question time

What if this was someone’s first comics blog post they’d ever read?

filed under Categories question time 13 Comments

Back to more of your questions!

Davey-Boy has this Goliath of an inquiry

“John Wagner, Alan grant, pat mills, any thoughts on the 2000ad trinity when they dipped their toes in marvel and DC in the 80s/90s?”

Nothing really specific for either Wagner or Grant, aside from admiring their professional and imaginative work. Grant, of course, we all know from his Batman comics and his association with Keith Giffen on Lobo. And the main thing I associate Wagner with was this almost-forgotten series (cowritten with Grant):


Great Mike McMahon art on this series, too!

Now, Pat Mills…good ol’ amazing Pat Mills. The thing I most remember about him…well, when they were more active in the genre, people would say Alan Moore and Grant Morrision “hated” superheroes. And this particular aspersion was cast upon other creators, too, but I feel like Moore and Morrision got it the hardest.

Friends, Uncle Al and Big Grant loved superhero comics. At least at the time…I know Alan’s had some different opinions of late. But at the time, it was funny to me that folks were shouting about how much this guy or that guy hated superheroes, when all actual evidence showed that they liked ’em just fine, and this whole time here was Pat Mills doing Marshal Law with Kevin O’Neill:


You want a comics guy who hates superheroes? Here you go. (And if you haven’t read this, oh man, at least read the initial six-issue mini.)

Mills also wrote Punisher 2099, which is one long pisstake on tough guy super comics, and it’s high-larious.


Anyway, these three guys were great writers and we were lucky to have them in our favorite ridiculous medium.

• • •

Daniel T asks a question that took me a minute to figure out how to quote here

“Stan Lee supposedly said something like ‘Every comic is/could be someone’s first comic.’

“How true do you think this ever was and is today?”

I feel like Jim Shooter was a huge proponent of this line of thinking during his tenure at Marvel. And the basic premise was “make sure you identify each character,” and “show ’em using their powers” and “catch ’em up on what’s gone before” and so on. Which, you know, fair enough.

Daniel kind of touches on this in the rest of his question (which you can read at that link) but there was a time when comics had huge print runs and tons of people read them and there was probably a much higher incidence of any comic being someone’s first.

With smaller print runs of today, and a more restricted distribution (and I should clarify, I’m talking about your standard issue periodical comic book), the likelihood of a non-zero percentage of published comics not being someone’s first has increased.

And as such, I think comic book storytelling has arced away from the “every comic is someone’s first” philosophy. If you’re coming in at part four of the six-part-story-written-for-the-eventual-trade, the amount of exposition you’ll get is fairly minimal, if at all. (Especially since that exposition will look out of place once the story hits its intended collected format.) It’s not like the old days, when Jim Starlin would burn off the first three or four pages of each issue of Dreadstar telling the reader what’s happened in [range from “last issue” to “since the beginning of time”].

The goal is for each individual issue of a serialized story to be a satisfying, intriguing, and/or interesting read, so that even if you’re not sure what exactly is going on, you’d still be drawn in to the action and want to continue reading (and hunting through back issues for previous parts). There are plenty of times where I’ve read superhero comics as a kid that explicitly didn’t provide any onboarding for new readers, but liked what I read enough to, at minimum, enjoy that singular experience, or sometimes even keep coming back for follow-up issues.

Too long/didn’t read answer: “every comic is someone’s first” was a popular storytelling strategy, not always followed in the past and less so now.

• • •

Allan Hoffman wonders

“If you could give advice to your past self when you were planning your store what would it be?”

Spend a little more time organizing acquired collections, rather than just dumping boxes in the back room and thinking “I’ll deal with it later.” Ugh. I mean, I do have a plan now to deal with a lot of that stuff that isn’t “come to my big bonfire, everyone!” so I’ll probably get rid of a lot of that stuff. But, shoudn’t have done that to myself in the first place.

• • •

Andrew delves deep with

“Have you found that the natural impulses of a collector versus those of a successful purveyor of comics have led to an irreversible psychotic break? A comic shop Jekyll and Hyde situation, if you like?”

It’s actually not been too bad, as I’ve restricted myself to just the few new comics I want to continue reading, and while ooh-ing and ah-ing over some of the back issues I’ve taken in, I’ve kept it at that and sold them. Yes, the temptation to keep that Amazing Fantasy #15 was strong, but the giant chunk of money I received for it suited the business better than having another comic just sitting in a box at home.

The biggest temptation was having an original non-counterfeit copy of Cerebus #1 in the shop, which, as some of you may remember, is a series I’m trying to fill the early issues on after just having them in the Swords of Cerebus reprint volumes. However, I let it go, figuring the signed reprint edition I got through Kickstarter was good enough.

