4-15-20: NOTE - In refreshing this post, I inadvertently chose cover images in the "on sale" category at Mike's. All other links in this post point to the original direction originally intended. Thanks for your understanding.
Doug: For lack of a better date, I thought we'd use the cover date from this past Monday's review of Invaders #12. As you know by now (unless today's your first day -- then we bid thee "Welcome!"), click right past here to be taken to Mike's Amazing World of Comics, where you'll see all of this month's offerings. And as usual, clicking on the date below will shoot you over to the Comic Book Database for some more information on your favorite Richie Rich titles. Enjoy!
22 comments:
Wow, Marvel was really rolling out the 1st. issues that month, weren't they? Lots of goodies on the rack this month, of which I tallied at 25 (again, the thought of trying to purchase 25 new comics in a month today chills me). A few highlights:
Howard the Duck 8 and his Marvel Treasury Edition: that election campaign issue was a classic. And what a dynamite cover! A great month for duck fans, with the Defenders meeting in in the big book as well.
Daredevil 141- a solid Bullseye story, not too long before Miller's run began...
Picked up all the first issues (hey, I was a Collector with a capital "C"); of those this month my favorite was Rampaging Hulk. Thought the retro stories were a nice approach.
Justice League 138: bought this at the time for the great Neal Adams cover, it also was my first real introduction to Adam Strange.
Bet my pockets were empty that month, must have made use of some of my school lunch money!
I had (can't recall if I actually bought them off the racks) 15 of the comics pictured at Mike's. Fond memories of the Avengers cross-over with Super-Villain Team-Up as well as the long Frightful Four story in the FF. And let's not overlook that Marvel Team-Up with the Hulk and... Woodgod!
Doug
Oh, man, that Superman Family cover is so Silver Age. Stay classy, Lois...
Otherwise, the only one I specifically remember getting at the time is that month's issue of Secret Society of Super-villains. A few years later, like Colin, I got a bunch of these, including Ragman, Champions, Omega, Richard Dragon, Karate Kid, Freedom Fighters, Kobra, etc. This is when I was really starting to get into Archie comics, and I'm sure I had a few of those pictured here, but I'm not sure - the covers to those comics never stuck in my brain the way the covers to super-hero comics did...
Wonderful selections, here, wow!
Literally every time I see a Marvel Triple Action cover I want to immediately read them all.
The past is a different country.
Deadly Hands of Kung Fu 32 with Daughters of the Dragon by Chris Claremont and Marshall Rogers - fantastic (obviously)
As with quite a few of the Marvel black and whites, I got that a few years later; at the time, the highlight of the month was the first issue of Black Panther. King Solomon's Frog came as a bit of a surprise after the McGregor stuff, which I'd loved.... but I was mad for Jack Kirby too, and by that fantastic final cliffhanger pic I was convinced.
The second issue of 2001 A Space Odyssey - with interesting take on the matriarchal roots of civilisation and a particularly brilliant cosmic trip scene - was great too.
Somehow Kirby also found time to write and draw ok issues of the Eternals and Captain America this month. Mind boggling.
The HTD/Defenders treasury was disappointing, but maybe that was down to expectations... I enjoyed the regular HTD more.
Had that issue of Weird Western Tales - its always nice to look at work by Garcia-Lopez, but otherwise... DC at a low ebb it seems.
Mind you, I can't see that Superman Family cover at Mike's, so maybe I'm missing something else....?
-sean
Sean, that's my mistake. Whenever I load up cover images for these posts I get them from the Comic Book Database after I've searched by month and year. The CBD site has never failed us like other sites have -- sometimes images hosted at other databases disappear after a short time. My guess is that Superman Family must have been bi-monthly and was catalogued in January '77 rather than the month before or after.
But it's an interesting cover, to say the least!
Doug
The covers by Ken Kelly for Creepy and Eerie are good. I don't think Kelly's been mentioned here before, but I liked his sci-fi and fantasy covers. He was taught by Frazetta, and while he didn't have that touch of genius, he was reliably good. I don't think he did any superhero covers.
Nice but intense covers by Neal Adams this month for Flash and JLA.
Howard the Duck! It would be great to see a comic like this during the current presidential race. Maybe our new Prime Minister Trudeau would even make an appearance, as Howard traveled to Canada at one point. Logan's Run! A favorite movie, and favorite artist. It would be interesting to see a movie remake, although it probably wouldn't be as strange and wonderful.
Those Marvel Classics comics-- has anyone read them? I'd pick them up, but there always seemed to be art by second stringers.
Cool to see the cover to Monster Hunters by Mike Zeck. Money doesn't grow on trees, but grows in them, according to Ritchie Rich 150!
I'm curious about "Shazam from the '40s to the '70s", with a hefty $10 price tag. I never saw this book, but would've been very interested.
By the way...
B McMolo -- welcome!
Doug
Haha-- a couple very '70s comics:
Archie's Christmas Love-In
Popeye #138: Special CB Radio issue
The Marvel Classics are a bit of a mixed bag, Garett. I read that War of the Worlds, but didn't mention it above as its not particularly memorable.
