Comic book ad, 1982 – art by Bill Willingham

My own interaction with Dungons & Dragons was relatively brief — basically just during my junior high school years. Rather, my interaction as a player was brief, as I ended up ordering and selling the things through our comic book store for many years (until we finally sold off that part of the business).

But, brief as my stint as a player was, I still look back on it with some fondness. I still remember my preferred character (a halfling fighter by name of “Fearless Fred Samsonite” — yes, I named him after luggage…well, I thought it was funny), and I still remember designing dungeons on graph paper, and it was quite a bit of fun for a little while.

Until, that is, one of my crazy neighbors got it into his head that he was going to save the neighborhood children from the satanic influence of D&D, and started passing around tapes of religious programs where the evil of fantasy gaming was revealed for all! I listened to one or two of them, shaking my head in disbelief as one person who called into the show, I remember clearly, claiming his copy of the Dark Tower game was talking to him from the closet at night, and it obviously was possessed by demons! (Or maybe he should have just turned it off before putting it away.)

I thought it was ridiculous, which it obviously was, but my more gullible neighbors bought into it, and that was pretty much that for my childhood D&D experience.

Anyway, at the time I appreciated D&D for what it was, a relatively complex game of imagination and adventure, and probably not a gateway into sin and devil worship.

So thanks, Gary Gygax, for providing me with a game that gave me a chance as a young’un to exercise my brain and my creativity. I may poke fun at what you have wrought once in a while, but there’s no denying that you’re a Geek Icon among Geek Icons, and the world is just a little less geekier for having lost you.

So long, Gary.

We’ll occasionally break down some of the trading card boxes we get in to put together sets for the shop, and put the special cards on the eBay. I love the sketch cards, where they wrangle some artists together to hand-draw original images to be randomly inserted into packs. I like these more than your standard chase card…that you’re actually receiving a piece of original art seems more exciting than yet another foil card or hologram or something.

A couple of neat ones we’ve turned up recently:

This one is from the “Lord of the Rings Masterpieces II” set. I don’t know if it comes through in the scan, but there is a lot of heavily-detailed crosshatching in this drawing. I don’t know how many drawings each artist had to do for this set, but it’s nice to see that this artist put a bit of effort into this piece.

Here’s another sketch card from that set, and HOLY CRAP:

I think my favorite sketch card in recent memory has to be this next one, from the “Star Wars 30th Anniversary” set. I almost kept it for myself, in fact:

Boy, I just pulled that scan off our eBay auction, and I thought my scan of the card was better than that. Better get a nice big scan of it for, you know, archival records of sold items before I ship it off.

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In other news:

• The nigh-inimitable Johnny Bacardi points me in the direction of this blog posting, featuring a proposed animation pitch called “The Mighties.” Among the DC heroes included is…why, yes, Swamp Thing, how’d you guess?

  Disturbingly cute, or cutely disturbing? YOU DECIDE.

• Pal Dorian had let his site “The Cheater Pants of Mike Sterling” rest for a while, but he’s slowly revving it up again. And this time he’s gone too far, too far! I won’t stand for this libel! (I’ll sit instead!)

  I find the comments for another post there interesting, if not outright flattering. For example, Gordon of Blog THIS, Pal! states that he thought I was the CCH Pounder of comics blogging, and I only wish I was that cool.

  However, I nominate Dario for sainthood for rising to my defense:

  “Mike Sterling is like Leif Garrett, David Cassidy, and MODOK rolled into one! His pants are honest and virtuous! This blog is an abomination! Dorian shall be the first against the wall when the revolution comes!”

  So few people understand me like Dario does.

• To Nathaniel, who kept asking “Congorilla?” in my comments section for yesterday’s post…
  YES, CONGORILLA!