Back issues I do keep for myself if they come through the shop include Nancy, Popeye, the few 1970s Seaboard/Atlas books I still need (mostly a couple issues of Vicki), and any fanzines. In general, not really anything my own clientele is clamoring for.

The big problem for me, where Collector Mike is a pain to Retailer Mike, is the ease of keeping some graphic novel collections for myself, since it takes me forever to getting around to reading them. (Like, for example, the year it took me to finally peruse that new Grendel: Devil by the Deed edition.) It’s just too easy to type in that order number for a book that strikes my fancy, despite the fact I just don’t have the time to read them…but I also know if I don’t get it now, the likelihood of it being available later is slim to none, so AAAAUGH there’s that psychotic break you were wondering about, Andrew.

• • •

Michael Grabowski gets a hold of me with this

“‘Yoo-sa-gi’ or ‘oo-sa-gi’? I had heard of Usagi Yojimbo for ever but only started reading it five years ago and completed (and started over) just this summer. If this was in your 80’s or 90’s extensive survey/poll, I’ll go back and look but if not, can you offer some commentary on it as both a series that you perhaps have enjoyed or as a comics property that you have seen customers enjoy? And if you already dealt with most of that elsewhere around here, can you just answer the first question, please?”

Usagi Yojimbo was indeed in the Final ’80s Countdown reader pool, and I talked about it in the middle of last year. I will say that Usagi comics were initially a slow starter at my shop when I first opened, but have been picking up in recent years. Good!

As to the pronunciation…well, let’s go to the source, Stan Sakai his own self, and hear how he says the name in this brief interview:


Um…at about the 37 second mark is sounds like “yoo” and at the 58 second mark is sounds a little like “oo” so, my answer to your opening query is an unqualified “yes.”

But seriously, if anyone out there has better ears out there that haven’t been reduced in function by too much rocking and rolling, please give a listen and tell me what you think.

• • •

Thanks for reading, pals, and we’ll answer more questions, and maybe even do some other stuff, in the near future!

Marvel will just have to publish their own facsimile of Power Pachyderms.

filed under Categories indies, question time 9 Comments

Smichal smasks

“You get to curate a big chonky omnibus from the post-TMNT black-and-white indy boom. Roughly 1,000 pages. What’s going in it? (Choices do not have to be animal-related.)”

Oh Smichal, Smichal, Smichal…you say the choices don’t have to be animal-related, but friend, there’s only one choice for such an omnibus. And that choice is ALL THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES RIP-OFFS:


Most of these are pretty short runs, like the three issue run of the above. That would leave more room for the knock-offs that had slightly longer lifespans, like the Hamsters books:


I feel like some kind of more permanent record is needed to remember a lot of these books, especially since the Overstreet Price Guide has declined to list several series from the 1980s black and white boom.

Some decisions will have to be made regarding comics like Aristocratic Extraterrestrial Time-Traveling Thieves:


…which apes the title style but doesn’t quite feel like the a Turtles rip-off (and in fact changes its name to X-Thieves down the line).

Or does Miami Mice make the cut?

Or even the dreaded…


Some editorial decisions would have to be made, clearly. Anyway, you can see a selection of TMNT-inspired books here.

I feel like this would be a solid collection, particularly if it included supplemental text pieces providing some historical context and background information. We’re getting farther and farther away from this period of time and it shouldn’t just be up to blogs to remember the madness of the times.

So to sum up…either a big book of Turtles knock-offs, or a complete collection of every GRIPS title.

I presume it’ll be harder to do after I die.

filed under Categories question time 7 Comments

Running a little behind (and have an early morning doctor’s appointment tomorrow) so I’m going to keep it short today and take on a couple of your questions.

Chris wants to know

“How much do you need to keep track of storylines for ordering purposes? Is it mostly character appearances and event tie-ins, or does it go deeper than that?”

I need to have at least some awareness, of course, even if I don’t read every single comic book and am not completely familiar with every single character. However, of late it doesn’t seem to make as much difference as it used to, as comic sales tend to be relatively consistent per title once things get going past the initial first issue bump (if that happens at all).

Like, for example, Marvel’s recent “Blood Hunt” event didn’t seem to do anything for tie-in issues of ongoing series. Fantastic Four didn’t see a bump upwards in people picking up its “Blood Hunt” story. (Shame, because it was a pretty good one!)

Now, this may just be me. I’m a small store, selling not huge amounts of some of these books in the first place so any sales alterations caused by storylines or guest-appearances (gosh, remember when Wolverine popping into a book would goose a comic’s numbers?) may be negligible or within standard fluctuations. For shop selling hundreds of copies of some of these books each month, an event-based fluctuation may be more significantly noticeable.

To be frank, I have to pay more attention to ordering the right numbers of the variant covers versus what’s actually going on inside the book, which is certainly a statement about something.

