publishing

I would’ve read a Grim Ghost/Tarantula team-up comic.

filed under Categories market crash, publishing, question time, retailing 19 Comments

Isaac P. wants to know

“I’m fascinated by the ‘every publisher launches a superhero universe’ era of the 90’s that brought us the Ultraverse, Comics Greatest World, & the like. Is there one of these that you, as a reader, wish had been a success? Alternatively, are there any particular memories of this era that stick out to you from the sales side of things?”

I will tell you the one big memory I have of this particular period in the comics industry history. It’s probably one I’ve mentioned before, but it’s well worth repeating.

I very strongly recall getting in the new copy of the Diamond Previews catalog, which features Dark Horse’s “Comics’ Greatest World” on the cover, ballyhooing the arrival of A New Superhero Universe™!

Courtesy the folks over at the Longbox Heroes podcast, here is a scan of that Previews cover from April 1993:


And as you may be able to see, there’s a split down the center, where you could swing open those parts of the cover and reveal the Comics’ Greatest World gang lurking within:


Which is all well and good, but 30+ years later, I can still remember the thoughts I had upon seeing this cover. I thought about all the other Superhero Universes and such that were coming into existence around this time, and I thought of Dark Horse’s entry into that already-burgeoning playing field, and I wondered “how do they expect comic readers to pay for all these New Universes?”

And that was the real problem. Here’s Valiant, here’s Ultraverse, here’s Comics’ Greatest World, here’s…I don’t know, Triumphant, here’s that other shared superhero universe Malibu was doing aside from Ultraverse, and then there’s DC and Marvel of course, and probably more I’m not thinking of at the moment.

It was just too much…new comic readers weren’t suddenly going to appear from nowhere to read all these comics, especially during a market downturn. The fans that already comprised comic book readership were either going to have to cough up more money to buy additional books, or they’d have to drop other books to make room for some of these new titles. It wasn’t a huge growth move for the industry, it was more a lateral move.

You know how there was a huge push to make shared universe movies after Marvel’s success with that strategy, only for several studios to find out that it wasn’t quite as easy as all that? (And that even Marvel isn’t finding it so easy lately?) What’s going on in the comic book industry about this time is sort of similar to that, except 1) publishers had a slightly better hit rate, and 2) there was a whole lot less money at stake.

The rise and fall of the Superhero Universe in comics was enough of a thing for the Overstreet Price Guide to release a side-guide a few years back, the Overstreet Price Guide to Lost Universes. And as you can see at the link, it doesn’t just concern itself with ’90s efforts, as it includes the ’70s Seaboard/Atlas books…though, were they in a shared universe? I can’t recall any crossovers there. Anyway, I think I actually grabbed a copy of this for myself, so I’m going to try to dig that out and give it a once-through before I continue here.

Yes indeedy, this is going to be a two-parter, at least. I kinda want to spend some time with some of these departed Universes and not rush through ’em at the end of this post, so I hope you forgive the cliffhanger.

Three whole posts on this topic and I forgot to even bring up ALF.

filed under Categories publishing, question time 12 Comments

Okay, one more brief post on Alistair’s question regarding licensed comics and the relationship between “official-ness” and fan acceptance. (Here’s post #1 and post #2.)

First off, Chris V has some several points to make about the various iterations of the X-Files comic, and I can’t really argue with any of it, so I’m just going to direct you there.

I’d written about the X-Files comics before (here and here…and look, there’s Chris V again in that second link!) As I recall, at the old shop we drastically underestimated the popularity of the first X-Files comic from Topps, so we were caught flat-footed by the demand for it…hence the proliferation of reprints and the then-soaring prices, long since dissipated, in the collectors’ market.

Also in that second link, the one with the ubiquitous Chris V, I touch upon the topic currently at hand, whether a licensed comic performs better if it’s explicitly part of official continuity. That post sorta supports Chris V’s comment from my Wednesday entry, in which he suggests that the X-Files comics were better off when they didn’t tie into the shows themselves. Of course, the example I’m using is the actual adaptations of episodes Topps produced, and Chris V also provides all the extenuating circumstances as to why sales where how they are.

Now, onto the stuff I wanted to mention today, which I’ll keep brief: licensed comic books based on animated cartoons/movies. For these, it would seem that fidelity of the tie-in to the original, at least visually, would be paramount. Or, at least close enough given the stylistic flourishes of the artists involved.

