Distributor suggestions to power, retailer orders to speed.

filed under Categories retailing 9 Comments

Yup, it’s time for another one of these…!


This was a stand-alone flyer sent out to retailers giving suggestions for their comics orders. No date on it, but judging by the books discussed this is for stuff coming late 1984/early 1985.

I’ve noted before that I can’t imagine distributors today doing this without publishers quailing at length regarding any thought of cutting orders, or being less than enthused about any new releases. The modern version is, like, Marvel telling retailers “you need to order LOTS of this, trust us!” which they’ve done one too many times for people to pay any attention.

Anyway, let’s look at a few entries of note here:


Mostly pointing this out for the price-increase timeline, and that bastard child price level of 65 cents. As I recall that was Marvel’s first post-60 cent cover price when DC had jumped up to 75 cents. Kind of a “ha, we’re still cheaper!” thumbing of the nose to the cross-town competition.

This got me to look at the price jumps in this period, and this is a very rough outline based on whatever the cover dates are on the books (which may or may not align with each other. And I’m just using as examples some of the companies’ established and long-running titles.

Avengers – went up to 65 cents with #254, cover date April 1985 (so early ’84, around January or February)

Archie – went up to 65 cents with #334, cover date March 1985 (again, like January 1985). Caveat: Archie seemed to be bimonthly at this point.

Batman – jumped up to 75 cents from 60 cents with #366, cover date December 1983 (so in the fall sometime).

That was quite a long time for Marvel (and Archie) to be undercutting DC’s pricing. I think DC’s push at the time was “hey, our comics are printed on nice white paper now!”

Marvel, or at least the Avengers with issue #264, goes up to 75 cents in late ’85.

I’ll have to look more closely at this (though I bet if I Google/Bing/Ask Jeeves-it someone’s got a chart of comic book cover pricing).


At this point we just had the first issue, with this logo:


When the second issue comes out, the title has changed to the I-suppose-more-recognizable Robotech: The Macross Saga (incorporating the lettering style of “Macross” from #1):


And then with #3, we get what will be the standard logo for the Robotech Comico line:


Ultimately, in the back issue market that #1 is the most in-demand and pricey of the Comico Robotech books.


Interesting to see that Mage was getting some reader/sales demand, even before Grendel was involved. I know we had some discussion about whether or not Mage was a beloved classic, but it looks like at least for a time it was a relatively popular one.


Yes, it’s more T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Revival Talk! Some textual evidence here, backing up my former boss’s memories, that there was some anticipation for this comic given the creators involved. I mean, it certainly sounds like it should be good, right?


I like this as it shows how a distributor handled the whole PC -to-Eclipse title transfer after the former publisher collapsed.


Remember when two bucks was too much to pay for a comic? At a time when Marvel/DC/Archie was 60-to-75 cents? No idea how good they had it. I remember the first time I saw a $1 cover price on an indie book, and I was all “holy cow, I want that comic, it better be worth the money.”


And just throwing this in here just as a reminder that Badger was reasonably popular at one point. Like the PC/Eclipse thing, this was the time of the titles moving over from Capital to First Comics, though with like a year gap between issues (versus the about half-year gap on the PC/Eclipse transition).

• • •

I’ll get to the second half of this Battips flyer next time. Thanks for reading, pals!

Bernie Mireault (1961-2024).

filed under Categories obituary 7 Comments


I’m not sure what turned me on to Bernie Mireault’s MacKenzie Queen way back when. It wasn’t a rack purchase…I found a copy in a back issue bin purely at random in the mid-1980s, not very long after the series had come out and completed its five issue run. It might have been the vague memory of an Amazing Heroes review that made it sound interesting to me. Or it may have been Mireault’s striking artwork, standing out as it did even here in its earliest form:


Mireault may have been best known for his non-super superhero comics The Jam, running many issues from a variety of publishers. Usually it was in black and white, but it did have the occasional color appearance, like this one from the Super Col Color-Infused Turbo Adventure from Hell #1:


And he would appear occasionally in various places, like a story in this Secret Origins Special, a short but notable run on Grendel, and somewhat bizarrely this one issue of the Blair Witch Project comic book tie-in.