• • •

Patrick Gaffney wonders

“Have your started your Cerebus read through yet? I have almost made it thought the first collection and it truly amazes me how the art progresses over that first year or two.”

I think I’ve said at least three times on this site, since Cerebus ended in 2004, that I was going to reread the entire series. And each time I’ve not got around to it. In more recent years, the problem is that the fine linework/small lettering/newsprint printing combination did not play well with my vision issues. But now, I own digital copies of the entire run, acquired on the cheap from a Humble Bundle offer, so I really don’t have any excuse. I promise you, someday, before I die, I will reread all of Cerebus. Well, maybe not all the text bits.

But yes, Dave Sim’s art improved by leaps and bounds in those early issues in an alarmingly short period of time. Without looking to double-check, I’m going to say…the first couple of issues are relatively crude, things get better pretty quickly after that, and then by the time you’re at the end of the first volume the dude’s like a master. It’s astounding.

• • •

Thom H. hits me with

“I’m always curious why people have the jobs they have, so: what drew you to comics, both as a hobby and as a profession?”

Simply said, I was a reader of pretty much anything I could get my hands on from a very young age, coming from a household filled with books and parents who used to read (and still do read!) constantly. Even my sister, who is mentally disabled, has a collection of books and magazines that she regularly flips through, so it’s just in the family DNA I suppose.

What specifically drew me to comics, I don’t know, other than they were colorful and interesting-looking and relatively inexpensive and easy to talk my parents into buying one or two for me. (My parents were also comic book readers as young’uns, so that probably didn’t take much convincing.) So, comics were part of my reading mix from early on.

As to what made me a comic book collector, versus a sporadic dabbler, was Star Wars. I know I’ve talked about this here before, but in short, when I saw the Star Wars comic had stories that took place after that initial movie, well, there we go, I was hooked. And that eventually spread to reading more and more comics, and now, today, here I am with three full short boxes of nothing but Hellboy-related comics.

How I got into comics retail…well, I’d been shopping at my Local Comic Shop for about five years, and one day in 1988 employee Buzz mentioned to me “oh, I’m going to be leaving.” I said, half-facetiously, “can I have your job, ha ha” and then next thing I knew, I was hired.

Now, as to what kept me in the comics biz…well, nothing else really appealed to me. I had tried a small handful of other jobs, but comics retail satisfied me in a way that other employment didn’t. And I don’t just mean “first pick of the new comics,” but I enjoyed the sorting and the pricing and talking to customers about them and breaking down new shipments (despite my complaining about distributors you might see me doing on social media) and it all just scratches an itch. I like looking at collections of old comics that are brought to me, and seeing things I haven’t come across in a while.

I just plain like handling comics. Which is a good thing, since I’ve been doing it for 36 years now!

• • •

Egads, that was longer than I intended. Okay, off to bed…thanks for reading, pals, and I’ll get to more of your questions shortly!

Vote my shop for President.

filed under Categories pal plugging, podcast, question time 5 Comments

So here’s another podcast on which you can hear the dulcet tones of my melodious voice:


The “Shame” in the title “Cinema Shame” refers to the show’s conceit, in which one of the folks on the show watches and talks about a film they really should’ve seen by now.

In this case, I am the one who is shamed, and the film in question?


Yes, that’s right, after years of me half-bragging “what is this ‘blade runner’ you speak of,” I finally sat down and watched a version of Blade Runner specifically for this episode. In fact, when one of the hosts, Allan, first approached me about this, the film I immediately suggested was this one, and Allan replied “yeah, that was the one I was going to ask you to do!”

So here it is, in all its one-hour and so glory, for you to enjoy! After doing this and of course the two shows for Vintage Video, I of course am now a Podcast Show Guest Expert, and look forward to doing even more of these, maybe even one specifically about comic books, someday.

• • •

Let’s do at least one question from a reader today, and this time it’s Andrew who asks

“Where is Groot currently?”

Andrew is of course referring to my giant Groot cardboard standee, which used to live in the front window of my store where the occasional group of tourists would stand before it and take pictures of themselves.

Well, I retired Cardboard Groot from that position a while back, replacing him with a Mandalorian standee. But Groot is not gone, instead having been moved to a position behind the main counter at my store, standing guard over the old sign from my previous place of employment:


And what does Cardboard Groot say about all this? “I am Groot” is his only comment, which I presume translates as “eh, it’s a living.”

• • •

Just a reminder to all my fellow U.S. citizens (not that you need a reminder, you’ve probably been getting a dozen emails/texts a day about it) to go out and vote Tuesday, if you haven’t already via early voting. And on a completely unrelated note, a whole bunch of your favorite comic book artists and writers put these informative comics together which may be of some interest.