For example, I mentioned the other day that early in the production of Simpsons comics, there was one where the artwork was just…askew a little bit, and off-putting. Someone was attempting the house style, got close, but not close enough, and it made the book hard to look at.

Now, eventually we would see some artistic variety in the Simpsons comics, particularly in the Treehouse of Horror anthologies (where just about anything goes) or with Sergio Aragaones’ various contributions. Those, of course, aren’t off-putting…those are artists just drawing the Simpsons characters in their own way, adapting the house style to their own. So…drawn perfectly: Yes. drawn just shy of perfectly: No. Drawn in a completely different art style by a talented artist but still recognizably Simpsons? Yes again.

But otherwise…the art is the (relaively speaking) easy part. Either it looks like what it’s adapting or it’s not. But the stories….

To be fair, I’m sure in most cases, for all licensed comics, someone representing the owner of the license is keeping an eye out, making sure Finn doesn’t behead the Ice King or something. So it’s really up to the reader…”does this comic book based on an animated presentation rightfully represent the original work?”

There are lots of changes from screen to page at times. Like, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote are suddenly very talkative in the comics, and Mr. Runner, who speaks in rhyme, apparently has three…sons? Nephews? Something like that. But it all still feels like the Road Runner somehow.

Tom and Jerry, that cat ‘n’ mouse duo, also find their voices in the comics…and it didn’t seem to bother anyone there since the comic ran for nearly 350 issues over several decades.

Let’s not forget the Disney comics, taking characters primarily known for comedic short films and putting them into lengthy adventure stories. (Maybe I’m forgetting a cartoon where, I don’t know, Goofy climbs the forbidden mountains and finds the Old Gods, but I think you get what I mean.)

And there are plenty of comics over the years where they seem to jibe with the source just fine. Adventure Time, Teen Titans Go, Ren and Stimpy Show more or less, I particularly liked that last one, least until the whole thing was tainted by the creator’s issues.

There’s also that new breed of licensed children comics, the Serious Adventure Take, which…well, okay, for a nominally sci-fi adventure like Thundercats, sure, but Your Mileage May Vary when the same is done to Space Ghost. (Which, I should mention, is very popular at my shop, and getting good notice, and I’m not trying to disparage it…just commenting on the distance between the mild camp of the cartoons and the current interpretation.)

End result is that things are a little less cut ‘n’ dried when it comes to the licensed animation comics. Completely faithful versions and new updated versions (Mark Russell’s Flintstones, anyone?) rise and fall on their own merits, regardless of fidelity to the property.

This was a quick overview, for which I apologize…got a late start Thursday evening. However, you’re welcome to contribute in the comments sections, as always, and maybe I can do a follow-up post in the near future. Thanks for reading, pals, and thanks to Alistair for the great questions!

“Long in the tooth,” get it.

filed under Categories publishing, question time, star trek, star wars 5 Comments

Alistair asks a question that may be longer than my potential answer…let’s see how I do!

“In your experience as a retailer, do you think the success of licensed comics which aren’t aimed at very young kids tends to depend on how closely they connect to their source material? For example, did the Dark Horse Buffy comics become more popular when they started doing an official continuation from the show with contributions by Whedon and the other television writers, versus the ones that came out while the show was ongoing which Whedon had kept at arms length?”

Some sort of close kinship with the source material is usually preferred when it comes to licensed properties. You didn’t mention the art specifically, Alistair, but one of the things that would turn people off from adaptations of movies or television shows is artwork where the drawn characters don’t look at least within reasonable spitting distance of the actors. On the other hand, a comic that looked like it was all traced from photo reference would be a turn-off as well, a weird sort of “uncanny valley” for comics.

That sounds like a…fine line to walk, but in practice there’s more room to breathe for artists on these adaptations, so long as they’re, as I said, reasonably accurate, and consistent, it’s all good. I was reading one particular series based on a sci-fi property, and had to drop it because eventually I couldn’t recognize many of the characters. Not “the comic’s plot changed everybody around,” but “these characters in the comics are supposed to be those characters from the TV show/movies, but unless they’re referred to by name in the dialogue, they’re unrecognizable.”

I get that it’s probably a difficult job to do, making these caricatures of real people “act” on a page while keeping them identifiable as those performers. But that has to be the minimum level of what is acceptable for comics like this.