His comic work declined in recent years, though he did have one final hurrah with the rerelease of some of his The Jam material, plus some new work, from my pal Nat Gertler’s publishing company About Comics. (In fact, Nat has dropped the price on the remastered trade paperback of the first The Jam series, basically selling them at cost to get more people exposed to Mireault’s wonderful work.

And yes, I did say his “last hurrah” up there, because, as you likely saw on this post’s subject line, Bernie Mireault is no longer with us. He was a wonderfully gifted talent in an industry that didn’t appreciate him as it should have. (A story, sadly, that has repeated itself several times.) I selfishly wish I could have had more from him, but I will still treasure what I got.

Pal Nat also has a tribute to the man.

So long, Bernie.

Assuming the original owner didn’t die or anything.

filed under Categories zines 9 Comments

Larry Hama, the masterful comics writer, occasional artist, and occasional M*A*S*H actor (no, really!) is the man responsible for what G.I. Joe is today. You’d think that alone would be enough for Mr. Hama to live a life of luxury and leisure in his later years, but alas, Big Corporations being what they are, the man hasn’t seen an extra dime of gratitude for the massive franchise he helped inform.

As such, Mr. Hama is striking out on his own to pull in some extra scratch, while also giving you some new funnybook entertainment. His new book, Mounties Vs. Werewolves (drawn by Guy Dorian Sr.) is being funded on Kickstarter, with only a few days to go on this campaign:


The project is nearly fully funded at this point, but I’m sure more money above and beyond the goal would be appreciated. Help if you can, spread the word either way.

• • •

Wouldn’t be a post on ProgRuin of late if there wasn’t some FANZINE TALK. Here’s just a minor thing from my collection, issue #175 of Comic Reader from 1979.


It’s a pretty swell drawing of Green Lantern and Sinestro by Don Newton, inked by Terry Austin. But if you look more closely, an inscription appears:


Yes, it’s a signature from Mr. Newton his own self, scribbled right there on that big red astronomical object. It is personalized, after a fashion, with “to my #1 fan,” and uh nobody tell the late Mr. Newton that I bought it second hand years ago. Not sure how big a fan this guy was, frankly, if he let it go that quickly.

This cold case is finally closed.

filed under Categories zines 5 Comments

Okay, I lied last time, I’m still doing ’70s ‘zine stuff today. Sorry, a mystery cropped up in my The Comic Reader collection, and it needed to be solved! I even sent a message to one of the folks involved in the mag around this time…but then I figured out the answer myself. Ah well.

So here’s the deal: I recently acquired two batches of Comic Readers…the one I discussed previously that contained issues sent to Sergio Aragones, and another set of issues 73-75 and 77. Now, I already had a #77 in my collection, but the batch was cheap enough that I went ahead and bit.

Then something funny happened. Here’s the #77 I received from eBay, a 8 1/2 by 11 publication (combined at the time with the ‘zine On the Drawing Board:


Here’s a close-up of the masthead:


However, here is the #77 I already had in my collection, a digest-sized item:


And the masthead for that:


Now it was about this time Paul Levitz took over The Comic Reader and combined it, for a while, with the Et Cetera ‘zine he did with Paul Kupperberg. My guess was that maybe there was a brain fart of some kind during the transition and there were just two #77s.

But a closer look points toward the full answer. Here is the masthead of issue #79, the second issue of the Levitz regime:


At this time, the combined Et Cetera/Comic Reader ‘zine kept the issue numbering for both publications. (And you thought Marvel’s current numbering system was confusing!) Et Cetera is at #11, and Comic Reader is #79.

Let’s look again at the digest-sized puported #77’s masthead:


This time Et Cetera is #10, matched up with that #77. Also, it’s the same month of publication as #79. It looks a whole lot like, unless #78 was matched up wtih Et Cetera #10.5, that there was indeed a misnumbering and this is in fact the first Levitz issue, #78.

And wouldn’t you know it, in an editorial piece on the back page of #79, here’s the explanation confirming it:


And there you go. Anyone out there wondering why they can’t find an issue of The Comic Reader numbered #78, that’s why. The larger Comic Reader #77 is the actual #77, the smaller digest-sized #77 is actually #78. THE MYSTERY IS SOLVED, you can all return to your homes.