  

  

  from DC Comics Presents #27 (Nov. 1980) by Bob Rozakis, Romeo Tanghal & Frank Chiaramonte

I’ve always had a particular fondness for this ad campaign of DC’s from back in 1980, where they were ballyhooing the addition of eight additional story pages to all their books. To an eleven-year-old Mikester, that sounded pretty cool…I mean, look at these characters DC was going to be featuring with all that extra space:

There was another ad in Green Lantern, specifically plugging that book’s forthcoming Adam Strange back-up, which had the same stamps surrounding this image:

I remember being a bit puzzled by this stamp:

…with “Batman and Robin appearing in Batman,” until I realized that Robin wasn’t always in the Bat-books during this period, and it was a special event when Dick Grayson wasn’t away at college, or hanging with the Titans, or whatever. There’s at least one issue of Batman or Detective with the cover-blurb “guest-starring ROBIN” which must have baffled at least some casual comic readers unfamiliar with the state of the Bat-books at that point.

Let’s see….the Wonder Twins popped up in Extreme Justice, DC’s “look, we can be like Image Comics, too” series, and Jack O’Lantern showed up here and there in the regular DCU, usually in the Justice League comics, with a new version featured in Primal Force. The Seraph’s most recent appearance was an issue of Justice League Quarterly, as far as I can tell, but maybe one of you folks know better than I do.

In case you can’t read what that says in the next scan, it reads “The Misadventures of Superbaby:”

Remember when we could have silly stories about, say, a Superbaby going off and having wacky adventures? Imagine DC trying that now, and the resulting message board hoohar: “DEAR DC i find that the Use of superbaby is INNAPROPRIATE and UNDERMINES the seriosness of earths number1 superhero SUPERMAN plese have SUPERMAN fight DOOMDAY again.”

Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh, but I know that’s how some people online react to the very idea of Krypto, too. I’ve seen it. How can anyone not love Krypto? That boggles the mind.

Oooh, mysterious:

I never really took to the character, myself…I wanted eight more pages of Batman team-up in my Brave & The Bold comic, not a guy in a black turtleneck runnin’ around shooting people. But these stories did have some nice Dan Spiegle art, and I thought maybe they’d make a nice black and white Showcase Presents volume except for the fact the Nemesis run is about 200 pages short of the usual Showcase size, at least.

That white-haired guy on the left is far too smug for my taste:

Yeah, yeah, laugh it up there, buddy, but who still has a planet? Oh, that’s right, I do.

So, let’s see:

Hourman’s back in the Justice Society, thanks to some time-travelling whoop-de-doo. Sargon appears up in multiple issues of Swamp Thing, briefly shows up in the Books of Magic mini, and his sorcerous mantle is passed on to a relative of his during the whole Helmet of Fate thing. And Congorilla had a four issue mini (which writer Steve Englehart briefly discusses, along with featuring scans of all four issues), and he turned up in that all-gorilla Swamp Thing annual. It all comes back to Swamp Thing with me, doesn’t it?

I wasn’t planning on dipping into the same well twice in a row like this, but I came across another letter of comment from an old issue of Green Lantern (this time #132, Sept. 1980), and wanted to mention it.

So here we go…a question from an inquisitive GL fan:

And the reply from then-editor Jack C. Harris;

That is such an entirely messed-up situation that one wishes they’d actually gone through with it, so today we’d have something else to look back upon and say “what the hell were they thinking?” Just picture it…Hal and his pal Alan, the Green Lantern of Earth-2, trying to fight some bad guy or ‘nother and finding themselves hindered by their own rings, who are too busy whispering sweet nothings to each other. Those sweet nothings would be in those jagged-edge word balloons the GL rings usually speak in, of course.

And that the ring’s personality is apparently Hal’s own subconscious…well, that’s even more deliciously insane. I see a cover, with a clearly distressed Hal front ‘n’ center, while the ghostly images of girlfriend Carol Ferris and Alan Scott’s ring finger loom behind him. “I must pick which one I love the most!” shouts Hal to himself, in that declarative way once common to superhero funnybook covers. “But who? WHO!?” And in big bold letters along the bottom of the cover: “THE DECISION!”

…

I wish I were better at Photoshop.

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No less a personage than former employee Kid Chris popped by the shop on Saturday, where he purchased the latest issue of All Star Batman and Robin, thus identifying himself as a man of quality and taste.