• • •

Almost forgot: this Tuesday is not only U.S. Election Day, it’s also the 10th anniversary of the opening of my store. Almost as if…I planned it that way. (SPOILER: I didn’t.) Anyway, you can read what I had to say about my first day of business way back when I had exactly 100% fewer Funko Pops in my shop. Honestly, I can’t believe how barren my shop looks in those old pics. Oh, to have all that open space again….

They were a good match on Grimjack, too.

filed under Categories dc comics, question time 8 Comments

So I find myself in the position of gathering up and doing some research for a future post, and leaving myself with little time to write an actual post for today. As such, let me go ahead and look at some of your recent comments now, and I’ll return to your questions and having content soon!

Thom H asks

“I never read the Ostrander/Mandrake Martian Manhunter series. Is it good? From what I saw of it, it seemed kind of heavy and depressing. I don’t need my MM to love Oreos, but he can get kind of melancholy for my tastes.”


One of the reasons I want to reread Martian Manhunter is that it’s been a while since I’ve read it, and as such I don’t remember a whole lot of specifics about the run. I do recall enjoying it (I mean, it’s Ostrander and Mandrake, it’s gonna be good), but yes, as per Chris V’s noting of the tragic circumstances behind the scenes. It can be, as you say Thom, melancholy, but this superhero book embedded with emotional gravitas is well worth checking out, I think.

It’s not all like that…Ostrander has his silly side, and we get an issue about J’onn’s addiction to “Chocos” (the legally-distinct name of cream-filled cookies that are somewhat like Oreos).


The thing about J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter, is that he’s kind of a blank slate. I mean, we know the basics…trapped Earth by accident, his family is gone, has a weakness to fire, disguised himself as a human detective. Outside of his appearances in Justice League of America, maybe, Ostrander likely wrote the longest and most in-depth examination of the character, fleshing out his personality, his backstory, his rogues gallery, and so on.

Yes, it can be a downer at times, but based on what memories I have, I still think it’s worth a read. And I’m looking forward to tackling that when I’m done with Spectre.

Plus, J’emm, Son of Saturn, pops up in it. That’s gotta sell you on it!

• • •

Oliver says

“Mandrake’s style was a bad fit for the post-Crisis Shazam reboot but looked much better on Batman and the Spectre.”

Back in 2010, I did a post about a short sequence from the Shazam! A New Beginning mini-series by Roy Thomas and Mandrake. Some comments to that post agree with you, Oliver, that Mandrake’s style was a poor match for Captain Marvel.

Now…okay, I’m not trying to be contrary, I do agree with this sentiment, but in an odd way Mandrake’s art did fit this very specific version of the character. This was a darker, 1980s-post-Dark-Knight-gritty reinterpretation, requiring dark, gritty, moody art. The problem was that the entire series was entirely misguided, changing the tone of Captain Marvel too far. If DC has to squeeze the Shazam franchise into their larger shared universe, there are ways to do it, and it has been done (most successfully, I think, by Jerry Ordway’s Power of Shazam! series).

Mandrake’s work reminds me in a way of Gene Colan’s, suited for dark and moody tales while still adaptable to appropriate superhero books. As Oliver notes above, Batman and Spectre are solid fits for Mandrake, and for the stories Ostrander was telling, a good fit with Martian Manhunter as well. I’d like to see him do more Swamp Thing, which he’s done a handful of times in the past.

In fact, I’d love to see both Ostrander and Mandrake on a Swamp Thing series, doing what they did on Spectre and Martian Manhunter: a darker, edgier book that’s still on the outskirts of the regular DC Universe. Pulling together all the disparate strands of the character into some kind of cohesive, recognizable whole.

• • •

Anyway, thanks for putting up with this “fill-in” ppst, and for all your great comments. I appreciate all the feedback!

The era of the superstar comics blogger continues, however.

filed under Categories question time 16 Comments

Answer a few more of your questions? Oh, if you insist!

Nate A asks

“Is the era of the superstar penciller over? Will there be another Byrne or Lee (proportionate to the current baseline sales) or did something happen in the market to make that impossible?”

That’s a question I’ve been thinking about since I saw you ask it. Given the current comics market ecosystem (and for the purposes of this question, I’m sticking to just the “superhero-dominated direct comics market” as implied by the examples of Byrne and Lee, otherwise I’d just say like “Raina Telgemeier” and be done with it) is, for whatever reason, isn’t one in which one or two artists can rise to dominance.

Part of it is the market size. In the 1990s, if a comic sold 500,000 or a million or more copies, that went a long way toward making its artist a “hot” one. Your standard comic book nowadays isn’t reaching such lofty heights. There are lots of good artists, and lots of popular artists working on great books that sell well (as graded on the current curve), but the “superstar” ranking probably remains an artifact of the ’90s.