Okay, that was a lengthy aside to Alistair’s question. What’s being asked here is “does a comic get a boost from being promoted as an “official” continuation of the source material?” And the answer is…not always, but it doesn’t hurt.

In the case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Buffy comics had been going on a bit, and were getting to be a little long in the tooth. Sales had been relatively strong at first, but the novelty had worn off as time went on. The “Season 8” series was in effect a relaunch of the comics property, with the added value of show creator’s Joss Whedon’s involvement. Heavily promoted as the actual, real continuation of the TV series, backed up with Whedon’s presence, the Buffy comics got a real shot in the arm that lasted for years ’til the franchise sort of petered out again.

So, in a way, in this case at least, being the “official continuation of the show” did attract a lot of attention. The promotion, the creator’s involvement, the timing of reinvigorating the license right when it needed it…all came together to make a successful relaunch.

Other “Season [n]” comics were released in the wake of Buffy Season 8’s success, including Smallville Season 11 and X-Files Season 10 (and evenually, 11). Didn’t make quite the big splashes the Buffy seasons did, but they had their fans.

“I wonder if that’s why one hears so much more about, say, Star Wars comics versus Star Trek comics: it’s always been the case that the former are an ‘official’ part of Star Wars, part of the ‘official’ what-happened-next stories (along with all the games, novels etc.) whereas with Star Trek comics it’s a lot more nebulous.”

Yeah, early on as the Star Wars Expanded Universe was in its infancy, someone decided “all these tie-ins are going to be consistent with each other,” and for the most part, they were. That first novel of this new era, Heir to the Empire, contained references to events in Dark Horse’s first mini Star Wars: Dark Empire, and given the book probably had an audience many times the size of the comic, there are probably fans who still don’t know what the deal was with all that. (Unless they looked it all up on Wookiepedia or whatever.)

And Star Trek, by contrast, was just kinda all over the place, not adhering to any particular thread of continuity. Nobody in a Star Trek: Discovery comic book is referencing events from, I don’t know, the 1982 Adobe of Life Trek novel by G. Harry Stine writing as “Lee Correy.” (One exception: Lower Decks would absolutely refer to a 40-year-old Trek book.) There were tie-ins to movies and TV that were “official” parts of those stories, like Star Trek: Countdown (a prequel to the 2009 film), and a Picard comic that tied into the series, which received a little bit of attention, anyway.

I don’t know how much being part of “official” continuity is helping the Star Wars comics. The initial burst of sales on those coincided with Marvel’s reacquiring of the license and their sales push for the new launch. That they’re consistent with other Star Wars media may be a plus, but at this point that level of consistency may be expected from the franchise, or may simply be taken for granted and not singled out at all as part of the appeal of the comics.

But here’s the thing: being part of “official continuity” ultimately doesn’t make any difference. I believe it was the Star Wars folks who came up with the levels of “canon” to the material they were releasing. The movies were the immutable, absolute story of the Star Wars universe. The books and comics and such, while kept consistent with the films, the films were not beholden to anything in them (despite occasionally borrowing names and characters). And then there’s the stuff like the Holiday Special which goes to the Star Wars canon-level where only the amazing stuff happens.

Now, I don’t know if those rankings are still in play, but I think it’s still safe to assume that the movies (and presumably, the live-action TV shows) are under no obligation to maintain continuity with the books and comics, but the books and comics are absolutely required to be in continuity with the movies and TV shows. (And there’s stuff like the Clone Wars cartoon, which I presume is mostly canon, but I’ve already got a headache talking about all this.)

In short, “official” just means “we don’t contradict anything from what we’re adapting,” even those that official status could be bounced at any time. It helps a little as a sales point, and it helped a lot in that initial Buffy Season 8 thing (partially because they were one of the first out of the gate with that pitch), but it doesn’t really seem as necessary now.

And none of what I discussed really gets into comics for, like, Predator or Alien and the like, as those tend to run more episodic and self-contained. (Those the early Dark Horse Aliens comics had an ongoing continuity in some of their early releases…thrown off by events when the Alien 3 movie came out.)

“If that’s not really a straightforward question to answer, I will instead ask in the alternative: do you have any favourite licensed comics?”