The national nightmare of 1972 is over.

filed under Categories fanzines, retailing, swamp thing 11 Comments

So in The Comic Reader #87 from 1972, it was announced that some mailed Bernie Wrightson pages from Swamp Thing #2 had gone missing, with FOUL PLAY suspected. But here the next month’s issue, #88, we find…


…that the true culprit was the U.S. Postal Service all along! DARN YOU AND YOUR PERFIDY, 15-YEAR-OLD LOUIS DEJOY!

Anyhoo, let’s go back to some of the open questions we had on Monday’s post about 1986 comics ordering, now that I’d had a chance to bend the ear of my former boss Ralph about just what going on back then in Ye Olden Pre-Mike Tymes.

First off, that issue of GrimJack, #26, that had the first color Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles story: yes, Ralph ordered high on this. And yes, as I said, there appeared to be plenty left over, and Ralph confirmed that it did not sell all that well off the new shelf upon release.

Here, let’s look at that cover:


The TMNT story is blurbed right there at the top, above the logo. The cover image itself is a little busy, and the blurb itself doesn’t stand out quite as sharply as it could. Plus, the font doesn’t grab the Turtles fan’s eye quite as much as an actual Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle logo would have done, I’d think. And maybe if the main cover image itself had featured the Turtles, or even an inset pic of them in one of the top corners, that might have attracted more attention.

But this is all 20-20 hindsight editing, and what’s done is done. As I said, it did move some copies out of the back issue bins in following years, but it was never a huge draw. But that’s just one store’s experience, maybe it moved tons of copies elsewhere. Every clientele is different.

Now, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents…this wasn’t a question I’d posed in the previous post or anything, but I was just curious. How, I asked Ralph, did the Deluxe Comics edition of the comic whose name is a pain to type sell?

Ralph, himself a big fan of said property, noted that the initial issues of the Deluxe series (actually titled Wally Wood’s…) did quite well. And it’s no surprise, with some solid creators as George Pérez, Jerry Ordway, Keith Giffen, Steve Ditko, Dave Cockrum, and more on those early installments. But by the end of the run some of those folks had departed, and while the teams remaining on the book were perfectly fine, maybe the steam had run out a little. And the legal problems the book faced didn’t help, cutting it down after its fifth issue. Whatever the reason, interest in the series had waned by that point anyway.

And finally, that whole “Marvel’s New Universe” thing. That’s probably the subject of a whole post (or whole series of posts) just on its own, but I’ll try to keep it short and sweet here. My question to Ralph was “were people excited about the New Universe ahead of its release?” and his answer was “yes, very much so.” This was an exciting event in a time when Big Events weren’t an everyday thing in comics, and the last events that had happened, Crisis on Infinite Earths and Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, hadn’t killed interest. As Ralph put it, the fans weren’t quite as jaded yet.

Did that extend to ancillary products like, say, comic news magazines with articles on the New Universe project? Sure, to the extent that there were fans who bought stuff like this. Obviously, not everyone who reads comics is interested in how the sausage is made, the comics themselves being enough, but the news/views mag sales did wax and wane with featured topics and New Universe was a point of interest. Here is Something Big that Marvel was about to launch, and interest is high.

And when it did launch, yes, it sold quite well. But for various reasons, the interest dropped off and the whole initiative crawled to a halt within about three or four years. Again, there’s a lot of ground to cover in regards to the Life and Death of the New Universe and I’m not doing that today. Suffice to say, it started big, then became less so, with the occasional bump upwards (like when John Byrne took over Star Brand). Eventually the New Universe (specifically the aforementioned Star Brand) became a plot point in Mark Gruenwald’s Quasar and the whole NU concept has popped up at Marvel in various forms ever since.

• • •

Okay, next week, I’ll try to be talk about topics from this decade. No guarantees, thoough!

BREAKING SWAMP THING NEWS!!!

filed under Categories fanzines, swamp thing 8 Comments

…From Et Cetera & The Comics Reader #87 (1972):


I’m not sure I’d heard about this, or if I had I’ve forgotten in my dotage. I presume the art was found, since there are photos of some of those pages in the IDW Bernie Wrightson Artist Edition.