Anyway, Chris mentioned that he wanted to go to the San Diego Comic Con dressed as Wolverine, and I mentioned maybe he should dress as “Patch” (Wolverine’s alleged “disguise” he used in early issues of his first ongoing series). Somehow that evolved into Chris dressing as the gray “Mr. Fixit”-era Hulk, and me dressing as “Patch,” essentially meaning that Chris and I would be in costume as the cover of Wolverine #8 (June 1989):

Honestly, I think I’m at the point where I’ve forgotten how to have an adult conversation.

Anyway, before the tragedy that is the San Diego Con, we have the looming menace of the Wizard World L.A. con to worry about, which, as I said, I’d be attending for some reason. And pal Dorian will be there with me, too, and I’m mentioning it here since Kid Chris and his partner in Bispectacult-crime Dafna will also be in attendance. And we’re all going to ask the various guests if any of them would give us horsey-back rides. “WHEEE! Giddy-yap!” I’d shout, my flowing golden mane waving in the wind as we charge around the dealer tables, dodging guys dressed as Klingons and people trying to sell their CGCed issues of Camp Candy.

Okay, I’m totally kidding…we really wouldn’t ask anyone to do that. Well, maybe if Quesada were there….

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Oh, hey, I noticed via referrals that Neil Gaiman linked to my site the other day, which immediately made me worry “Oh, crap, what’d I say about him?” in the same way I always do whenever I find out someone comics-famous has suddenly decided to pay attention to this silly thing I do here. Luckily it was just a link to this post where I quote an old Overstreet sales report, in which X-Force received praise for its excellent market exploitation, while Gaiman’s Sandman was dinged for not doing enough to generate long-term interest. I still think that particular report is a hoot, and I’m glad Mr. Gaiman found it at least somewhat amusing. I hope.

I wonder if that person’s posting on message boards now. But dude, honestly, he ripped a page out of a Green Lantern comic, wrote his missive on it, and mailed it in. That’s…that’s something else, really, but I bet that sort of thing wasn’t all that uncommon. At least it wasn’t, you know, part of a dead animal or anything sticky.

That letter was from Green Lantern #167 (Aug ’83), and at that point, editor Ernie Colon was doing his best to, if not run, at least mention every letter that came in to the Green Lantern office. Which meant dealing with the occasional person whose power ring wasn’t fully charged, of course, but that also meant running nice, simple, and sincere letters from children:

Even a jaded old grumpypants like myself can appreciate the enthusiastic innocence present here, as well as Colon’s friendly and amusing response (that Zatanna is “too busy” — sorry, kid, she’s all booked up at the moment). It also seems that young Mr. “K. S., Age 11” was at just the right age to begin realizing that there ain’t no comic that can’t be improved by an appearance by Zatanna:

Though looking at the letter again…at the time, the Green Lantern Corps comprised the back-up stories in the book, so I assumed that K.S. meant that he wanted to have Zatanna stories as back-ups instead.

But…what if…what if…he actually meant that he wanted Zatanna to join the Green Lantern Corps? To borrow a Chris Sims-ism: great idea, or greatest idea?

I’ve been kinda sorta occupied lately, reducing my time to post big and mighty like strong warrior on this here weblog, though I made some space in the schedule (i.e. got fewer hours of sleep) to get the End of Civilization out on time. Yeah, I know, boo hoo, poor Mikester had trouble finding time to goof off on the internet.

The tragedy is even greater, he said half-sarcastically, since I barely found time to read any of this week’s new funnybooks. Unread new funnybooks, with more than 24 hours having passed since their arrival? Oh, the nerdity! But, you know, I figure I’ve waited six months, more or less, to read Nexus #100, what’s another day or two?

But by God, I made sure I read All Star Batman and Robin #9. Is there a more beautiful comic? (The answer is “no, there is no more beautiful comic than All Star Batman and Robin,” in case you were wondering.)

In other news:

• For my money, of which I have none but go with me here, there may be no wiser commentator on the state of comics, comics fans, and the comics industry than this man. He brings a dose of levelheadedness, reality, and, well, adulthood, to a world too often dominated by hysterics, hyperbole, straw men arguments, and just plain lack of knowledge about the very things these alleged commentators are most passionate about.

