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| Copyright MARVEL COMICS |
Don'tcha just love comicbooks? No? Then what are you doing here? Oh, you do? Okay, that's all right then. First up, above, is the new Facsimile Edition of Giant-Size Super-Stars #1 Featuring The Fantastic Four. This one has the 'Continued After Next Page' lines before the ads and is a really nice item for those unfortunate enough not to own the original '70s publication. (Relax, don't you worry about me - I've got it.)
The Daredevil #183 Facsimile Edition, above, doesn't have the '...Next Page...' lines, which leads me to wonder if different people are in charge of overseeing different issues as there seems to be no consistent policy regarding the inclusion of such things. A minor point perhaps, but to me, it separates the men from the boys when it comes to producing these full-colour favourites from the past.
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| Copyright DC COMICS |
DC's Facsimile Edition of The Doom Patrol #99, above, is the best one I've seen from them so far. Crisp, clean line reproduction and, unusually for a DC replica, even the ads are bright as a bell and not like the faded, murky scans from published issues seen in previous editions. Maybe Marvel told them how it was done, but this one is perfect all the way through, not a mish-mash of the 'old' and the 'new'. I just hope they can stick to this standard in future publications. In case you were wondering, the Bar Code box is on the back cover, where it doesn't obscure anything. Oh, and the interior paper is matt, not glossy.
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| Copyright REBELLION |
I've shown you the cover to the Smash! issue, above, before, but not the next two in the series, below, and I thought it best to show all three issues at the one time now that I have them. They should be available in most comics shops and maybe WHS, as well as direct from Rebellion themselves, so give yourselves a treat and see what The Spider, The Steel Claw, Janus Stark, Robot Archie, Adam Eterno, Kelly's Eye, Cursitor Doom, and Max from The 13th Floor are getting up to these days. That's your lot for this time around, Crivs.
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Snapped up the Giant-Size Super-Stars facsimile. I love that issue with its art by a Rich Buckler in full Kirby-clone mode. I always rather wished that Marvel had stuck with the more generic title for the giant size issues, but I see the value in changing them. I just like the sound of those titles. The Doom Patrol book is a dandy as well.
ReplyDeleteYes, I believe the plan was to have #2 of GSSS feature Spider-Man until Marvel decided to give each character or group their own mag. (Giant-Size FF, Giant-Size Spider-Man, Giant-Size Avengers, etc.) Like I said, RJ, The DP mag is the best facsimile from DC thus far, in that the ads are now of the same quality (reproduction-wise) as the stories.
ReplyDeleteI miss the days when superheroes fought "theme villains" who were pulling carefully patterned weapons out of their derrieres, like that DOOM PATROL villain The Bug Man. I think he's got robot hornets and a big robot ant in addition to some sort of caterpillar-thing. (The villain himself doesn't look anything like his rather cartoony avatar on the cover.)
ReplyDeleteEven the Batman series, which may have more or less invented theme villains, doesn't use theme weapons that often. When was the last time the Joker used his acid squirting flower-- the seventies?
The Giant size issues are brilliant regardless of the quality of the writing and the artwork.I was 11 when they came out and a combination of the comics being double sized,new format,non-distributed issues(all of them believe it or not!)and fantastic covers.....a dream come true for a Marvel Fanatic.Obviously looking back there was a massive shift in quality as the months passed;eg Avengers GS #1 and #2 were brilliant but 3,4 and #5 were poor... and that is being generous.Spiderman #1-5 were consistantly good as were Defenders #1-5.The whole experiment descended into reprint but I loved them all.Curiously odd issues did turn up in shops but very much the exception.Roll call of classics would include Avengers,Defenders,Spiderman,X-men,FF with your choice here Giant Size Superstars being the winner(with Avengers #2 a close second with Spiderman and Dracula being another belter).Marvel could not produce a monthly rota without reprints so this was never going to last...but what a fantastic journey for all of 1974 and into 1975....just like Christmas,a magic time!Happy New Year to everybody.
ReplyDeleteRegarding The Joker, GP, the '70s would be the last time I remember him using an acid-squirting flower, but he may well have used them since over the years. I stopped regularly buying Batman comics around the late '80s, early '90s (apart from the occasional anniversary or special issue), so I don't have a clue what's going on in Bat's world now. Can't say I'm crazy about theme villains per se, it all depends how entertaining the story is to me.
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I've got all six of the Giant-Size FF mags, TF, as well as various other ones (GS Avengers, GS Defenders, GS Iron Man, GS Conan, GS Power Man, GS Captain Marvel, GS Thor, GS Spider-Man And Dracula, etc.) and they're good to have, though the reproduction quality of some of the reprinted material wasn't always as good as it could/should have been. I never saw any of them in the shops at the time, not obtaining them until years (and in some cases, decades) later as back issues. I hope Marvel do some more GS facsimiles.
And Happy New Year to you, too, TF - and all the rest of you Crivvies as well.
Never heard of Doom Patrol but I absolutely love it! I wonder if Negative Man was the inspiration for The Visible Man from 2000ad? I was also reminded of Death Wish from Speed (Blake Edwards). I'll get the Smash! series at some point.
ReplyDeleteI've got the Omnibus Edition of Doom Patrol with all the original stories, but the facsimile is nice to have as a separate mag, M. Incidentally, I used to letter Death Wish when it was in Eagle, lo, all those many years ago. Don't know whether Negative Man was the inspiration for The Visible Man or not.
ReplyDeleteOh wow, that's interesting. Hope it was a happy memory for you. I bought Eagle from the start when it was relaunched but by the time Tiger merged with Eagle I'd been consumed by the computer revolution and I was buying Crash!, Sinclair User and Your Sinclair as well as games so comics unfortunately had to go. I've since bought back issues of Eagle but didn't realise you'd worked on that strip.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I used a slimmer style for the strip as I found the panels to be quite tight a lot of the time. On the blog somewhere, there's a two-part script I wrote for a Death Wish story, but I don't think I ever submitted it to editor Dave Hunt. If I did, I don't recall doing so.
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