I’m going to go ahead and answer this, too, since you asked so nicely. I still have a soft spot for the first three or four years’ worth of the original Marvel Star Wars that began in the 1970s. Some wild somewhat off-model but still amazing Carmine Infantino art in some of those…that’s a good example of actor likenesses not being spot-on but everyone still being instantly recognizable.

I also love the treasury-sized Close Encounters of the Third Kind adaptation from Marvel, drawn by Walt Simonson. I think this was a case where they weren’t allowed to use the actors’ likenesses, but you don’t even notice.

Also drawn by Simonson is the adaptation of the original Alien film. There are few perfect things in this fallen world, but this is one of them (well, aside from the binding).

And how can any discussion of licensed books be complete without noting the greatest of all time:

Sheer madness from Steve Bissette and Rick Veitch. I love this comic. Get your hands on one if you can, because it’s pure joy.

SPOILERS for…well, a few comics, actually.

filed under Categories publishing 21 Comments

So the other day I was thinking about endings in comics, where a character/franchise was allowed to come to its natural conclusion. Not just “well, this series of Avengers has reached its conclusion/dropped enough in sales, time to end it and start a new series with the same name.” But, like, creator-owned characters, ones where there is a person in charge who can say “well, that’s enough of that” and wrap everything up, without anyone to gainsay them.

Probably one of the most famous examples of this is Cerebus. Dave Sim created his Conan parody in the 1970s, plugged along at it, and eventually announced this series was going to run 300 issues and would end with the main character’s death.

And good golly, Dave done dood it. I mean, things were either a little rushed or kinda padded at the end there, depending on where you dropped in during the last, say, 50 or 75 issues of the run, but Dave didn’t lie to us. The gray little bastard croaked in #300, and that was that. Well, except for all the Cerebus in Hell webcomics published afterwards, but man, that’s a whole ‘nother post.

So that’s kind of what I mean by a comic “ending.” A definitive ending is provided for the character and his story…but if the creator is, like, still alive and active, they can still do, like, flashback issues or silliness like the Cerebus in Hell books, and not worry that their life’s work will be incomplete if they’re in a parachuting accident or something.

And look…I’m specifically talking about your standard American monthly-or-whatever comics here. I know there are plenty of graphic novels and manga and whatnot that are designed with specific endings in mind. What I’m focusing on here are the serialized titles that resemble the “would continue forever if they could” brand of books from Marvel and DC, but have the potential to conclude if their creators so desire.

Like Hellboy. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting this when it happened, but all the supernatural conflict and hoohar going on in the ongoing Hellboy/B.P.R.D. storylines came to a head and, well, the world came to an end. That, as they say, was that. This was the end of the forward progression of Hellboy’s story, so, if creator Mike Mignola wanted to, he could just say “yup, Hellboy’s done, all the Ts have been crossed and all the Is dotted, his adventures are over.”

But of course, they’re not over. Even with his story come to its final conclusion, Hellboy is still getting new comics made that take place over the long prior history of the character. And we’re getting more minis that take place in Hellboy’s world, like Lady Baltimore. On top of all that, we’re getting post-ending stories, mostly in the form of the Frankenstein series exploring the new and recovering Earth.

Mignola reached his character’s ending, and now no longer has to worry about finishing that story while he’s working on new ones in the same franchise.

Which puts me in mind of Concrete, where creator Paul Chadiwck had noted a way to end the series. I talk about it here, but in short Chadwick’s idea is that the final story would begin when the other person who received a Concrete body showed up on the first Concrete’s doorstep. As I noted in that older post, given that the origin was revised to show that other Concrete’s apparent death, it seems like this story is out of the question.

Or it may not be, of course…”it was just a scratch!” Other Concrete says by way of explanation. Or maybe Other Concrete is dead and it’s the aliens returning that brings about the end of the character. All a moot point anyway, given it’s been nearly 20 years since the last mini-series and like 13 years since that one-shot collection of shorts from the revived Dark Horse Presents. I don’t know that we’re ever getting another mini…or if we do, it’s probably not going to be The End.

And then there’s Dreadstar, where, if I’m recalling correctly, Dreadstar’s compatriots from the end of “Metamorphosis Odyssey” would return for whatever ending the comics would take. Given that we’re getting new Dreadstars in the form of group-funded graphic novels every few years, I feel like this is an ending that’s probably not coming.

