Doug: Welcome back to the Spinner Rack, kids! You know I randomly choose these months and years, but when I was messing around on Mike's Amazing World of Comics I saw that this month was right in my personal buying wheelhouse. It looks like I've owned 18-20 books that were for sale this month, at one time or another. But I do see many that I know I purchased at retail. As always, the link above takes you to Mike's, and the link in the date below takes you to the kind folks at the Comic Book Database.
18 comments:
18 for me as well, Doug. (Geeze, and all of them still downstairs in my longboxes--)
Boy, you nailed this one. What a TON of assorted memories. I can't believe how many quite-new titles were on the racks-- Warlord, Howard the Duck, Red Sonja in Marvel Feature, Skull the Slayer-- how in the world was I affording this?
Ah, wait-- this would have been the winter of '76, which was a darned heavy one, IIRC, so I probably had a steady stream of snow-shoveling cash right then.
Poor old Werewolf By Night-- we were really winding into the end of that run. As was often the case w/ that title, it had a darned good, eye-catching cover--- but you were only rewarded with Don Perlin interiors. That's MoonKnight (of course), The Hangman, and Dr Glitternight on the cover, there. What a mess of a convoluted storyline. . .
But so many other memorable storylines from my own collecting choices: The HULK story was surprisingly bittersweet, and was near the very beginning of Sal B's long run on the book (we were still adjusting to Herb Trimpe's departure, in fact); FF had us working through Luke Cage's brief replacing of a "cured" Ben; DEFENDERS had was in the midst of the wild Headmen arc (mostly Sal & Klaus Janson on the art, I do believe); DEATHLOK was never NOT utterly cool; CONAN, I don't remember the specific storyline, but it was a solid enjoyable period for that book, as well. . . and on and on. This was sort of a little, grand "Bronze-Within-the-Bronze" Age for me personally, yep.
HB
Ha - I remember some of those covers as UK reprints especially the Planet Of The Apes one which for us was the cover of POTA #67 for the week ending January 31st 1976. I don't remember that giant gorilla in the film though :) But in the strip itself Doug Moench was fond of writing scenes that never happened in the films (like Nova being pregnant !!)
I was still in my piecemeal phase at this point, still just pulling one or two titles off of the grocery store spinner rack if the cover struck me as attractive. Looking over this month's offerings at Mike's, I think I only bought two of these at the time: Freedom Fighters #1 and DC's Four-Star Spectacular #1. (I did, however, read quite a few of the Marvel books a few years later: Champions, Defenders, Amazing Adventures and Jungle Action.)
I have to say, as before, I'm really liking the covers to Charlton's romance comics. The cover to Secret Romance #37 in particular is quite striking.
Oh, yeah: this month's Richie Rich tally is 10.
This month's tally for me would be about 20; like Doug, right in my peak buying time. Standouts were Omega the Unknown 1, Defenders (as HB noted, featuring that great Headmen storyline) and Hulk (which I bought for that fine Wrightson cover and the Man-Thing appearance). At that point, anything by Steve Gerber would earn my quarter.
Then there was the Marvel Treasury Edition with the team-ups; I was picking up the treasuries religiously. Not sure how I afforded it, though. These books would have appeared on the stand in December 75, so some Christmas gift funds probably helped. Perhaps one saving factor was that I bought very few DC books at that point in time; the only one from today's featured month was All-Star comics with the Justice Society.
Boy, the times have changed. If I tried to purchase 20 comics in a month nowadays, it would set me back about 80 dollars or more (which goes way beyond my hobby budget, incidentally). Of course, there probably aren't 20 books today I'd want to buy, but anyway...
This was basically before started collecting comics, though I think I did buy one of these on the spinner rack - World's Finest #236. That would make it the first superhero comic I ever bought (that honor either belongs to this or Fantastic Four #172).
I also bought the Avengers, Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, and JLA issues in the late 70's as back issues after I discovered my local comic shop.
I'd love to have that Star Trek issue. I do have a couple of those Gold Key Star Trek issues, but not this one.