I’m still looking at the Comic Readers I acquired recently, so I’ll keep an eye out if there’s a follow-up blurb in a future issue.

• • •

Speaking of ‘zines, I’ve been perusing yet another one, Inside Comics #2 from Summer 1974. There’s a few pages of classified ads, mostly want lists and selling offers, but there’s a big ol’ section just for announcements like THESE:


Well, I don’t know how you did it, Bruce, but it’s fifty years later and comics are still here! Well done!


I wonder if he got one. I mean, $20 for this dumb comic printed on the worst paper and the Hulk isn’t even colored correctly? Take that guy’s money and run.


I…um, look, this is depressing, look away, look away.


This is clearly a transcription of some of what was said in those erased bits from Nixon’s White House tapes. Very timely on this person’s part.


MAAAAAAN, deep burn on Rascally Roy here. Someone wasn’t happy with the state of Marvel, with a bonus reference to the apparent paper shortages of the time.


Well, that’s one way to advertise your shop, I suppose. You can’t make it up!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen them referred to as “the little reptiles” before.

filed under Categories retailing 19 Comments

Hi pals! Okay, going back to that March 1986 Bud Plant catalog and looking at the second page of those ordering recommendations for comics retailers. (Reminder: I had some brief follow-ups on that first post here.)

Now I have lots of these old catalogs. I can keep doing this for weeks, but I know that would drive you all crazy, and me as well. I do plan on dipping into these on a semi-regular basis as I find them fascinating looks into comics retailing history, and sort of nudge my own brain cells a bit to remember how some of this stuff played out. (Or I bug my former boss Ralph, from whence these catalogs came, to see if he remembers.)


I know we seemed to have plenty of these in backstock, and they would sell out of the bins occasionally, but I can’t say for sure if they flew off the new comic rack upon release. The initial rush of Turtlemania had slowed a bit by this point, so I don’t think throwing a Donatello or whathaveyou into just any book equaled Big Sales Numbers. Yes, look for your follow-up on this once I pester Ralph about it.


I really wanted more March Hare than what we got. Sadly, a #2 was never to be. (I write a little about it here in this obituary for Keith Giffen.)


T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents is one of those properties that holds strong sway over the folks who remember (or have sought out via back issue bins) the original series and its handful of tie-ins, primarily inspired by the great artwork of Wally Wood and others. However, most attempted revivals seems to fall flat on their faces…I think DC and IDW were the latest attempts? It’s hard to keep track.

There were a lot of shenanigans regarding ownership of the property in the 1980s, such as what was going on with this very series noted in the above tip. That sixth Deluxe issue was never released.


Ouch. There was a time when giants of the past were not appreciated in the then-present, like Kirby and Ditko. It’s hard to tell exactly the tone of the tipster here, whether the world would not appreciate Ditko drawing Daredevil, or whether Ditko’s style as it was then did not suit the character.

Eh, I don’t know, looks okay to me (inks by Klaus Janson):


Okay, now this remains a very popular issue, almost just for that awesome cover alone. When that was available as a poster, it was like printing money. If Marvel’s listening (and their ears are everywhere — ew, gross) let me just say two words: FACSIMILE EDITION.

I mean, just look at this thing:


I cut that one off because the he does go into several solid reasons why the Classic X-Men reprint comic was a good idea, but that can be a whole other post on its own. Rather, I wanted to note the reference ot the Dreadstar reprints from the period, and I want to make sure I track down his comments on that because I can guess what he said. SPOILER: retailers and distributors weren’t thrilled with the Dreadstar reprints…not because of the contents, which are fine, but because of Marvel’s apparent “crowd out the competition” publishing strategy. You can read about it in Comics Journal #97 (where you’ll find a mention of my old boss Ralph in there).


While not getting the same attention as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles et al., I feel like Miami Mice is one of the better-regarded of that subgenre of the blank and white book, the “funny animal parody” comic. I mean, it was published by Rip Off Press, one of the classic underground companies, and appealingly cartooned by Mark Bodé. I’ve even sold copies of this out of my shop relatively recently.


