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!

Asking for help for my friend Mark.

filed under Categories fakeapstylebook, pal plugging 6 Comments

Hey, my pal Mark can use some financial help for himself, his mother, and their cats. Mark is one of the creators of FakeAPStylebook (as immortalized in the book Write More Good) and a good guy, so if you can help, even just a little, please do.

EDIT: the widget started doing odd things to my site, so here’s the direct link instead.

EDIT: Here’s a direct link in case the widget isn’t showing up for you.

“Making a splash…of BLOOD!” I mean.

filed under Categories indies 14 Comments

Hi pals…gonna continue trying to have some fun here on the site, but wanted to acknowledge that, well, things didn’t quite turn out as we hoped here in the States. It’s going to be rough, especially for women, minorities, and the LBGQTIA+ community, so let’s all look out for each other and do our best to get through this.

• • •

So anyway, let’s shift gears a bit and talk about EXTREME VIOLENCE, at least as represented by a specific indie comic from the 1980s.


I’m sure I came across references to Grips in the “Coming Attractions” section of the Amazing Heroes ‘zine at the time, but my earliest specific memory of the title is from a comic book convention I attended in the mid-1980s.

This was at a monthly Los Angeles comic con, that had the usual assortment of Special Guests and upcoming movie presentations (inexplicably, my friends and I sat through a preview of the Garbage Pail Kids, for which members of our little group won a movie poster and free passes to see the film — which went unused, might I add). But there were also rows upon rows of dealer tables, and up and down the aisles there was a young gentleman, meandering equidistant from the displays on either side, calling out “Grips! Who’s got Grips! I’m looking for Grips!” over and over again.

And he wasn’t the only one. Well, okay, he was the only one doing specifically that, but I heard other folks asking dealers for Grips and talking about Grips and I believe I recall seeing copies of Grips on display there with very optimistic pricing.

Grips was not a comic I recalled seeing at my local comic shop (the same one I would be employed at a small handful of years later). I did ask my former boss the other day as i was prepping for this post if he carried it, and he said “absolutely,” noting that first series sold very well for him. I can only presume that I missed it on the shelf (or it sold out before I got to the shop for my weekly visit), or that it just didn’t register with me.

And I suspect it wouldn’t have registered with me, as, despite the fact that I was always looking at what small press comics were being offered, Grips did not appear to be up my alley.

Okay, okay…as the Firesign Theatre could’ve said, “What Am Grips, Anyway?” Well, the opinion I sort of formed way back when I first learned of it was that this was about a fella trying to out-Wolverine Wolverine, then the mainstream comics gold standard of A Violent Character. Look, he even had the claws an’ everything. The controversy-courting appeal of the title was its Extreme Violence, and if you don’t believe me, take the Overstreet Price Guide’s word for it:


That’s…kind of an unexpected bit of editorializing from Overstreet there, but when you get down to it that appears to be the main selling point of the comic. And was it violent? Sure, a bit…here’s a slightly disarming panel giving you a minor example of the gory delights within:


This, and other incidents in these early issues, are certainly more gruesome than what you’d find in your standard issue of a superhero comic (despite the companies sometimes giving it the ol’ college try), even if they look crude and amateurish today.

And, well, maybe “amateurish” is a little harsh, given that these are the early works of Tim Vigil, a artist who would achieve fame and/or notoriety for the highly detailed artwork for the violently and sexually explicit series Faust and a mildly less-explicit short run of Badger.

In fact, despite all the demand for the book back in the ’80s, it’s pretty much forgotten now. If it’s remembered at all, it’s remembered solely because it is early work by Vigil. Any high prices they may have commanded once upon a time have slipped away to nothing. Even the Hot Comics App has these as “Non-Keys” at a typical price of about three bucks apiece. (A look at eBay shows somewhat more adventurous pricing, and I suspect the truth is, as usual, somewhere in the middle.)

Speaking of pricing, my Bluesky pal Steve contributed some grist for the Grips mill here, as he was a collector of the title and offered this up for me:


That’s a price listing for the various Grips titles from the publisher, with stories ripped from today’s headlines, apparently. Issue #4 has “High Violence!” Another issue has “Grips infected w/AIDS!”

