TWO NEAL ADAMS DC FACSIMILE EDITIONS...

Copyright DC COMICS

Hooray, just arrived today at Castel Crivens, two more great DC Facsimile Editions that all true comicbook fans will want in their collections - even if they already have the originals.  First up, above, is the Collectors' Edition of Superman's battle with Muhammad Ali, which I passed on first time around in the '70s, though I subsequently acquired two hardback volumes (one Treasury-sized, the other slightly smaller) a few years back.

I notice there are no ads in the facsimile (despite a small-print note saying all ads are expired), which strikes me as odd, as the last story page is printed on the inside of the cover and I doubt it was the same in the original.  I suspect it's because scanned ads don't look quite so good in this size of publication so DC decided to completely omit them.  I'm basing this assumption on the earlier Ras Al Ghul Collectors' Edition facsimile, because the (in-house) ads in that were clearly scanned from a published original issue and the reproduction was less than stellar.  Can anyone with the original Supes/Ali mag check and let me know if it had ads or not?  Ta.

Next up, below, is Detective Comics #400, which I owned back in the day, but never kept.  Although I have the main story in various reprints, it's good to own the next best thing to an original copy, and this facsimile fits the bill, especially as it also contains the back-up tale, which I don't think I've read since the '70s.  Anyway, what are you all waiting for?  Get straight 'round to your nearest comics speciality shop and plunk your pennies (well, pounds, actually) on the counter and experience again the thrill of your youth when you first read these two classics.

However, don't worry if you didn't on account of not being around at the time - you can buy them too!  Enjoy!  Comments welcome, Crivvies.  (Are you listening, McS - I said Neal Adams!)

CRIVENS' COMICS CAVALCADE - ROLL UP, ROLL UP... (Updated)

Images copyright relevant and respective owners

You Crivs could be forgiven for thinking I've lost interest in collecting comics, given the amount of toys and other things I write about on this blog, but such is not the case.  To prove it, here are several of my recent comicbook acquisitions, some newly released, others from last year (but which I've only just purchased).  Above is a Facsimile Edition of All Star Comics #3 featuring the Justice Society Of America, so let's now take a look at the others one-by-one.

I still have my original copies of these two Spidey mags, but I just can't resist Marvel's and DC's facsimile issues.  Hard for me to accept that these two comics were first released around 40 years ago, nearly two-thirds of my life away.  Number 260 will be released soon, then I'll have facsimiles of a trilogy of The Amazing Spider-Man mags initially published in the '80s.  Don't let them pass you by.

Below, an updated facsimile of House Of Secrets #92, featuring the first appearance of the Swamp Thing, but not the Alec Holland incarnation.  No, he came later - what we have here is Alex Olsen's moss-encrusted mockery of a man.  DC now place the unsightly bar code box on the back cover, which works better for mags that never had a bar code originally.  Unfortunately, they still haven't spotted and corrected a clumsy lettering touch-up which renders a speech balloon confusing (see below after cover).

'At me funeral' - eh?  A shoddy touch-up of missing letters.  Original on the right

The ever-intrusive bar code on the 2019 facsimile

Police Comics #1, below, contains the debuts of Plastic Man and Phantom Lady, and is a nice one to add to any self-respecting collection.  DC are even getting better at reproducing the ads which originally appeared in these periodicals, some of which in previous facsimiles have been pretty ropey and not up to scratch.

JLA #1 gets the facsimile treatment (below), with the bar code once again being delegated to the back cover so as not to blight the front of the mag.  Hey, I've even included it here so that you can see what I'm talking about.  Doesn't look so bad on the back, does it?  As with HOS #92, no doubt they'll start reprinting other previous facsimiles in this way and I'll have to buy again the ones I already have.  I wish Marvel would start putting the bar code on the back of their facsimiles too.

Below are a couple of mags released last year - Origins Of Marvel Comics and Son Of Origins Of Marvel Comics, 'tasters' for the remastered Marvel Masterworks volumes reissued in 2023.  Stan Lee's exposition is absent, replaced with a different intro by Ralph Macchio inside each mag.  They contain almost wall-to-wall classic Marvel Origin strips, with crystal-clear reproduction and perfect colour-registration on every page.  Just look at the rear covers to see the contents, which include the original covers as well.  Every genuine Marvelite should have these two issues, whether or not they already have previous reprintings of these iconic stories.  So what's holding you back?  Get over to eBay right away!  (And feel entirely free to leave a comment about any or all of these mags should you feel so inclined.)

Oops, almost forgot!  Also snagged Neal Adams' last major work for Marvel, The Fantastic Four - Antithesis.  Below is the collected softcover edition, same size as a regular comicbook, but I also got the larger Treasury Edition, the better to see Neal's artwork in greater detail.  The covers are the same so I won't repeat the image.

Oops again - another recently acquired item I forgot to show you.  Easy enough to remedy that little oversight, so here it is.  Remember now, it's for your eyes only.  (Yes, I know that's another Bond movie, but I was being clever.)  This UK comic was later reprinted in DC's Showcase #43, though black characters were recoloured white and some dialogue was changed.

Thought you might like to see the cover (even though I don't own it), so that's it below.  As stated in the previous paragraph, this issue was a US reprint of the one above.

FLINTSTONES FLIBBA-DIBBA-DIB-DOB! (Or: "NURSE!!!")