I…I, um…that’s hard to say, honestly. One more question for Ralph: were people excited about the whole “New Universe” endeavor from Marvel at the start, or was it a whole lotta “oh, now what?” Like, was there enough interest to bump up sales on magazines with behind the scenes secrets and info like Comics Interview?

Just checked my own ‘zine collection, and I don’t have a Comics Interview #33 in there, but I do have #36, which has a big “NEW UNIVERSE” banner across the top of the front cover. So I guess there was enough interest to double-dip on the topic!

• • •

And speaking of double-dipping on topics, I’ll probably check out another one of these tips columns soon. Consider yourself forewarned!

In which I bug my old boss about comics he sold in 1986.

filed under Categories collecting, retailing 14 Comments

Okay, I’ve been dealing with bit of a stomach bug the last couple of days, so I’m going to keep this short. I had planned to look at the second page of distributor tips (first page here), but that’ll have to wait until next week.

I will address a couple of items from Monday’s post, however. I spoke to my former boss Ralph in regards to the Champions comic (based on the superhero role playing game, not Marvel’s weirdo team from the ’70s). Turns out, yes, the comic did sell very well initially, and, shockingly, did sell primarily to gamers versus your usual comic book fans. However, sales petered out pretty quickly.

And in regards to Watchmen #1, my assumptions as to his order numbers were correct…Ralph did order a lot, but not as many as, in retrospect, he should have because despite Alan Moore being red-hot in comics at the time, this was still an untested concept with new characters. As it turned out, he ordered pretty close to what he needed for the initial month or so, not quite selling out on the rack. But yes, he wished he’d ordered more, given how things worked out!

Also as an aside I asked him about Howard Chaykin’s Shadow mini and how that did for him, since that was offered in the tips page as the title to base your Watchmen numbers on . Yes, it sold very well, thank you (I know I bought a set!). I’m pretty sure I’ll find his specific orders in the stack of Bud Plant catalogs I have here, so when I track it down, I’ll provide an update.

And on Wednesday’s post, Daniel T asked if I have any plans for my comics after I go to the great comic convention in the sky? (Or, since I’m presuming a comic convention, more likely the other place.)

Well, given how I’m been feeling the last couple of days, not quite sure I want to dwell overlong on my presumed-eventual death. To be completely honest…I’m not sure. If comic book stores are still around, I’m presuming my collection will be taken to one of those, much like I’ve seen more than my fair share of collections of the recently passed make it into my store. At the very least, my collection may be better organized, theoretically, once I finally get everything sorted.

Ideally, if I live long enough, I’d like to get my personal collection winnowed down to a fraction of where it is now. My recent attempts at making passes through what I’ve got to sacrifice to the store have been relatively unsuccessful, however, so I may need to develop stronger willpower.

The whole “donate to the university” thing could be a possibility, at least for the fanzines. I’d hate to see that collection broken up, but hey, I’ll be pushing up daisies by then, chances are slim that I’d be in a position to really care.

And, you know, it’s possible I’ll have a family member who’d want to keep it all. That’d be fine with me.

At the very least, if, as I said, I live long enough, I could have one heck of a dollar sale and just move everything out. Come to the “Mike’s About to Croak” Sale, the first weekend in March 2056 at Sterling Silver Comics!

Oh the things I’ve ‘zine.

filed under Categories zines 19 Comments

So I’m a collector of fanzines, as I’m sure some of you have clocked over the years. The first ‘zine I was into was The Comic Reader, which began in the early ’60s and ran through issue #219 in 1984.

I started tracking down issues of this in the early ’90s, sometimes buying a lot or two from a seller in the classified ads of the Comic Buyers’ Guide, a dozen for ten bucks. Once eBay came along, I found more there, even as the prices slowly began to creep up. The most I ever spent was $30 on a copy of #11 from 1962 (follow that link to discover its original publisher Jerry Bails’ reaction to my purchase).

Now, prices had been creeping up a bit on these, as other collectors started to discover them, and I’ve sort of held off filling holes in my own run…especially as the ones I need tend to be the earlier issues. A check on eBay recently shows a lot more copies of The Comic Reader than I remember seeing on there before. While by and large not as expensive as I’d thought they’d be, there is the occasional extreme example that shows me I got quite the bargain on that #11 way back when:


So, you know, if any of you want to do some early shopping for Christmas presents for me….