This all has me wondering…have other creators said that they’ve got potential endings in mind for their characters? Does Erik Larsen have a conclusion for Savage Dragon? Did Todd McFarlane extend the possibility that Spawn could have a final battle in its future? I’m curious who has ideas to wrap up their comics, even if it’s unlikely that it’ll ever happen.

Back when comics were good.

filed under Categories publishing 8 Comments

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could,
they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

I haven’t seen a copy of this comic book in a while now. I’m not even sure what the premise of the crossover is…I presume it’s a “what if the Newcomers’ ships showed up to Earth during Planet of the Apes time,” and that’s good enough an explanation.

Just presenting it here as a reminder that, while we can sometimes joke about wild crossovers between two (or more) otherwise conceptually (if not corporately) unrelated properties, this is one that actually happened. And let it give you the hope we can all stand to use right now that such a thing could happen again.

“Weaknesses: Nicotine, Self-Hatred.”

filed under Categories publishing, swamp thing 16 Comments

So the response to the Final ’90s Countdown survey is going fairly well, people are mostly avoiding the excess conversation there and leaving their choices. I have noticed that quite a few titles are being suggested that I (gulp) don’t really have anything to say about, so I’m gonna have to muster all my blogging powers to discuss them. I’ll say more about this when I actually start going over everything.

Anyhoo, get in there and cast your vote (after reading the instructions of course)!

• • •

Last week we got ourselves a new facsimile edition of a Swamp Thing comic book, this time being Swamp Thing #37 from 1985, the (supposed) first appearance of everyone’s favorite magical Englishman, John Constantine.

And since we are living in the Modern Age of Comical Books, there are variants a’plenty. Did your pal Mike get one of each? Oh yes he did.

There’s the standard issue regular cover:


The “Mondo” variant, with the image redrawn:


…and an ad on the back where you can buy a poster of same:


Then of course there’s the “action figure” variant:


…the back cover of which is detailed with figures I wish they’d actually make in this supposed Super Powers line:


No cigarettes in sight, but he does have his Flame Hex:


Cover D is the foil covered version, which doesn’t scan very well, but I assure you it’s plenty shiny:


And rounding out this batch of funnybooks is the blank cover, where you can get your favorite artist to draw a picture of Swampy on a motorcycle, Easy Rider style:


Now I mentioned above that this was the “supposed” first appearance of Constantine. That would be because there are some who think…well, here, I wrote about this back in 2004, but rather than send you to that heavily link-rotted entry, I’ll just reprint the pertinent info, sans dead links:

“And then there’s pal Mark, he of Dorothy of Oz fame, who makes the (I believe) very correct claim that in issue 25 of Saga of The Swamp Thing, it’s a caricature of Sting, not John Constantine, who makes an appearance. However, due to the physical similarities, some people have claimed that issue 25 marks a ‘cameo’ appearance of Constantine, predating his actual first appearance by over a year. In fact, look at this exchange in the letters column of Swamp Thing #54 (Nov 1986):

“‘Close scrutiny has brought forth one fascinating observation I’d like to share with you concerning Mr. Constantine. Everyone knows he made his debut in ST #37. But has anyone taken a close look at issue #25? … In panel 2 [of page 21] a sobbing Abigail Cable is standing next to – yeah, that’s right – John Constantine! I always wondered how Constantine could have known so much about Abby and Swampy. The bloke must’ve been following them around for months, maybe years.’

“And the official editorial reply, from Karen Berger her own self:

“‘Aren’t you the observant one…. Great spotting on Constantine’s first appearance.’

“I’m sure this is just Karen keeping a fan happy, but I’m sure you see where the confusion comes in.

“Anyway, the very reason Constantine was created was because the Swamp Thing artists at the time (Steve Bissette and John Totleben) wanted to have Sting as a character in the series….”

Okay, back to 2025 Mike now, the one with the tricky back and the eye problems. Here’s the specific panel from #25 we’re all talkin’ about here:


Mmmmm…yeah, unless that was John during his time performing in the punk band Mucous Membrane, I don’t think the character we know and love would be caught dead dressed like that. Or maybe he would, that John fella is hard to pin down.

Anyway, this “is it or isn’t it?” has been a bone of contention for years, where even the Hot Comics Apps (as of three years ago) couldn’t keep their story straight. (Warning: I do link back to that 2004 post there…honestly, don’t click on the links if you go read it.)

