own question. See what new comics day does to comic shop employees?

All you Jhonen Vasquez fans should note that there’s a new issue of Filler Bunny this week as well. Now with extra offensiveness! (We’re sure to sell a ton of ’em.)

The last part of the second Simpsons/Futurama crossover is out…and, well, the first series was better, I think, though not to say this series was bad by any means. Hopefully now they have enough pages to put both series into a much-needed trade paperback.

If any of you picked up the James Bond Casino Royale book this week, Dorian noticed that one of our copies was missing several pages, so you might want to check yours as well.

We also got our Free Comic Book Day shirts today, so it’s time to turn ourselves into walking billboards. Well, Kid Chris and I got ours…Dorian sprang for the tasteful polo shirt, which apparently hasn’t shipped yet.

* It’s at the bottom of the page…you may have to scroll down a bit. I hadn’t quite worked out the whole image-posting thing at the time.

** Actually, that was kinda fun, making up that title!

*** In retrospect, I think I already did know that Overstreet had accepted the Bronze Age term…I just have the old price guide caveat of “Bronze Age is an informal definition” stuck in my head.

**** Yes, I realize how nerdy and obsessive this all sounds. Honestly, I don’t worry that much about it…my time’s better spent keeping track of all that obscure Swamp Thing trivia.

In which I talk about my faovorite subject, me.

filed under Categories collecting, retailing

1. Courtesy pal Tom again…more reviews of Green Arrow’s arrows. Hey, I think it’s funny.

2. Word on the street is that Thought Balloon’s Kevin Melrose has a new site, Scryptic Studios, for “aspiring, semi-professional, and professional comic book writers.” Neat! (I particularly like Kevin’s confession on this page.)

3. THE MEME: From the Comics Journal message board, a list of questions regarding comic stores and comic-buying habits…I see pal Ian answered those questions — that’s my place of employment he’s talkin’ ’bout, brother! I thought it might be at least a little interesting (well, for me, anyway) to answer these, at least from the perspective of someone who manages a comic shop:

A. Do you tend to go to the nearest store, the best store, any store, or does it matter?

I go to the store I work at. Actually, before I entered my indentured servitude, that was my store of choice since first shopping there over 20 years ago.

B. Ladies, what books do you tend to purchase, or what kind would you like to purchase (if you are a male please leave blank or supply what a girlfriend reads)?

The girlfriend really, really, really likes Spider-Man…she was also a fan of Marvel’s G.I. Joe series.

C. What one thing would you add or change about your most frequented store (i.e. What is the worst thing about the store)?

I would change the backroom organization (i.e. less stuff), and get even more shelves for the front of the store. Ideally, I would love more space…we may have to wait for one of our neighboring stores to move out so we can knock down a wall and expand, because I’ll be damned if I’m moving the whole store again. (After our last move into a larger location a few years back, I had dreams about moving boxes of comics for months.)

Oh, and I’d also change my salary to a million dollars a month.

D. What one thing would you not change (i.e. What is the best thing about the store)?

The wide and varied selection of new and old funnybooks! And our customers…despite my recent gripes about certain types of customers, we’ve got a pretty good clientele with several cool and nice people.

E. Do you read any small press comic books currently? Which one(s)? (examples: Lone Star Press, Avatar)

Yes…I’ve been a long supporter of independent comics, stemming in part from being exposed to a wide selection of indies at my shop of choice from the very beginning of my comic-shop patronage. I’ll check out just about anything from Fantagraphics, Slave Labor, and, oh, that AiT/Planetlar company too, I guess…and I’ll poke through any indie that happens to grab my attention.

F. What back issues do you buy?

Mostly DC’s funny animal stuff by Shelly Mayer, as well as his Sugar & Spike, Nancy comics, the Dell/Gold Key Peanuts comics (still missing a couple!), Turok (the original good stuff, not Valiant era), any fun-looking Silver Age Superman-family comics, 1950s and 60s-era Archies, Herbie, and old fanzines.