But all that said, I did acquire some more issues for my collection, 7 in all from my former boss Ralph, making my run of The Comic Reader complete from issue #81 all the way to the end. I do have some scattered issues prior to that, but it’s nice to have an unbroken streak of about 60% of the series. (And did I just put in a bid on some other issues I’m missing, since I was looking at eBay? Maaaaaybe.)

I thought I’d show off a few here for your amusement, specifically the ones with the full art front covers. Like this one cover dated March 1972:


A great Thor drawing by our pal Rich Buckler, no? Maybe I should also note that for a time, The Comic Reader was combined with another fanzine, Etcetera, hence the hybrid name on some of these. Oh, and also, future DC Comics head honcho Paul Levitz was the editor on these.


Issue #87 here, also from ’72, contains the news that DC acquired the publishing rights to the original Captain Marvel, which was a HUGE deal at the time, leading, eventually, to copies of that first issue filling quarter and 50-cent boxes everywhere for decades. Until, you know, someone realized “oh wait so many of these were dumped in bargain bins that now there aren’t so many still in mint condition” and that’s how Shazam #1 is suddenly a pricey book.

Anyway, the story inside says “DC bought rights” which makes it sound like they owned the characters outright, but DC was actually licensing the characters from original publisher Fawcett until DC acquired them in full years later. And I’ll just note here that cover is by Alan Kupperberg, since I didn’t say so before and I’m not going back to reedit.


Now that’s a cover! Bernie Wrightson just Shadow-ing it up all over the place here on #88. Looks great, very striking.


As is that Don Rosa drawing of Jack Kirby’s Demon. This ‘zine was published in ’72, pretty close to the same time the first issue of The Demon was released. These guys work fast! Also, if you’re not familiar, Don Rosa did lots of ‘zine illustration (on top of all those Lance Pertwillaby/Captain Kentucky strips) prior to becoming famed as The Other Good Duck Artist on all those Uncle $crooge and Donald Duck comics he’d eventually start doing in the ’80s. That said…I’d read a Demon comic he wrote and drew. That’d be pretty buck wild.

Should note those two spots at the bottom center…that was from an old rusty staple that had held the mag together in the mails. Now that ‘zine looks like a really tiny, sloppy vampire bit it.

As an additional bonus, these Comic Reader had originally belonged to someone who eventually passed them along to my old boss Ralph, who apparently had them stashed away for years. That certain someone?


That’s pretty cool. Yes, I obscured the address…he doesn’t live there anymore, but I’m sure whoever does would prefer not to have a parade of strangers at the door, looking for that handsome mustachioed man what does the cartoons.

Yes, “Bud Plant” is a real person, I’ve spoken to him on the phone.

filed under Categories byrne reboot, retailing, watchmen 11 Comments

So I was going through some of my old boss Ralph’s distributor catalogs an’ such that he’d saved for all these years and found a new treasure trove of material. In particular, it’s the “recommended order numbers” type of thing that I absolutely adore. A while back I featured some tip sheets from a distributor published in the early ’80s (1 2 3), and on a mildly different note, remember this distributor’s suggestion for ordering future issues of Miracleman?

Anyhoo, I found a punch of mid-1980s Bud Plant catalogs with just pages and pages of ordering suggestions, and they are absolutely wonderful, a great mirror into a particular period of this ridiculous industry’s history. Like my fascination with fanzines (hopefully more on that in a future ProgRuin post), these bits of editorializing mixed in amongst the many listings of orderable products let’s us see kind of what people were thinking about comics at the time. And to my specific interest, what people were thinking from the sales/distribution side, versus the fan side (though in fairness, often the twain shall meet).

This selection of excerpts comes from the March 1986 Bud Plant catalog, under this amusing logo:


One thing I’d sorta forgotten about was that Dave Sim was trying to keep Cerebus to a very tight schedule, with the intent of the last issue, #300, coming out in a specific month and year. So, when he fell behind, he had to catch up, and he did so by just crankin’ out those issues Bill-Jemas-at-Marvel style with no regard to monthly release:


I’ll tell you, as someone super into Cerebus at the time, I wasn’t happy about those small publishing gaps, but sure liked it when a several issues came out right on top of each other.