Now what Swamp Thing comic should get a facsimile next? Frankly, I’m pushing for them to publish a proper, finished and colored comic book version of the 1970s unpublished Swamp Thing #25. Or, for an actual published comic, Brave and the Bold #176 from 1981, the Batman/Swampy team-up by the writer of the then-forthcoming Saga of the Swamp Thing series, and drawn by Jim Aparo. That’s a good’un.

Which one would you pick?

Still salty about the Jason Todd thing.

filed under Categories batman, dc comics, publishing, retailing 17 Comments

Okay, I ultimately decided not to continue the search for the most ’90s comic for the moment, as picking up from where I left off there was…well, weird. But I do have more 1990s comics content in the works, so check back next week for that.

But, speaking of the 1990s…here’s DC Comics with a big ol’ announcement regarding the forthcoming variant-laden first issue of Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee’s “Hush 2” storyline:


So here’s what Batman #158 entails.

Cover A – the main cover.

Covers B, C, D, E, F, G – cardstock cover artist variants

Cover H – the blank sketch cover

Cover I – foil cover by Jim Lee and Scott Williams

Cover J – a connecting fold-out cover by Jim Lee

Cover K – wraparound foil cover by Sean Gordon Murphy

Cover L – the 1 in 25 ratio variant

Cover M – the 1 in 50 ratio variant

Cover N – the 1 in 100 ratio variant

Cover O – the 1 in 250 Jim Lee pencils “virgin” cover

Cover P – the 1 in 608 (get it?) black and white variant signed by Jim Lee

Cover Q – the 1 in 608 black and white variant signed by Jeph Loeb

Cover R – the 1 in 1000 signed by Lee and Loeb

Then there are the Giant Size (probably Treasury Size) editions, with a regular cover edition and a foil one, as well as the Glow-in-the-Dark foil “Launch Party” variant. And this doesn’t count stuff like a special bundle of ashcans for sale/giveaway, or whatever retailer-specific variants there may be for this comic.

Obviously that 400,000+ copies are divided up amongst all these variants, and I wonder what the print run per comic would be…probably 125,000 or so for the main cover, and the balance spread out over the rest of the covers.

Now, it seems unlikely that Batman is suddenly going to quintuple in sales for this comic, and dumping 400,000+ into the current state of the direct market does seem like quite a lot. Retailer orders does not always equal sales (no matter how much the Rob may brag about the order numbers on X-Force #1 back in the 1990s, a solid chunk of those went directly into stores’ back rooms), but I suspect this particuilar Batman comic will do reasonably well. It really depends on how many different covers any one customer may end up buying.

In its favor, there have been a couple of decades’ worth of sales of the original “Hush” story in trade paperback building up an audience for it. (Never read it myself, beyond flipping through an issue or two, but people seem to really like it.) Can DC get people who read this as a trade initially to come back to pick up a comic book series for six consecutive months, or will that specific audience just wait for the eventual hardcover/paperback release?

Will customers already buying single issues in the direct market suddenly flock to “Hush 2” pushing the already (relatively-speaking for today’s market) high numbers on Batman even higher? Maybe for a while, and orders may be up there for the first couple of issues, but I imagine we’ll see a huge correction in orders by part 3.

Another point in its favor is the artist, Jim Lee. He’s been a popular artist for decades, but the extra push of “THE PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER OF DC COMICS IS DOING A RARE ART JOB” will probably grab eyes. “Hush” has always been a Jim Lee art showcase, the story being relatively superfluous beyond “Batman fights all his villains,” and the prospect of new Lee art is a big sales pitch. Whether it’s 400,000+ copies big, we’ll find out soon enough.

That’s the first appearance of Mogo, friends, a Hot Key Investable Issue!

filed under Categories batman, dc comics, indies, publishing, supergirl, superman 15 Comments


So I done dood it…I got myself a copy of the nigh-legendary Time Beavers graphic novel by Tim Truman, published by First Comics in 1985. Now I haven’t had the time to read it yet, but read it I shall, oh yes. I’m just a tiny bit miffed with myself in that copies of this were just all over the place at my previous place of employment. I mean, I could have bought one of these from there on the day of release, but alas, I thumbed my nose at Time Beavers and headed straight to the rack to grab Green Lantern #188 with its Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons back-up instead. Thus, I have to resort to the eBays and other nefarious means instead.