And as such, the remaining “superstar” artists are the ones who achieved that status before and haven’t done anything to undermine it. Jim Lee is the superstar artist of today. Maybe Todd McFarlane. Byrne is basically retired, sticking to commissions and his X-Men fanfic. And there are a couple of others from that period whose fortunes have waxed and mostly waned over in the decades since.

There is a new Batman run by Lee, with Jeph Loeb, a sequel to that jukebox-musical of a popular story Hush, coming, and we’ll see how demand and sales look on that to determine Lee’s remaining superstar status. (Though his $20,000 price tag on commissions probably locked that in pretty well.)

McFarlane’s ongoing devotion to Spawn doesn’t necessarily burn up the shelves, but he still retains that superstar reputation. He has name recognition value, and customers are always curious about what he’s doing, and his old Spider-Man and early Spawn sell incredibly well. And if he were to ever do a Spawn/Spider-Man crossover special, that would probably be the biggest selling superhero comic in recent memory.

• • •

Matthew sorts out the following

“You’ve had your own store for ten years (good job! congrats!), what’s the biggest mistake you’ve made (comics related or not)?”

Yup, it’ll be 10 years on…um, Election Day here in the States, it looks like. Huh.

Biggest mistake, I think, was not keeping all the stock in the backroom completely sorted from the get-go. Part of the problem was — and this is not something I expected — once you open a comic book store, people are dying to just give you boxes and boxes of comics. I ended up with several boxes from multiple collections coming into the store in short order, too much to easily sort right away, so they got put to the side to be done at a nigh-mythical “later date.”

At least most everything’s on shelves back there, though I wish I can devote the time to properly sorting everything out. It’s gonna take me hiring someone else to do it for me, because it’s just too many at this point for me to do it. But I go through ’em on a pretty regular basis so even if it’s not as organized as I’d like, I at least have a fairly good idea where stuff is.

• • •

Tom W dares to ask

“Do your comics retailer abilities, honed over many years, mean your comics are in mint even after you’ve read them?”

Now, I wish I had the power to make low grade books suddenly mint just with my mere touch, but I know that’s not what you meant. If it’s mint when I get it, or “Near Mint,” more likely, or…let’s just say “new” condition…it stays that way after I’ve had my way. I mean, it’s not like I’m eating ribs or anything while paging through the latest Batman/Scooby Doo.

I am (contrary to popular belief) only human, and maybe I’ll accidentially drop or bump a comic, or otherwise damage it, and I just kinda shrug and deal with it. But that’s the exception, not the rule.

• • •

Thanks as always for all the great questions, pals. If you need clarification on any of my answers, always feel free to ask!

One tough Gazookus wot hates all Palookas.

filed under Categories eyeball, popeye, question time 8 Comments

More of your questions, more of my answers!

ExistentialMan gets down to earth with

You’ve mentioned your comic reading backlog (and unfortunate eye challenges) several times over the years. I’m curious if you have a system for how you tackle your stacks of books. Do you just read them in the order you placed ’em in the longbox? Selectively choose back issues that relate to current titles? Toss a random dart at the stack? Please enlighten us.

For those of you new to the site, what EM is referring to is the fact I’ve had some vision issues in relation to actual physical problems with my eyeballs, discussed enough here that the topic has its own category.

Now, the eyeball situation has mostly stabilized, though I’m still getting treatments (i.e. the dreaded injections) in the left eye about once every couple of months…a vast improvement over getting shots in both eyes every month like I had been at the beginning. And I haven’t had a vision-obscuring bleeding incident in my eyes for quite some time now. So, you know, good news all around.

My vision is diminished from what it was, requiring glasses now. And though I no longer need the regular treatment on my right eye, the vision in that eye is impaired. I can see out of it, but not at the…resolution, I guess, as I can with my left eye, which is mostly at normal when using said glasses.

Anyway, as mentioned by EM, my reading had been slowed down a bit, after about an 18-month period at the beginning of all this when I read virtually nothing. When I did start reading again, it was slow going as I adjusted to my new vision status quo, and between bouts of eye-bleeds that would prevent me from reading again.

One result is that I gave up entirely on reading comics for a while, even during those periods when I could do so. I watched a lot of TV instead, which, thanks to a big ol’ flatscreen, was much easier for me to see than small print on paper pages. I was still picking up the comics I wanted to read, but setting them aside for a later date.

And that later date has been the last couple of years or so, as I’ve been making a stronger attempt at catching up on the backlog. I’ve adjusted to my vision, I’ve got a reading lamp that helps quite a bit, so I’ve been making some progress.

When I started to try catching up, my priority was the stuff I was reading on a serialized monthly basis. Gathering together all the Superman stuff, the Hulk stuff, so on and so forth, and reading through them a series at the time. Then, as new books come out, I read those as I get ’em and I stay caught up on those series.

Then there are the one-shots and the miscellaneous minis that have come out over the years, that got backlogged and I get to those as I find the time. There are probably still some of those DC/Hanna Barbera specials I haven’t read yet. But I’m getting through them as I can.

The real roadblocks are the magazines and the graphic novels/trades. I don’t get every issue of Back Issue, but about one out of every three issues or so there’s one stuffed with articles I want to read (“special DC Comics 1980s mini-series issue!” — DAMMIT) and I’ll pull it aside and I think I’m years behind on those and really need to stop picking them up. But then this month they had an issue about DC’s horror comics and DAMMIT.

Graphic novels, 100 to 200 or more pages a throw there, take a lot longer for me to plow through, but lately I’ve been trying to put more effort into reading them. For example, not long ago I finally read Matt Wagner’s newly expanded Grendel: Devil by the Deed, about a year after its release.

Now it’s not like I’m just talking home piles and piles of books every week. I have made an active effort to keep my personal pulls to a minimum, as I try to find a balance amongst 1) what new stuff I really want to read, 2) what I have time to read, and 3) how much backlog I still need to whittle down.

This isn’t even counting all the regular prose books I need to catch up on. I just read Opposable Thumbs, a book about the history of film critics Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert, and their partnership, and it took me like a year to get to that.

• • •

Adam Farrar gets up close and personal with

“I’ve never read any of the original Popeye comics. But I’m missing out, yeah? My library has the six volumes from Fantagraphics. Should I try to find the pre-Popeye Thimble Theater strips to read first?”

Adam, Adam, Adam…how dare you come here, into my very own website, without having read any Popeye. Friend, run, do not walk, to that library and get those volumes into your hands. If it’s closed when you show up, break in. Do not delay feeding Popeye into your peepers any longer than you already have.

You do not need to read the earlier Thimble Theater strips. The first of those Fantagraphics volumes contain several non-Popeye TT strips, kicking off that storyline and eventually leading to Popeye’s introduction. That should give you enough of the taste as to what those early strips were like.

Should you ever decide to continue beyond those Fantagraphics reprints once you’ve caught Popeye fever, maybe you can try some Thimble Theater (available in very large and expensive, but nice, hardcovers). Or you can look at a bunch of the facsimile editions IDW published of 1940s-50s Popeye comics by Segar’s successor Bud Sagendorf, which can be found in single issue or collected form. there were also a couple volumes reprinting Bobbly London’s run on the strip from the late ’80s/early ’90s.

There’s a current Popeye comic, Eye Lie Popeye, done in a nigh-anime style that’s a little off-model from the original strips, maybe, but still a lot of fun.

But read those Segar comics! And always remember what Popeye says about cartoonists:

Fleshing out the pitch, and other things you shouldn’t say.

filed under Categories harvey, question time 15 Comments

Going after a few more of your questions today. Didn’t really mean to power through so many in short order, as I meant to space ’em out a bit, but it is what it is. You know, folks can still add more questions to that linked post above!

Paul spooks me with

“How would you reboot the Harvey Comics Universe to make it appeal to the youth of today?”

That’s…a good question. My immediate reaction would have been, if we were still in the world of the CW attractive-20-something-year-olds-playing-teenagers TV shows, saying “make ’em all high schoolers with weird powers or obsessions or wealth” and go all Riverdale with it.

Or (and this isn’t inconsistent with my previous statement) take the supernatural characters (Casper, Hot Stuff, Wendy, Spooky, etc.) and make ’em paranormal investigators. The other kids (little Lotta Little Audrey, Little Dot) as part of their support team…Little Lotta would be the muscle when necessary, of course. Richie Rich is the money guy behind the team, funding their work and passing out assignments.

Not sure how, like, Baby Huey would fit in. But if I’m remaking the Harvey characters into an ersatz BPRD, then Baby Huey could be our Hellboy analog. “DUH, I HATE BOGGARTS AND NAZIS.”

And I’m really not sure how Stumbo the Giant works here. Maybe a recurring antagonist that the team has to take down?

Anyway, I’m kinda vague on details with some of the characters, I know, but if someone’s willing to give me a paycheck, I’ll flesh out the pitch.

• • •

William Gatevackes opens up with

“Who would be on your ‘Mount Rushmore’ of comic book creators?”

Assuming we’re limited to four giant heads on a mountainside, my kneejerk reaction if “Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster.” I know, I know, that’s a whole lotta white guys, I’m sorry. Maybe replace Ditko (who almost certainly wouldn’t have wanted a giant representation of his face carved into a mountain) with Osamu Tezuka. But then we’re stuck with all guys, still. So, what the hell, add a fifth head, and make it Ramona Fradon.

I mean, it’s hard to represent everyone who should be up there, especially if you’re limiting the number of visages. I’m not denying that so many people are worthy. However, I’m pretty insistent that Jack, Jerry and Joe have to be on there. And Bob Kane’s face can be on the trashcans for the tourists.

• • •

googum googumed.

“Hey, was ACTION COMICS WEEKLY direct sales only? I didn’t think it was newsstand, but just checking; figured you’d know!”

I am unsure. My source for checking this is the Grand Comics Database, where the Action Comics Weekly entry shows under the “Cover Scans” section no separate entries for “newsstand” and “direct” covers. (Compare to Fury of Firestorm, which does have separate scans for these variations.)

Here, on the cover of the first weekly issue, #601:


…you can see the little box that’s usually used for a UPC code, but instead it lists the names of the featured characters. Other issues retain the box but in a non-UPC shape. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one with the UPC code required for newsstand sales, and Googling about doesn’t seem to turn up any.

If I had to put my thirty nickels down, I’d say Action Comics Weekly was not distributed to newsstands because, like, your local convenience store or supermarket wouldn’t want to deal with a weekly book, or, since they weren’t used to dealing with weekly comics, take the previous issue off for stripped cover returns and replace it with a new issue, giving that old one only a weeklong sales window. I mean, I don’t know if that would’ve happened. And Marvel’s biweekly series Marvel Comics Presents had newsstand distribution for most of its run, so a quicker publication pace wasn’t a problem for them, I don’t think.

If anyone’s got more information on this than I do, I’m all ears. (Ew, gross.)

• • •

Derek Moreland expands his territory with

“How are the ENERGON UNIVERSE (Transformers, G.I. Joe minis, Void Rivals) selling for you? Corollary question: is Transformers doing better now than the MtMtE/RiD days at IDW?”

They’re actually doing relatively well…the “name” series (Transformers and G.I. Joe doing the best, with Void Rivals trailing behind). My numbers on TF/GIJ were startlingly small when they were at IDW, but all it took was slapping an Image logo on them (and some smart marketing/creative team decisions) and suddenly interest is up again. Let’s hope it keeps up, as I can always use more good-selling books.

• • •

And that’s plenty for today. Thanks for reading, pals, and I’ll be back on Wednesday, with any luck.

The shocking return of VARIANT TALK.

filed under Categories pal plugging, question time, self-promotion, variant covers 15 Comments

First, a couple of things:

One, I finally got a Threads account open under my original personal Instagram account name, mikesterjr. For various reasons I had opened one up under a different name, but ignore that one if you know about it…”mikesterjr” is where you’ll find me there. (Alas, “mikester” and “mikesterling” were taken by folks surely unworthy of my good name.) Anyway, not that I need another social media thing (Bluesky is mostly enough for me right now), but in this scary post-Xwitter world, I’m just trying to hedge my bets.

Two, blogging-and-birthday-brother Andrew is doing his Halloween Countdown over on Armagideon Time. One of my all-time favorite writers on these here internets.

Three, let’s try to get to another of your questions:

JohnJ hits me with

“How in the world do you decide how many variant covers to order of some books, especially with DC’s extra dollar for variant cardstock covers?
The multiple covers bit started when I still was ordering comics in the 90s and it drove me nuts. It’s got to be ten times worse today with damn near every book having multiple covers.
How about the blank covers for sketches? Do you have customers that ask for those?”

Yeah, I occasionally think about how good we had it in the ’90s in regards to variants. At the time, it was annoying because, unless it was a ratio variant where we had to reach certain ordering plateaus to get that 1 in 25/50/100 copy, guessing what covers customers were going to want was quite the trick.

And it’s even more of a trick now, given that nearly every Marvel and DC comic has multiple covers, and many Image books have variants, and several Dark Horse comics have variants, and oy Dynamite Comics….

For the most part, the customers mostly want the main (or “A”) covers, although some folks don’t care what cover they get. I order enough “A”s to cover pulls and rack sales, and a smaller number of each variant for impulse buys and for those occasions when people prefer that variant to the main cover.

In the case of DC, where the variants can cost a buck (or more, if it’s a fancier variant with extra embossing or whatever), I’m a little more stingy about ordering some of those, sometimes just getting one or two copies, or maybe skipping a variant entirely if past sales data for a title indicates a big fat “nobody cares” on those. But if it’s a variant by Jim Lee or Artgerm, I’ll get a few extras because those always sell well.

For Marvel and other companies, the variants all have the same cover price (aside from the ratio variants, though I’ll sometimes just put the 1 in 10 covers out at regular price) so I feel a little more comfortable ordering extras on those. Like I said, “A” covers are generally preferred, so I’ll order heavier on those, though I notice on indie titles, some people don’t much care which cover they get. It’s the Marvels where customers are a little more insistent on getting the main cover if possible.