On the other hand... the Time Machine with artwork by the mighty Alex Nino, or Dracula by Nestor Redondo are well worth a look.
Fwiw, I think those two at least were reprinted after Marvel bought the rights from another publisher.
-sean
Thanks Sean, I'll keep my eyes open for those.
My sister had that issue of "Archie's Christmas Love-in"--!
Even by the late 70's that phrase was noticeably behind-the-times-- sort of like if Archie and the Gang were still tossing a lot of "Groovy"s into their patter.
I have 16 of the titles offered here-- and the solid majority of them were bought at that time off the rack. I have NO earthly idea how I was affording it. I do remember having to take a deep breath before getting that first issue of Rampaging Hulk-- but there was of course no way in the world that I was going to miss it. Sadly, I never loved it as much as I wanted to, 'cause of that very retro aspect that Redartz did like-- that Hulk wasn't "my" Hulk, really. And I did tire of the ongoing Bereet & the Toad Men overplot.
Boy, Marvel really was on a massive production , weren't they? There's very little here that I'd identify classic or iconic or historic or great, really (from my narrow range of interest, mind you), but there was sure plenty to honestly enjoy. Fantastic Four was definitely still in a fun period; Spidey was still a fine read; HTD was in its prime; Defenders were solid; Champions was improving at lightning speed; etc, etc.
Oh! But I think this may have been the last or next-to-last issue of Werewolf by Night! Definitely getting to the tale end of Jack Russell's term of stardom-- and while Tomb of Dracula continued on for quite some time as its own pocket-entity, we're definitely hearing the terminal gurgle & rattle for Marvel's vanished Monster Craze. Yep.
HB
I've subsequently read 19 of these, but at the time I was a little under 5 years old, so I probably didn't have any of them...though it's possible I was reading Spidey, or some of the Disney stuff at the time.
Mike Wilson
You're just a young pup, Mike!
Grizzled ol' Doug (but HB's grizzlier!)
Oy-- you said it, Doug. . . !
BigDay #55 is coming up in just a little over. . . cripes. . . two weeks!
We're getting a new Artistic Director right before that. . . and I am literally old enough to be his father-! (Although he is AWESOME. . . a natural and inspiring leader, in my opinion.)
Y'know, I keep wondering when Harvey's apparently-brief SAD SACK boom must have happened? I could swear that I'd been picking up 3 or 4 of those titles a month just a couple of years before this, but I never seem to see more than one represented in a given month. . .
HB
Hiya,
Yeah, it's obvious that the male contingency at DC, at the time, had a definite opinion regarding the emotional depth that Lois Lane was capable of. Very sad because for a time during the early Seventies her title was one of the more interesting books DC was putting out.
Someday we're going to have to have a blog posting about artists and writers who seemed more at home at one company than another during the Bronze age. I write this because Werner Roth, the somewhat maligned by his own co-creator while on the mutant book at Marvel, seemed much more at ease on the Lois Lane title.
By the by, the Fantastic Four book this month absolutely shook me to the core when I picked it up. Not because of the story-line, but because of the absence of Joe Sinnott. Dave Hunt was a good inker but didn't bring anything extra to George Perez's early pencils and this was one of the few times that someone other than Sinnott inked the FF during this era.
Seeya,
pfgavigan
I think I had that Hot Stuff and also Spooky during a brief Harvey phase. It is still amazing to me what a small percentage of comics during that period were "Super Heroes". Between funny animal books, Richie Rich, Classics, Westerns etc... There were only a handful that would be mainstream today.
I too liked Marvel Triple Action and how it filled some gaps in my Avengers understanding, but I have to say I never understood the title itself. What was the triple action? They always tried to shoehorn names above the title but would invariably name four or five characters; that was confusing for a ten year old. Just thought it was an odd title choice.
Martinex1 --
Good point about the title of that book. I know in the Giant-Size issues they did put in reprints of three different mags.
Check out the first dozen or so issues for some sweeeeeeeeeeeet original covers. MTA began reprinting Fantastic Four stories from the #50s before it moved to reprints of the original Avengers. The book only began recoloring original covers with the reprint of the search for the Hulk issues (#17?). Great stuff!!
http://comicbookdb.com/issue.php?ID=70606
Doug
This was a pretty busy month for me. I had 16 or 17 or these, which was unusual. A few of the things I remember were those Neal Adams covers for JLA, Superman, and Flash, that All-Star Comics with the wonderful Wally Wood art, the Doc Savage B&W (my favorite series at the time), the Jack Kirby Black Panther, and the Tarantula/Kraven combo in PPTSSM. I also picked up the Howard the Duck Treasury Edition and that was my introduction to him. Pretty cool month.
None of the DCs or Marvels came to my area ( West Central Scotland) that month. Except, bizarrely, the Howard the Duck Treasury Edition, which I passed on at the time, despite having found a couple of regular issues quirky and intriguing.
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