You may notice, if you looked closely, that there are ea whole lot more Grips comics in this price listing than in the Overstreet Price Guide scan I posted up there. Well, Overstreet only listed the first mini, probably because of the Vigil connection. Otherwise, the Guide tends to not bother with most books from the 1980s black and white boom era, when anyone who could hold a pencil and find his way to the local print shop put out a comic hoping to be the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There was plenty of good stuff that came from the boom, but there was a whole lot of dreck as well, and Overstreet preferred to just not devote the space to it.

In the case of Grips, in addition to that initial four issue run, there was a second series sans Vigil that ran 12 issues, and 8 issue run of Gurps Adventures (which I totally want to be the “Kid-Friendly” version of Grips à la Batman Adventures, and the one-shot Grips Special. It was one of these later comics that got me on this whole Grips kick in the first place, what with a stray issue #7 from the second Grips run turning up in a collection the other day:


Would you like to see a page from the inside? Of course you would, why wouldn’t you:


To be completely honest, I’m very surprised there hasn’t been an attempted revival of Grips in all these years since it vanished off the stands. Of the output from Silver Wolf/Greater Mercury, Grips was the comic that made the biggest splash, despite it being mostly out of comic fans’ minds today.

It was a weird and crude book, one borne out of an exciting and interesting time when it seems like just about anyone could get a title out on the stands, unhampered by an editorial hand that would tell them “no.” I’m not going to sit here and tell you it was, y’know, “good,” but more power to the Silver Wolf/Greater Mercury folks for putting together this amateur press empire for however briefly it breathed.

And just because Internet Pal Steve sent these pics my way, here are a couple more comics from his collection, some Grips variants:


Collect ’em all, kids!

Can definitely be said he’s not a member of the Legion of Super-Pets. Maybe.

filed under Categories jack kirby 6 Comments

Gonna keep it relatively light tonight, you know, what with everything goin’ on…but I got a copy of this book, the DC Comics Ultimate Character Guide (2024), in at the shop:


…and, just flippin’ through it to take a look at the “Swamp Thing” entry (note: still just the Alec Holland version, not the new guy from the recent mini-series), I came across the Metron listing.

Now, if you remember this post from a couple of years back, I discussed the categorization of Jack Kirby’s Metron within his larger Fourth World milieu of the New Gods and related comics. Specifically, whether the intellectually-aloof and somewhat morally ambiguous Metron was in fact a member of the New Gods, or something apart.

I go into the arguments for and against in that linked post, noting that DC’s Who’s Who handbook series explicitly says Metron is a New God. But in this newer book pictured above, the character’s description is as follows:


This returns a little ambiguity to Metron’s nature, as established by Kirby way back in the 1970s:


…or as had been suggested, reflecting Metron’s own self-invention separating himself from the New Gods, inserting an unreliable narrator element to the character’s nature.

Anyway, thought that was neat. Also, the Joker’s entry still gives his real name as “unknown,” despite, well, this.

• • •

So, everyone be well as you can, and I’ll see you back here on Friday.

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….

If only there were an audio adaptation of that “King Kong” story.

filed under Categories byrne reboot, superman 14 Comments

So pal Brook showed me the other day this reprint of Man of Steel #6, the final issue of 1980s mini-series that kicked off John Byrne’s relaunch of the Superman franchise.


It’s of slightly smaller dimensions than a standard comic book, about 9 by 6 inches. The story is reprinted in color, and appeared to be unedited, though I didn’t go through every single word balloon. All the pages do seem to be there.

To fill out the booklet, there are three black and white cover reproductions captioned “GREAT MOMENTS IN SUPERMAN’S HISTORY.” You know, like this one:


…for, you know, certain values of “GREAT,” I suppose.

The back cover is this slightly menacing image:


…which I’m sure I’ve seen before, but can’t quite place it.

Anyway, this comic was released as part of an audiobook series in the late 1980s. It’s acted out with multiple performers, with music and sound effects, and, well, you can experience it right here in this handy embedded video (which features an image of the accompanying cassette’s J-card insert):


Well…that’s certainly…something. It’s weird hearing real people reciting Byrne’s dialogue, and some of the performances are…well, Your Mileage May Vary, I guess. The voice for Superman/Clark Kent takes some getting used to, no offense to whoever played him.