  This post, in particular, very neatly dissects some recent fanboy hoohar in entertaining, and enlightening, fashion.

• So Graeme on the Newsarama blog noted a message from Mark Millar about his new Marvel comic Kick-Ass, who was worried that the book would do poorly due to a lack of customer awareness, as “we have no Marvel marketing machine behind us here.”

  Here’s the thing. If your comic is getting published by Marvel Comics, “buyer awareness” isn’t an issue. Being published by Marvel is having the Marvel marketing machine behind you. Sure, if you’re being published by A Very Small Comic Book Company Run Out of the Garage, Ltd., you’re buried in the back pages of Previews, and trying to get comic fans to be aware of your book is a challenge. But at Marvel…like Kevin said, you’re getting plenty of push from Marvel, not to mention comics news site mentions (like, oh, say, that very post on Blog@Newsarama), and, if you’re Millar, your own highly-trafficked website. And, since Millar just came off writing a best-selling mini-series event for Marvel, an event that impacted pretty much every title Marvel publishes, it’s not as if he’s some unknown quantity. He’s a Big Name Comics Writer at the moment, so anything he works on is going to attract some amount of attention. Particularly if it’s coming from Marvel.

  So, in short, if your Marvel comic doesn’t sell, it’s not going to be because no one’s aware of it. It’ll be because no one wants it.

  However, Mr. Millar will be glad to know that our customers apparently do want it, because we’ve already sold through all our copies. So stop bellyaching, you old worrywart. And get Marvel to do a second printing on this comic, instead of second printings on comics that don’t need ’em.

• Kevin Church has apparently invented the 48-hour day, as he’s begun yet another blog project for himself. At least this time he’s gone the group blog route to lighten his load a tad. Go, visit, be appalled.
• My visit to Wizard World Los Angeles next month appears to be a “go,” so if you’re in the L.A. area on March 15th, and you’ve been waiting for your chance to find me and beat me up, that’ll be your big day. “Et tu, Progressive Ruin reader?”

Once more unto the breach, my friends, as we plow together through another Diamond Previews catalog. Pull out your copy of the March 2008 edition, pour yourself a frosty drink…and hey, get me one, too, while you’re at it…and follow along as I document the horrors within. (Previous installments, as always, are located in the sidebar somewhere, beneath all the ads.)

p. 183 – Top Cow Summer Reading Set:

“Get a grab bag of 10 awesome Top Cow comics in this mystery pack and kick off your summer right! Plus get at least 1 limited edition variant cover in each pack!”

“They’ve been gathering dust on the warehouse shelves, so it was either this or the recycler! Enjoy your copies of Hunter Killer and Universe!”

p. 216 – Fathom #0:

“Michael Turner’s Fathom makes its triumphant return for the thrilling third volume!”

And once it hits about, oh, issue fourteen or so, when this series peters out, too, I’m sure we’ll see the fantastic fourth volume of Fathom, with yet another number 1. Excuse me, number 0.

The day a Fathom series hits issue #25, I may drop dead from the shock.

p. 252 – The Man with No Name #1:

Oh, hey, a comic based on the old Clint Eastwood movies! Cool! Hmmm, what’s this variant cover, here….

A…a zombie variant? You’re kidding me, right?

“Featuring covers by regular artist Richard Isanove (Dark Tower), as well as a special ‘zombie’ cover by Arthur Suydam….”

Oh dear. Why, why?

p. 398 – 500 Essential Graphic Novels SC:

I hope that’s the actual cover (a panel from Watchmen, in case you didn’t know), because I find it amusing that a book about this “fascinating and innovative form” is being sold with an image of an old man about to be beaten to death his one of his own trophies.

p. 399 – Native Americans in Comic Books: A Critical Study:

Oh, my. This won’t end well, will it? (“Positive portrayals of Indians in comics: Turok. Now, onto the other 250+ pages of this book….”)

(Yes, I know there were other positive portrayals. Don’t poop on my joke.)

p. 406 – The Men’s Underwear Kit:

“This complete kit contains all the essential underwear-repair power tools a man could need, including needle and thread, iron-on patches, two safety pins, an elastic waistband, duct tape, white-out, and a 32-page Instruction MAN-u-al that clearly demonstrates the ins and outs of proper maintenance and repair to turn that one pair into an ever-wear.”