Anyhoo, there were plenty of comics I had easy access to back then, but didn’t think about acquiring until, oh, say, ten-something years after I stopped working there and three years after that shop closed. Ah, well, What Can You Do™? I’ve got my Time Beavers now, so my decades-old oversight has been corrected. I’ll get it read soon and let you Dingbats of ProgRuin Street know what I think.

• • •

Some interesting news from DC Comics over at the 2025 Comicspro event, such as:

  • Krypto: The Last Dog of Krypton by Ryan North and artist Mike Norton, which sounds amazing. No thought balloons here, North promises, but if you’ve ever seen Norton’s artwork, I suspect there’ll be expression enough from the Dog of Steel.

  • Supergirl written and drawn by Sophie Campbell…good, there should always be a solid and accessible Supergirl title on the stands.

  • Action Comics, which isn’t a new ongoing, obviously, but the new regular team of Mark Waid and Skylar Patridge will be effectively making it into a new Superboy series with a young Clark Kent. After years and years of DC either not having “Superboy” in Clark’s history after the Byrne reboot, and then kinda sorta waffling about it over the last decade of in-flux continuity, it’ll be interesting to see a modern take on the “Adventures of Superman When He Was a Boy.”

  • Batman by Matt Fraction and Jorge Jiménez – YAY! Restarting the main Batman series with a new #1 – BOO! I saw a news site state that “this is only the fourth time the Batman series has been renumbered,” and c’mon, that’s like five times too many. Batman will sell just fine without renumbering. Yes, we’ll get a boost in sales for the first few issues, which is the reason they do this, but then it’ll be back to its normal sales level soon enough. …I mean, the comic sounds good, I’ll definitely be reading it, I’ll just sigh heavily every time I look at the issue number.

I didn’t see any new Swamp Thing comic news, so all this Super/Bat stuff will have to do.

Nice while it lasted.

filed under Categories dc comics, publishing 16 Comments

So I came across this flyer sent out to retailers in 1995: DC Comics describing the new paper stocks and formats for their books:


(You can click that to make it larger, if you so desire.)

I remember a time when I was really into the whole “paper stock”/price levels thing, particularly back when I was fan prior to ascending into Comics Retail Heaven. “Sure, the standard DC Comics are now 75 cents, but look at this nice white Mando paper on these Atari Forces!” And of course there was Baxter paper for DC’s $1.50 (or occasionally more) books, but that extra expense was well worth it for the thicker paper and better, clearer printing and bright coloring (which took ’em a bit to figure out so that it wasn’t too bright.) (And let us not speak about Flexographic printing.)

Now by the time we got to the mid-1990s, I wasn’t paying that much attention to paper stock names and such, aside from missing the good ol’ days of just plain ol’ Baxter and Mando paper. A couple of these paper/format types I either forgot or just didn’t know in the first place. But “Miraweb” is a name I already knew:


…though I associated that with Frank Miller’s Ronin from a decade earlier, but I might be remembering that incorrectly. But I do recall these comics, particularly the Superman books, suddenly getting printed on really shiny paper (and priced at $1.95). It was an attractive package, with clear and colorful printing and felt like it was worth the price.

Okay, I didn’t remember the name “Fracote” gettin’ thrown around:


…but I honestly can’t recall any significant difference to the texture or printing of these titles. Granted, I wasn’t reading a lot of these specific books at he time (I did have those Babylon 5 books), but I don’t recall ever thinking “wow, look at this paper stock!” or anything.

“Rebax” feels new to me too:


…and I don’t believe I thought anything about the paper stock here either. I mean, aside it was nice and presented the art well, but at some time between being a fan in the mid-1980s and working behind the counter in the mid-1990s my concern with what these things were being printed on dissipated beyond “is this readable and colored well?”

Right now, I couldn’t tell you the paper stock of any comic book being currently published, unless something is just obviously printed on newsprint. I do wonder occasionally, like that recent G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero omnibus is massively thick but incredibly light. That paper has no weight to it, and yet seems sturdy and presents the artwork quite well.

What I notice more nowadays is the paper being used for covers. The real nadir of this was Gladstone using “self-covered” comics, where the cover was the exact same stock as the story pages inside. Like torn covers? This is for you!