I suppose, looking back from the distance of decades, that I was a strange child.  Not potential serial-killer strange, but certainly not your run-of-the-mill average child that my peers appeared to be.  I suspect I've got something akin to an obsessive-compulsive personality (though not a 'disorder'), in that I develop routines that must be observed (like putting on my trousers after my underpants - except when I'm wearing my Superman costume, of course), but they're usually 'little' things of no great significance in the overall scheme of everyday life.

Consistency and continuity are important to me.  When I was 6, I recall being perturbed when one week's TV Century 21 (#20) changed the cover banner from red to yellow, and said something different than usual.  ('With Gerry Anderson's Stingray * Fireball XL5 * Supercar' became '25 Stingrays To Be Won!  See Page 9'.)  I bought another issue of #19 from the previous week (still on sale, surprisingly), cut off the banner and stuck it over the offending interloper - now I was happy.

Okay, but what's with the photo of Fred Flintstone, you may be wondering.  Well, around 1962 or '63, my mother bought me a Flintstones Flivver - a friction-drive tin toy with a plastic figure of Fred at the wheel.  It was manufactured by Marx Toys, and I must've retained the figure until at least 1973 or '74.  (The Flivver itself did not survive anywhere near as long.)  During that period, my family had lived in three more houses to the one we inhabited when I first acquired the toy, and I developed a peculiar habit while living in the middle of those three houses of visiting our very first one with Fred in tow.

See, every Sunday, we visited my maternal grandparents, and after tea, I'd take a little walk along to our first two homes (only a few minutes apart) just to gaze upon them again, and to reunite Fred with where he came from.  (H'mm, why does that seem even more bonkers in cold hard print?)  I suppose it was a 'pilgrimage' of sorts.  I carried him in my pocket, and when I reached my destination, I'd take Fred out and hold him facing the front of the first house as though he could 'see' it again.  Eventually, around my mid-teens, I disposed of Fred and any other surviving toys*, in an attempt to be more 'grown-up', but deep down I always regretted it.

(*There were two exceptions.  My Marx Thunderbolt horse and Wade porcelain Yogi Bear.)

Anyway, around a quarter of a century ago I acquired a replacement for my Flintstones Flivver and was happy to be reunited with it and its driver.  (The past come back to life as it seemed to me.)  Although I have no specific memory of doing so, I probably took a walk along to my old house with Fred to reconnect my memory of him to when we lived there.  (Dunno about you, but I'm almost inclined to call the men in white coats right now to come and take me away.)  So mission accomplished and all was right with the world (if not my mind).

Aha!  But then, a couple of years or so ago, I saw a Fred figure for sale on eBay.  At first I wasn't interested, as he was pretty beat up and I already had a better one.  However, as I looked at the seller's photos, I began to feel sorry for Fred and decided to buy him just so I could restore him to something resembling his former glory.  So that's what I did, and now I have two Freds to accompany me in however much is left of my journey through life.  I had to repair his nose, which had a bit missing, and to clean him up and restore him to a presentable condition as befits his status as a marker of my youth, and I think I did a pretty good job.

I've included some of the seller's photos (below) to give you an idea of just how poorly he was, alongside some of my own to present him as he appears now.  If you stayed to the end of this post, feel free to leave a comment telling my what a good job I did - or even just to tell me I'm as mad as a box of spiders.  (I'll let you in on a little secret - I knew that anyway.)

And just so my other Fred doesn't feel neglected, that's him below in his Flivver.  The box is a repro I made from an original one for the battery-operated version, though mine is friction-drive.

The Complete SPARKY #1 From 1965... (Updated)

Copyright D.C. THOMSON & Co., Ltd

It looks a little dated now, and it's difficult to believe it was released in the same week as TV Century 21 (even sharing the same cover-date, except for the latter being dated 2065, not 1965), but Sparky lasted for 12 years as its own comic (compared to the former's 6 year period before it was merged into Valiant in 1971) so it can be rightly considered the more successful of the two titles, at least as far as longevity goes.  (Though I doubt it sold as many weekly copies as its rival, but I couldn't say for sure.)

It's unlikely it would ever be published in today's woke age, given the fact that the 'star' of the comic was a little native black boy, even though he was treated with respect and always usually came out on top of whatever situation he was in.  Sure, he's a caricature, but anyone who's ever seen an issue of National Geographic knows that such natives existed - and probably still do.  (*See photo at foot of post.)  To my way of thinking, unless he was being portrayed in a negative light (which he never was), he's no more offensive a character than Fred Flintstone is as a cartoon representation of a white man.

Your opinion may differ, and that's fine - I'm not here to try and convince you otherwise.  No, my purpose here today is to pull back time's curtain and show you the complete contents of the very first issue of a comic that is still highly regarded in the memories of former readers who collected it avidly every week.  The early issues didn't really hint at the promise of the title it eventually developed into, but it's no less historically important for that little fact, so enjoy the very first issue of the late, lamented Sparky - and then leave a comment if you'd be so kind.

(Click on images to enlarge, then click again for optimum size.)

Oops!  I don't know how, but I inadvertently omitted the Minnie Ha-Ha page and only just noticed.  It was waiting patiently in my file so I've now added it.

*Below, plucked from the Internet, Wadaabe males - related to Sparky perhaps?  They're taking part in some tribal ceremony wherein they wear full makeup and their finest clothes in a traditional mating ritual to attract female partners.  (Full makeup, eh?  That may just be giving off the wrong signals to the wrong gender.  They look happy enough with each other.)