Not stocking this book, because…well, look, I love my customers, but the last thing in the world I want to think about is THEIR UNDERWEAR.

p. 410 – Seagalogy: A Study of the Ass-Kicking Films of Stevan Seagal SC:

Solicitation includes warning that the writer of this book is “known to millions for his hilarious [sic] reviews on the Ain’t It Cool News website.” So consider that before you order it, Sims.

And besides…on this very page is a book about a man who holds more knowledge about ass-kicking than Mr. Seagal could ever hope to achieve:

There is nothing wrong with you that the Shat can’t fix…with his hands.

EDIT: Okay, apparently I picked on the one person at AICN with actual talent, judging by some of the response I’ve been getting. I mean, honestly, what were the odds of finding the one guy? Anyway, here’s his site, so read up, you.

p. 411 – Facebook Book SC:

“…Full of anecdotes (true and semi-true), tips (useful and useless), and other insights, including chapters on the Ethics and Etiquette of using the ‘Book, what your profile really says about you, and a Facebook dictionary.”

A new release from the “Direct to the Remainder Table” library, apparently.

p. 412 – Star Wars Holocron Pop-Up Limited Collector’s Edition:

“Last chance! Less than 50 still available” out of a 500 copies print run, says the solicit. Hmmm…wonder why…oh, wait, it must be the three hundred dollar price tag.

p. 425 – Elvis Is Trading Cards:

p. 428 – Silly Supermarket 2008 Stickers Trading Cards:

“…The affordable and easy-to-complete 30-card die-cut set pokes fun at some of todayís most popular brand names, including ‘Spite,’ ‘Small Bark Franks,’ ‘Chef Poor-Artie,’ and more!”

I wonder if the set includes a parody of Wacky Packages?

p. 438 – Wolverine Enameled Cufflinks:

“On those rare occasions when Logan, the X-Man better-known as Wolverine, needs to dress up for a formal event, he uses these cufflinks to give his dress shirt that extra touch.”

So Wolverine wears cufflinks…with his own face on them? Does anyone else do this? I mean, aside from Donald Trump?

p. 456 – The Princess Bride Fezzik the Giant Talking Plush:

Dude, this is totally an André the Giant plushie doll. That talks. In a fair and decent world, this would have it all over those Elmo things.

p. 468 – Mandrake the Magician Statue:

For the eighty-year-old in your life.

Oh, okay, fine. To be fair, he does have a killer expression:

“BEWARE! I DO MAGIC AT YOU NOW!”

p. 474 – Star Trek Icons Commander Spock Bust:

Sigh. Okay, here we go…obvious joke in 3…2….

“Captain, it appears something has happened to my arms. I find it most…illogical.”

No, I’m not proud.

p. 476 – Star Wars Kustomz Sandcrawler Rotocast Figure:

As it says, that pick is not the final version of the product, as they apparently need to pour more jugs-full of ABSOLUTE CREEPINESS into this item. GAH.

p. 517 – Predator 20th Anniversary Edition Machete:

I have to say, when I reflect upon my fond memories of the initial Predator movie, what comes to mind generally isn’t the prop machetes they were wavin’ around.

p. 520 – Nintendo NES Controller Belt Buckle:

I shudder to think of the number of nerdy and inappropriate sexual advances this thing is going to be responsible for. “Hey, baby, wanna enter your cheat code?”

p. 523 – Sweeney Todd Shaving Kit:

In a strange way, this is sort of brilliant.

Also, there’s two full pages of Sweeney Todd stuff in this catalog. This would be known as the “Hot Topic Restock Section.”

And as long as I’m on a bit of a tangent, there sure is a lot of merchandise for last year’s movies in here. How much more Pirates of the Caribbean stuff am I going to sell? Is now really the right time to order Cloverfield one-sheets? Yes, I know there are DVDs still being (or about to be) sold for these properties, but that doesn’t seem to drive the merchandise frenzy the same way an actual film in an actual theatre does. I can’t help but think this is a lot of stuff of the “well, couldn’t sell ’em in real stores, let’s dump ’em on the comic shops” variety.