It’s an interesting artifact, certainly, and one I hadn’t known existed. Thanks to Brook for cluing me in on this.

Many would swear *at* Superman 64.

filed under Categories marvel, the thing, video games 12 Comments

Just in case you ever thought comments on old posts ever got past me…nope, they sure don’t! Here’s Reader Pete with a comment on my relatively recent video game post:

“I know I’m a few weeks late to comment on this post, but reading this reminded of the Questprobe game and tie-in comics from Marvel in the mid-80’s. I had the Hulk and Thing/Human Torch games for my Commodore 64 which I remember formatted like a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ book. I bought the Hulk and Spider-Man comics as back issues later on, but could never find the Thing/Human Torch one. It seemed like comics & video games would have been a much more natural partnership but that didn’t seem to develop until years later.”

The Questprobe computer games were illustrated “interactive fiction,” where the player would read text and type in commands of the “GO NORTH” and “TAKE AXE” variety, accompanies with still digital drawings.

There were programmed by Scott Adams — no, not that one, but rather this gentleman. And I suggest looking at that Wikipedia page to see the pic of Mr. Adams from 1982, which is literally the greatest.

Now, despite my affinity for computer and video gaming and (surprise) comics in the mid-’80s, I didn’t acquire these games. I’m not even sure I ever saw them for sale in the wild, and I regularly haunted the game software shelves at any store that stocked this sort of thing.

I was aware of the games, absolutely, as I definitely bought at least the first issue of Marvel’s tie-in Questprobe comic book series. (And according to the Grand Comics Database entry linked there, the look of the antagonist in this series was designed after Adams himself — again, reference that photo from Adams’ Wikipedia page.

Adams worked with John Byrne to put together a plan for the overall series of games, and of course the related comics, for a run of about a dozen installments. Only three games came out, due to the game company shutting down, which also ended the related comic book series. However, a comic based on the unreleased fourth game was created, and eventually released in issue #33 of Marvel’s Island of Misfit Stories, Marvel Fanfare.


And because the late writer Mark Gruenwald forgot nothing, some of this Questprobe stuff would turn up in his run of Quasar.

A couple of additional points: despite missing the games during their initial release window, I did sample one or two of them via emulation decades later. Which, unfortunately, is probably not the way to try them out given how very dated they feel now. As I recall, even the text interface seemed relatively primitive compared to the more complex commands available in, say, the contemporary Infocom games.

The Questprobe games had the affectation of the user prompt being, like, “SPIDER-MAN I WANT YOU TO” after which you would type in the command, like you’re controlling the character from afar. Here’s a playthrough of the Spider-Man game to show you what I mean:

The other point I wanted to make is that reader Pete (remember Pete? This is a post about Pete) said he couldn’t find the third issue of the run, feaeturing the Thing and the Human Torch:


And this is an issue we fans probably shouldn’t miss, as it features the excellent artwork of noted Thing artist (from the self-titled series and from many Marvel Two-in-Ones) Ron Wilson. I just checked, and this issue is not included in the recent The Thing Omnibus, almost certainly due to licensing issues, so folks, keep your peepers peeled for that lost gem. EDIT: Ignore all that, it is in the Omnibus, somehow I missed it when scanning the covers on the book’s back cover.

In my more nostalgic moods I might say that superhero video games never got any better than the Atari 2600 Superman from 1979. The best games? Maybe the recent Spider-Man games…maybe the Batman Arkham series. Many would swear by, say, the X-Men arcade game, or the various LEGO games.

These Questprobe games were an interesting attempt at moving superheroes into the then-burgeoning home computer market, but producing them as essentially text adventures with some pictures seemed to miss the point a little. I mean, yes, comic books themselves are pictures with some text, but if you’re handed a game, when you think “superheroes” you probably don’t want to spend hours guessing what noun-verb combination is the correct one to get you to the next guessing of a noun-verb combination.

Superheroes imply action, and in a video game market that means directly moving characters onscreen as per your controller interface. And with the release of the recent Batman virtual reality game, the games are coming closer and closer to actually just straight up living out the world are presented in comic books, with fewer apparent steps of remove.