You know, I was never quite sure what happened there. I think I figured this whole time “Eagle” and “Quality” were the same company, and just underwent a name change. At any rate, we filed their miscellaneous titles together at the previous place of employment. Just never looked into it, I suppose. I guess, despite my best efforts, I’ve learned something today.


Ooh boy, I do love me some Eclipse comics. Thought I’d just lump ’em all together here rather than doing the titles individually. Stuff like Scout and Mr. Monster are mostly forgotten today, which is a shame, but those are solid books worth seeking out. And the Mr. Monster title underwent many stylistic changes over its short run, but all were entertaining. I seem to recall that Giffen story mentioned there was pretty good.

“Hamsters 3-D #1″ is of course “Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters,” the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles knock-off out of the gate (the last one out of the gate being, I’m pretty sure, this title). This comic, flying in the face of all logic and reason, still has legs, and in fact sold some issues of it (including one of the 3-D mags!) on Sunday. It’s probably some residual effect of the Turtles’ continuing popularity, dragging the Hamsters along in its wake. And pretty much just the Hamsters…you don’t see the Geriatric Gangrene Jujitsu Gerbils or the Pre-Teen Dirty-Gene Kung-Fu Kangaroos doing that, do you?

Champions I do not recall selling a lot of, to be honest. I mean, I started in comics retail a couple of years after this, so maybe I missed the title’s heyday, but it certainly didn’t sell a whole lot out of the back issue bins. I’ll have to ask my former boss if it did sell, and if it did get that crossover gamer audience.

And ah yes…the aforementioned Miracleman, and in fact the very issue discussed in the link I posted above. But I checked the order listing in this catalog, and it credits Alan Moore with Chuck Beckum (AKA Chuck Austen), and there’s a mention, both in this tip and in the solicitation, of the New Wave preview. This sounds like the contents of #8, as the actual published #9 is the “birth issue” by Moore and Rick Veitch. As the tip also notes, this is around the time of the flooding of Eclipse’s offices, so scheduling was a total mess at this point. Plus, unless I’m missing something, Miracleman never had a Frank Miller cover.

Okay, now here are a couple I should probably save for more discussion of the Superman reboot by John Byrne, but, eh, here they are anyway:


Now here’s the Thing: I actually have Ralph’s original order numbers for all these comics, handwritten in these catalogs. And it just so happens that I have the February 1986 catalog as well, and comparing numbers…yes, Ralph followed this advice, and ordered twice the number he did on issue #96 (with Blue Devil). Now further investigation will likely show what his average order numbers were on the title (he might have bumped it up a little for the Blue Devil issue, since folks liked that character).


What’s interesting here is the optimism for Byrne’s version of Superman, though the start of the tip almost reads like the opposite reaction. Byrne was hot hot hot at the time, so I suspect people were pretty excited for the Big Changes coming up. I mean, some people weren’t thrilled about the changes, I know, but given the Super-titles’ crap sales at the time (therefore necessitating the revamp), they weren’t reading those comics anyway. And they probably bought the Byrne issues. So there.


Okay, I love this one because of the “Better than The Shadow tag, which of course means “order more than you did on The Shadow” but for all the world looks like “hey, Watchmen might be a better comic than The Shadow, maybe check it out.”

Did Ralph follow this advice? I don’t know, I haven’t found his Shadow numbers yet. But this is referring to the Howard Chaykin Shadow mini-series, which, as I recall, was a very popular comic (even as it outraged the Shadow purists who were still alive at the time). Ralph’s Watchmen orders were high, the highest of any DC that month, but still it seems like they were lower than I expected, relative to all the other numbers I’m seeing. Then again, this was a new comic featuring new characters at a higher price point even if by admittedly a hot writer…and nobody had any idea this was going to turn into a phenomenon. Mostly just 20-20 hindsight surprise, is all.

Okay, those were just from the first page of that month’s tip sheet. Will I look at more of these in the near future? Probably! I’ve got at least two dozen or more of these catalogs here…I could probably just talk about this for the next few months. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind.