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The fallibility of memory.

§ January 23rd, 2023 § Filed under how the sausage is made, scans § 20 Comments

So if you’re dumb like me and still on Twitter, you may have seen me complaining thusly:


What was this mystery scan? Well, it was from a story that ran in an issue of Action Comics Weekly, that brief period in the late 1980s when DC attempted the weekly comics thing. Overall I thought there was some good work in there, though as it wore on the contents became slightly less killer, more filler. Overall, though, it was a good run and I was kinda sorry to see it go.

Now, the scan in question that I’d thought I’d made was from one of the serialized stories in this run, in which my hometown of Oxnard, CA (“more than just a pretty name”) made a brief appearance. I couldn’t find it on this site here, and it may or may not have been posted by me during my LiveJournal days, but I didn’t see it there, either. I could have sworn I made and posted a sca of the darn thing, but evidence appears otherwise.

And as my tweet there said, I went back into the tattered remnants of the Vast Mikester Comics Archive to retrieve the issue and make a new (or first, anyway) scan of the panels.

Which brought me to my next problem. What issue was it in? I remembered it being from the Blackhawk story (as referenced in this post right here, in the post’s title even) and so my search began, poking through every issue with a Blackhawk story trying to find the darn thing.

I did seem to remember that this was the issue with the images I was looking for:


…but a check of the Blackhawk story there turned up nothing.

And thus I looked and looked and checked purt’near every Blackhawk story in this run and found nothing. But I kept looking at that particular issue of Action, as I was sure that was the issue.

I checked again, this time going through all the stories in #621, and found what I was looking for. In the Secret Six story.

Somehow I conflated the Blackhawk cover image with the pics from the Secret Six story and remembered it as “Oxnard was in the Blackhawk story.” (Or maybe I can claim it was some supernaturally-tinged Mandela Effect, get featured on some Bullshit or Not-type TV show or website and 3) Profit.)

Regardless, here’s the sequence in question, where the characters are passing through my city of residence:


Well, I mean, yes, there are oil drilling sites in the area, and while I don’t think there’s an exact location that street scene is based on, it wouldn’t be out of place:


I thought it looked a bit like part of Oxnard Boulevard, my girlfriend thought it looked like the Boulevard as well, or maybe part of Fifth Street or A Street or thereabouts. Point being, this could be in Oxnard somewhere even if it isn’t.

But it was a neat thing to see Oxnard referenced in a comic I was reading. I mean, yes, yes, there’s Love and Rockets, too, but that’s different, Love and Rockets is from Oxnard. It’s more weird to see a superhero comic, which usually base their stories in New York or Metropolis or other big real-or-imaginary cities, as opposed to cities like Oxnard usually used as punchlines by Johnny Carson (true) or ALF (also true) or referenced on Three’s Company (also also true). Not to mention an episode of Sam and Cat that takes place in town. Don’t ask how I know that.

Oh, and back to comics, I seem to remember an biographical strip by Eddie Campbell in which he makes a stopover by train in Oxnard. Kurt Busiek set one of his comics (Section Zero or Shockrockets, sorry, can’t remember, see this post’s title) in neighboring Port Hueneme, which is close but no cigar.

And that’s that…the saga of Mike’s Brain No Work and the quest to track down that scan from a story. Thanks for tolerating my self-indulgence here, and remember, Call Again and Drive Safely:


…a sign I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen around here.
 
 
 
 

from Action Comics Weekly #621 by Marty Pasko, Frank Springer and Frank McLaughlin

“Don’t be a chump!”

§ December 2nd, 2022 § Filed under scans § 9 Comments


“…And use your webbing to floss out those food particles!”

From the Amazing Spider-Man Aim Toothpaste Giveaway released in 1982.

My favorite Megaton Man thingies.

§ July 20th, 2022 § Filed under indies, scans Comments Off on My favorite Megaton Man thingies.


So the Megaton Man comic was a superhero parody/satire by Don Simpson, originally published by Kitchen Sink Press in the mid-1980s. It ran for ten issues, and was followed by multiple publications from KSP, Image Comics, and Simpson’s own company Fiasco. There was even a webcomic that was reprinted, at least in part, in Megaton Man Hardcopy from Image.

I was a big fan of the Megatoniverse from almost the very beginning…the first issue I bought was #2, pictured above, and shortly had a first issue in my hands thanks to my local retailer-and-eventual-boss. One of these days I need to do a deep re-dive into all that jazz and write it up, assuming I ever catch up enough on my backlog of new comics to be able to devote that sort of time. However, I did want to take this opportunity to present two of my favorite bits from the original run.

The first is from issue #5 (August 1985), featuring one of the all-time greatest gags to ever appear in a superhero comic:

Next is from #9 (April 1986), in which Megaton Man, after an equally wonderful two-page spread where he’s finally had enough with everyone and everything, lays down one of the most fantastic punches ever delivered on paper. Eat your heart out, Gil Kane:

My apologies if I’ve presented these pics before on my site…I can’t seem to find them if they’re here. But, now, I have a place on my site I can point people to when they ask, “Mike, what are your two favorite bits from Megaton Man?” You would not believe how often that comes up.

Apparently Twitter was celebrating some Cat Day or ‘nother recently…

§ August 11th, 2017 § Filed under pal plugging, retailing, scans, self-promotion, the thing § 2 Comments

…being one of the at least three Cat Days recognized by God and man. Alas, I missed the August event, but I’m ready for the ones in October and February with this little ol’ panel right here:


Yeah, that’s right, cats are doin’ it for themselves, standin’ on their little cat feet, and not taking any guff from the fella with the syringe. He totally had it coming. Anyway: Cat Day, everyone, Cat Day!

In other news:

  • I mentioned the new Mister Miracle #1 on Wednesday, and it was quite the hit apparently. My initial order on this was a little on the low side, since New Gods material that’s not by Kirby can be bit of a hard sell…but after having several customers ask about it and getting some additions to the pull lists, well, I was convinced to go a little higher. Not high enough, it seems, as they’re gone now, but I would have been out a lot more quickly otherwise. Oh, and Diamond seems to be out of stock on ’em as well, so look forward to that second printing announcement Any Day Now…if it hasn’t happened already. I don’t know, I was busy today.

    Now it remains to be seen if the right lessons are learned, two of which are of course 1) more Tom King/Mitch Gerads comics, and 2) more good Fourth World comics. The wrong lesson is 3) “better crank out more Fourth World comics as fast as possible by anyone we can get, it’s hot hot hot right now!” but let’s see what happens.

    I did have one person come in to grab the comics because, as this customer declared, “Mister Miracle is my favorite character!” I’m really curious about what her reaction was to the actual comic, since it’s quite a different take than what we’ve seen before. Depends how she liked Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers version, I guess.

    Fellow blogging machine Ryan has a few words to say about this here new Scott Free funnybook, so go see what he’s got to say.

  • NOT COMICS: pal Andrew talks about his brief obsession with slot car racing, one that I also shared for a short time in my long-ago youth. As I recall, the gimmick with the set I had was that the cars could change lanes, which I thought was pretty slick. The neighbor kid across the street and I whiled away some precious days goofin’ around with these things. …I’ve got no big reveal or life lesson here, just thought you should know I wasted my life doing stuff other than reading comics.
  • Don’t tell Bully, the Little Stuffed Bull Too Young to Know about Such Things, but that Amalgam-ated character’s name could have been truncated into much, much worse form. I mean, that had to be on purpose, right? …Anyway, I apologize in advance. (Oh, and I just looked at the comments there, and I guess Twitter pal Evan beat me to the same shameful conclusion.)
  • Hey, have I reminded you lately about my store‘s Instagram page? I set it up quite a while ago, but I’m trying to use it more frequently now…usually posting pics of goodies around the store and new acquisitions, with the occasional pic of Aunt Petunia’s favorite nephew. Please, follow me there if you are so inclined!

 
 

image from Unexpected #197 (April 1980) by George Kashdan & Ruben Yandoc

And now, an excellent example of dialogue-as-sound-effect…

§ July 26th, 2017 § Filed under scans § 2 Comments

…but it certainly took me a second to parse it out as I came across these panels while flipping through the comic:


 
 

from Defenders #126 (December 1983) by J. M. DeMatteis and Alan Kupperberg

Ballet Dancers of the Old West.

§ April 19th, 2017 § Filed under scans § 3 Comments

This is one fancy-pants punch-throw…I can’t stop looking at it, and now neither can you:


 
 

from Roy Rogers Comics #86 (February 1955)

What Mr. Hands from The Mr. Bill Show gets up to on his camping trips.

§ June 1st, 2015 § Filed under scans § 5 Comments


But wait, hold on just a second…earlier in the issue, Smokey the Bear tells us of his tragic beginnings, as a young cub caught in a carelessly-started forest fire:


And look there…the very same white-sleeved hand that we saw battling the squirrels for cigarette supremacy! No, it’s not different people wearing similar shirts…there are no coincidences like that in comics! It’s a deliberate artistic choice, where the creators of this comic were intentionally setting up a faceless fire-setting arch-nemesis for our favorite ursine smoke-eater…the Octopus to Smokey’s Spirit.

I mean, that’s the only logical conclusion.
 
 

BEWARE

THE FLOATING HANDS OF FIRE

 
 
 
 

from Four Color #653 (1955)

“Moby Dick grinned at Ahab, but the smile did not reach his fierce and giant eyes.”

§ May 13th, 2015 § Filed under scans § 5 Comments


1. The beluga whale makes facial expressions, at the very least.

2. If you stare at the above panel for too long, it will drive you mad.
 
 

from The Three Mouseketeers #13 (January 1958)

And now, three panels from Adventures into Darkness #9 (1953)…

§ June 6th, 2013 § Filed under scans § 7 Comments

…that may or may not be from the same story, I don’t recall, as I scanned these panels a while back, and we’ve since sold the comic so I can’t double check. But they kinda sorta tell a story when placed together like this anyway…at least, it makes about as much sense as some of those old horror comics did:


But what if the mackerel in question was dead, too? “This man is exactly as dead as a dead mackerel!” “Oh no!”

“ROSS FOR BOSS”

§ May 29th, 2013 § Filed under scans, this calls for hyperspeed § 1 Comment


Not to be confused, of course, with Vooper from Nexus:


…though the resemblance to our esteemed former Presidential candidate was not quite as pronounced in Vooper’s first appearance in Nexus #11 back in 1985:


…or in this pic of the character. But then, why would it be? I do remember being — well, even “slightly startled” is too strong a description, maybe “bemused” — at the early ’90s Vooper redesign, because I was the kind of person who worried about that sort of thing suddenly changing in an ongoing series I’m reading. Not like today, where I hardly ever go on at length about costume changes and continuity tweakings. Oh, no.
 
 

images from Troll Patrol #1 (January 1993), Nexus: The Wages of Sin #1 (March 1995) and Nexus #11 (August 1985)

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