G. How do you decide what comic book to buy? Writer, artist, character, word of mouth, etc?

All kinds of things…I notice that I’ll buy DC Comics based on character, while Marvel books I’ll buy based on creator, more or less (though I’ve been buying Hulk for decades, through thick and thin). Word of mouth usually doesn’t convince me to buy comics, but all that talk about Street Angel online got me to try it out. Mostly…if it grabs my eye, it’s halfway there to getting onto my purchase pile.

H. Do you buy strictly current age comic books or do you buy older comic books? What kinds?

I mostly buy new comics, if only because I’ve been buying comics on a regular basis for the last 25 years…if I wanted to read it, I would have bought it off the shelf when it was new.

I. How do you feel about graded comic books?

I’m assuming this means those slabbed, “professionally-graded” comics you see people paying too much for on eBay all the time. I don’t know…I can understand the need for such a service, given most auction sellers can’t grade their way out of a paper bag (to use one of our favorite nonsensical expressions)…but the end result is people paying far too much for items that don’t warrant such prices. People investing too much money in overpriced slabbed books are people that won’t be in the hobby much longer, once they realize they’ll never get back the money they’ve spent.

J. What comic book related merchandise do you buy?

Not much…I do occasionally pick up a single HeroClix of certain characters (like Swamp Thing, natch), and I’ll buy the DC Direct Golden Age character action figures, though they’ve mostly dried up lately. Also, I am still sort of semi-looking for that Fin Fang Foom figure Toy Biz put out a while ago.

K. What do you read if you are not reading comic books?

Geez…just about anything. I’m a voracious (and fast, thankfully!) reader. Just finished The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (lent to me by a customer, who had also let me borrow his run of Flashman novels). Also just read Coalescent by Stephen Baxter (who for once didn’t end his science fiction novel with “we’ll never interact with other worlds in any meaningful fashion, we’re pretty much stuck on Earth, and there’s no escape from the entropical death of the universe. The end”). On the waiting to read pile: Death Rat by Mystery Science Theatre 3000‘s Mike Nelson. I also have a subscription to Macaddict. And I’m slowly working my way through The Old West history series from Time/Life Books that my parents subscribed to in the early-to-mid-70s, and have just recently given to me. And, sometimes, if I’m waiting for something on the computer (like for a CD to burn, a restart, etc.), I’ll pick up the dictionary that I keep on the desk near my Mac and just randomly go through a page.

L. What do you buy at comic book conventions?

I haven’t been in years…when I did go, I just mostly poured through the dollar boxes looking for bargains. My best find was someone selling 1960s Archie comics three for a buck. Woo-hoo!

Adding to the pile.

filed under Categories collecting

It’s Sunday, it’s a holiday weekend, and I’m tired: so you’re getting one of my lazy posts:

1. Recent acquisitions: Nancy and Sluggo #192 (Dell Comics, Oct 1963) – this is the last issue of the series…it’s in really beat condition (including glue “repair” at the staples). It’s complete, it’s readable, and it was cheap (two bucks!). Also included was a short Peanuts strip, just as slightly off-model as the Nancy stories. Fun stuff, if a little strange…Nancy and Sluggo seem so out of place in extended narratives, but it’s oddly compelling. (Read more about this comic series here.)

The Nostalgia Journal #27 (Fantagraphics, Aug (July on the cover) 1976) – this is the first issue of the adzine edited by Gary Groth, as it began its transition to The Comics Journal we all know and love today. It’s newspaper tabloid format, and most of the issue is given over to exposing the business practices of the publisher of adzine competitor The Buyer’s Guide (which would later become The Comic Buyer’s Guide). Also featured is a transcript of a ’71 radio interview with Jack Kirby, and a short article by Doug Fratz on his top ten favorite fanzines from the 1960s. And, being an adzine, there’re plenty of ads….Jungle Comics in fair to good condition for $1.50? Arrgh! Where’s my time machine?

2. Heard a customer say to her significant other yesterday: “aren’t comic books supposed to be funny?” (Me: “Just the X-Men.” — Okay, I really didn’t say that.)

3. Hey, look, Alan David Doane’s Comic Book Galaxy is back!