At this point, I’ve been ordering these long enough to get a general feel for what covers sell in what quantities, though sometimes I’ll get surprised by demand (like, it took some reordering to get enough of the recent Doctor Doom variants on some recent Marvels), but my typical strategy of “lots of ‘A’s, a coupe or three of the variants” works out. And I can usually place reorders if necessary.

I do have some customers who get every variant (or close to) of their favorite titles, so I make sure to accommodate them. And sometime a comic will pop up in the order form with more individual variants for me to order than copies I sell in the store, so I order enough “A”s and then pick and choose the likely variants that might sell, and hope for the best.

As for blank covers…I don’t always order those, but it depends on the title. I went ahead and got a copy of the blank Absolute Batman #1, for example (which as of this writing hasn’t sold yet, though I blew through all the other variants for this title in short order). Once in a blue moon I have someone show up asking for every sketch cover I have in the shop, so I like to have a few of those available.

I feel like, even as much of rambling answer I gave there, more discussion may be necessary. I mean, aside from the year or so I was doing these themed variant cover posts. Anyway, if any clarification is needed, just let me know.

• • •

Also, wish my dad a happy birthday today. He reads the site, so he’ll see it!

that doctor’s a real hit.

filed under Categories question time 17 Comments

Attacking more of…wait, that’s too aggressive for a friendly site like mine. “Tip-toeing gently” through more of your questions today….

Joe Cabrera hails me with the following

“In general, do you enjoy today’s comics as much as those of yesteryear? If not, why? Is it nostalgia coloring your opinion, stories getting worse, unappealing plot directions, etc.?”

There…may be a difficulty now, particularly now that I own my own comic shop, in separating “comic books as entertainment” and “comic books as commodity that I need to sell to make a living.” Which is not to say I don’t still love comics, but I think too much of my mind is preoccupied with order numbers and rack sales and back issue pricing and all that jazz, and not to mention blog content, that maybe it gets in the way just a little of appreciating the comics from a purely fannish perspective, free of worldly capitalistic concerns.

The other issue here is simply time, in two senses. I don’t have the time to read comics like I used to. And comics I read long ago have had more time to percolate in my brain that comics that I’ve read last week. Take Swamp Thing Annual #2 from 1985, the one where Swamp Thing goes to Hell. I probably read that thing a couple of dozen times at minimum over the decades. I read it again not long ago when I suggested a sequence from it for discussion on a War Rocket Ajax episode. Compare with…what’s the last Swamp Thing series to come out? That Green Hell “Black Label” one? I can’t even say for sure I’ve read the last issue of that. And if I had, am I ever going to make time to reread it? I don’t know.

The way I’m reading them now, with less time to devote to them as purely entertainment (and combined with my various vision things that cause me to read a little more slowly), most comics are now one shot experiences for me, not books to revisit on a repeated basis. Which makes me a little sad, as I’ve read many comics in recent years I’d love to go back to, but I’m never quite sure if I ever can.

Am I answering the question? I still love comics. I think many comics coming out now are great. But I think for many of the reasons I mentioned above, I was just able to enjoy them more as a younger man, when I had more time to devote to them in a non-comics retail fashion.

All that said…this blog is part of the way I can still interact with comics both new and old, helping me to remember why I ended up in this business in the first place.

• • •

will richards queries

“In your opinion, which are the most criminally un-reprinted runs of both Marvel and DC comics?”

From DC Comics…ATARI FORCE ATARI FORCE ATARI FORCE ATARI FORCE


Fun sci-fi adventure expertly illustrated by José Luis García-López at the peak of his form, with the back half drawn by the also excellent Eduardo Barreto. Gerry Conway wrote most issues, and it’s a fast paced and creative comic that unfortunately was saddled with a title that likely kept folks away. Oh, and the lettering by Bob Lappan is a revelation as well.

It seemed like these might have been on a way to a reprint collection eventually, as a few years back Dynamite was doing some Atari-related comics. A collection of the original Atari Force digest-sized comics, the ones that were pack-ins with select Atari games, was announced but cancelled, and I guess that was that. I’d like these reprinted, too, at normal comic size which would be easier on the ol’ peepers.

Now, from Marvel…that’s quite the trick, since Marvel has reprinted tons of material, filling up those giant omnibuses and “Epic Collections” and so on. My initial thought was “The Last Galactus Story,” the unfinished John Byrne tale from the latter issues of Epic Illustrated, but that did get reprinted in an omnibus (still uncompleted).

I think what I’m going to pick, out of my own particular interest, is Blip, Marvel’s comic-sized video game magazine (with some comics, but mostly articles):


And what the heck, why not Marvel’s pop culture/young reader mag Pizzazz?


I would love having either of these, even if no one else would.

• • •

Dave Carter votes for

“Who is your favorite comic book Doctor? (either MD or PhD…)”

Well, only one answer to that, natch:

• • •

No better place to leave off than that! Thanks, pals, and I’ll see you on Friday!