Or, again, it’s all there to restock your local Hot Topic.

p. 523 -Tin Motorcycle with Rider:

“Slightly chubby and very charming, this roguish motorcyclist enjoys the ride on his tin motorbike.”

Only noted because “Slightly chubby and very charming since 1969” will be added to my rotating taglines.

p. 529 – Hulk board games:

I can’t decide which is my favorite…the “Hulk Smash” board game:

“Smash your way through a cityscape, Hulk-style, in this Make ’em, Move ’em, and Mash ’em constructive (and destructive) board game!”

The “Operation Hulk” board game:

“Poor Hulk is sick, so you better operate quick! Combining classic Operation game play with the Incredible Hulk, this board game features light-up and ‘roaring’ effects.”

But I think it has to be the Don’t Wake Hulk” board game:

…if only because you apparently play various Marvel Super-Heroes doing their damnedest not to stir the wrath of a groggy Hulk from his mid-afternoon nap.

p. 534 – Monopoly Peanuts Edition Board Game:

Well, crap, I suppose it was only a matter of time before they finally hit upon a Monopoly variation that I’m going to want.

Hey, you know what’d be funny? “Monopoly – The Das Kapital Edition.” Well, okay, maybe not that funny. Look, I’m writing this at one in the morning after a New Comics Day…you’re lucky you’re getting complete sentences out of me.

Marvel Previews p. 35 – The Invincible Iron Man #1:

Hey, you know what we’re not going to need after the Iron Man movie comes and goes from general release? Yes, that’s right — multiple ongoing Iron Man series…how’d you guess? Especially since no Iron Man comic sells well at our shop, after Marvel spent the better part of a year making sure fans no longer liked him.

Well, at least this series looks pretty good. Maybe this one can stick around when they cancel the rest.

Marvel Previews p. 108 – Essential Rampaging Hulk Vol. 1 TPB:

Just so I’m not Mr. Gloomypants McGripealot, I will say this collection of the stories from the Hulk magazines will be absolutely fantastic, even if Mr. Shooter’s absolute nadir as a comics writer won’t be around ’til the next volume. (Yes, Jim Shooter wrote something worse than Warriors of Plasm. Hard to believe, I know.)

from Turok Son of Stone #112 (Nov. 1977)

Congratulations to the granddaddy of comics webloggers, Neilalien, on the occasion of the eighth anniversary of his site!

Not only has he been an inspiration in his excellent news linkblogging, his occasional extended commentary, and the periodical bit of silliness, but he was the first comics blogger that I know of who sorta “adopted” a character as a focus of his site. You folks reading this know I like Swamp Thing, and you’re probably aware that pal Dorian has a thing for Wildcat, but it was Neilalien who blazed the trail with his Dr. Strange-centric weblogging. But it isn’t just a fansite…the Dr. Strange-related links and info are just a backbone upon which Neilalien hangs his industry observations. Not that the good Doctor is always the focus of every post, but rather just a thread that runs throughout his entire site, tying everything together with a thematic consistency that people like, say, me, with my more scattershot presentations, can only hope for.

Plus, on a more personal note, Neilalien offered his assistance in my early weblogging days, giving me tips on image posting and formatting and so on, which I appreciated greatly. And I know several other bloggers who benefited from his advice and wisdom.

So thank you, Neil! Thanks for the eight years of quality weblogging in your unique voice. Here’s to many more years!

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In other news:

• Beaucoupkevin discovers an old article about an unfortunately lost piece of technology.
• “A Swamp Thing at the Oscars” – an article about budget film costuming, featuring an image of a homemade Swamp Thing costume. Also features an autoplaying video, so look out, you. (Link via pal Ian and reader Ostrakos.
• Speaking of Swamp Thing, John Whalen, the writer of Swamp Thing spin-off The Un-Men (which just started a new storyline – great place to start!), has a weblog of his very own. And he links to my AskCranius Swamp Thing search engine…guess I’d better add his site to the database.