A great month, I got a bunch of those comics. ASM #154 features a great fight with the Sandman, with art from the future Hulk team of Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito.
Bullseye's debut is still excellent. It's pretty dark too, showing that Miller wasn't the only one who could work "darkness" into Daredevil.
The FF issue is a mixed bag. I just blogged about the reprint, I find Ben's depression about no longer being the Thing to be unconvincing. After 167 issues of seeking a cure, he gets cured...and then almost immediately starts whining about it. But the Power Man fight with Wrecker was good.
And Howard The Duck gave us the Space Turnip, with great art from Brunner.
Yeah, this was prime time for me too - I think I had 21 books! A couple of DC, Karate Kid and Legion of course, and the rest all Marvel, including that Treasury edition. I honestly don't know how I bought that many books! I couldn't have collected that many bottles...
The comics that stand out for me are Howard the Duck #2 and Warlord #2. The beginning of great extended runs for both series! Super art and writing in both. There really should be a Warlord Omnibus.
I was only 4 at the time, so I wasn't reading these off the rack; I've read about 14 since then, mostly Marvels plus JLA, Legion, and Warlord from DC. I agree with Garett about the Warlord omnibus.
Mike Wilson
I'm in Fargo this week installing new servers, so limited time to check the rest of the month's offerings, but I will recall that DC Special with the Titans was one HECK of an issue. Two classic Cardy-drawn stories and such a dynamic cover.
Despite the short-lived low-selling Titan's revival in the mid-70s, it wasn't for a lack of excitement that special reprint issue caused. It was fantastic.
One of the oddities in the mix is STARMAN, in DC's 1st Issue Special (a rather odd, short-lived tryout title in its own right). I do have it, although I remember very little of it, other than it was an extremely rare instance of Joe Kubert flexing his muscles in the traditonal sci-fi realm.
And I didn't know that BLITZKRIEG even had a second issue! Are we right around the time of the DC implosion, here? Or shortly after, perhaps?
HB
Nope, I see the implosion is still down the road a couple of years. . .
HB
I was just thinking the other day that the Conway/Vosburg Starman was a "Man Who Fell to Earth" riff and perhaps it was Conway's attempt to ape Starlin's Captain Marvel.
By the way, I bought nine of those, including the Champions and The Warlord. I picked up the Red Sonja and Conan issues a year or two later. I was all about the sword and sorcery in those days.
Wow, so Kubert was only the cover for Starman, Dougie?
Sheesh-- shows how truly unmemorable it was, eh?
Mike Vosburg-- hunh.
Other than the original She-Hulk run, did he ever have a title that he became rather closely associated with? Wonder if this was a particular pet-project for him & Conway. . .
HB
HB, personally, I tend to associate Vosburg with DC's Starfire, a short-lived (8 issue) series from the late '70s that became a victim of the implosion. I think he co-created the character and did the all of the art, which was pretty solid (much better than his work on She Hulk). If you're interested, just go over to the Starfire posts atDiversions of the Groovy Kind. All eight issues are there.
Checked the link, edo-- thank you--
Boy-- that's a particularly naked super-heroine there, isn't it-?? And. . . not the Starfire that we're familiar with at all! (Although I guess they do have the whole minimal clothing thing in common--heh)
To be honest, Micky Vosburg's pencils look about the same to me-- but the pairing with Vince Colletta works very well for him and improves the overall visuals considerably. Like Al Milgrom or the later Don Heck, Vosburg doesn't seem to have a sense for capturing a figure in a moment of movement-- there's a stiffness or posed-ness to his work. Capable, but not great, y'know? I met him at a very small local convention about 30-some years ago, and man he just came across as utterly bitter and discontented. He was working on his Sisterhood of Steel series at the time (in fact, pulled out some of his in-process pencils!) and was excited about that-- but didn't feel he was getting much support on it from Marvel. I felt kind of bad for the guy-- but he definitely didn't endear himself to me. . .
HB
@Edo: Yeah, Vosburg was good at the sword & sorcery stuff...I love his work on Sisterhood of Steel.
Mike Wilson
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