And a number of comics today, particularly from the Big Two, have cover stock that is…not the most durable. I mean, sure, DC will ding you an extra buck for the cardstock variants, but for most comic covers the quality can vary. Sometimes the paper is slick, sometimes it’s barely slicker, sometimes it feels like it should be interior page stock (though still a little thicker, but not much more so, than the pages inside the specific comic)…it’s just all over the map.

This is an interesting artifact of the time, one you don’t see today, of retailers ballyhooing their printing quality. Comics look quite nice now, certainly much improved over what our caveman ancestors had to tolerate. But I kind of like not knowing stuff like the specific manufacturer name of the paper used. Just make it legible and somewhat durable, that’s all I ask.

And by the way;


…no, comic retailers are never satisfied. It’s just our nature.

Or maybe those were parodies of Wolveroach from Cerebus.

filed under Categories dc comics, indies, publishing, retailing 5 Comments

So, alas, I’ve been going through the collection of a late customer of mine…a longtime customer, in fact, going back to the early days of my toil at the previous place of employment. Probably about 30 years or so…when I opened up my shop, he followed me over, which I always appreciated.

He passed away last year, and his brother brought me most of his collection then, but this week brought me several more boxes. I took a first pass through them and pulled out some items of interest…and he was a huge Lobo fan, so he had lots of Lobo ‘n’ related comics, including one I haven’t seen in decades. I thought I’d present a few of them here today.

From the “Lobo-related” category, here are a couple of parodies, starting with Spoof Comics Presents #9, featuring “Hobo: Patricide.”


The title is a parody of the 1992 DC Comics mini Lobo: Infanticide, a title I still can’t believe actually made it to the stands. Anyway, like many parody comics of the period, part of the joke was gender-flipping the characters, so we get a Lady Lobo here. This Is A Fetish for Someone™, as a very wise and stunningly handsome person once said.

Speaking of which, there was a later one-shot by the same company titled Wolverbroad Vs. Hobo…Wolverbroad being a parody of, oh, I don’t know, the old Legion of Super-Heroes character Timber Wolf I think.

In the non-gender-flipped category of parody was this comic, somewhat surprisingly from Eclipse Comics in 1992. It’s Loco Vs. Pulverine #1:


…Pulverine, of course, being a parody of, oh, I don’t know, Puck from Alpha Flight I think. This comic had an amusing wraparound cover, inspired by the similar cameo-filled cover on the famous Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali treasury.

Here’s the back cover:


…where you can see such luminaries as Hagar the Horrible:


…and here is celebrity power couple Krazy and Ignatz from the classic Krazy Kat strip.


Plus, here’s a special note from creator Gary Yap:


Last but not least is the comic I was shocked to see in this collection…well, okay, not shocked that in was in this collection, given the preponderance of Lobo stuff, just shocked that I’ve finally seen it again after all this time. It’s the infamous The Wisdom of Lobo one-shot from 1992:


I last wrote about this on my site in 2011 in these two posts, in which I noted I hadn’t seen it in forever even back then.

To recap, this came in a slipcased set, with the slipcase featuring an image of Lobo’s face. The books inside were Lobo’s Greatest Hits (a compilation of early Lobo appearances from Omega MenLobo mini-series, and this Wisdom of Lobo thing. We sold a lot of these sets, and demand for Lobo was high enough that we even broke up some of these sets and sold the components individually.

I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that the Grand Comics Database included a note on the Wisdom book that retailers were annoyed by the gimmick (in that the 64 pages inside were blank, you see), but that note seems to be gone now. But as I said then, it didn’t really annoy us, and when pricing out the components of the slipcased set vis-à-vis its retail price, the Wisdom book was essentially free.

I didn’t remember then what we sold the Wisdom comic for on its own, but the copy from this collection still had the old shop’s price tag. For a mere $1.50, you could have had this Lobo-branded sketch book for your very own.

To continue repeating myself from those older posts, I’m surprised that I haven’t seen more of these over the decades. I know we sold a ton of those slipcased sets, I figured eventually some would make their way back to me. It took 32 years, and the unfortunate passing one of my favorite customers, but here it is, filling in that little gap in my remembrances of comics retail past.

Thanks, Dale, for the opportunity to see these weird Lobo things again. I’ll find good homes for them.