So much for a thin week! Well, for me. This like 1/5th of Burgas’s weekly haul.

Speaking of Burgas, I actually feel bad about stealing the venom from him. Especially because I was barely even trying, really. He really has to really work to get people howling for his blood; apparently, it just comes naturally to me. Let’s see if I can move towards inoffensiveness with my own reviews of some floppy pamphlets. Right there, I bet I made 12 people angry by calling them that.

Amazing Spider-Man #570- Hey, speaking of the Venom, which I did a few sentences ago but by damn I will not let that easy transition go without a fight; there are two of them in this! Well, one of them just used to be Venom and now is so adamantly against him he made that part of his name. Talk about a single issue voter!

I missed the last issue of this storyline, but was able to follow this well enough; this is the first time I’ve ever really been able to use one of those “story so far” pages. I’m not entirely sure what the deal with Anti-Venom is at all, but they set this up in that Waid backup strip in the issue before last, and I’m not really sure I want to know why Eddie Brock is covered in malleable white goo and able to cure cancer with his tentacles.

It helps that it’s an extended fight scene broken up by various subplots, which is (as World War Hulk proved last year) the kind of thing John Romita Jr. was born to draw. Possibly literally; his dad was quite the company man. It’s always a joy to see what someone with as much skill at panel to panel storytelling can do, even if (especially when?) it’s kinetic fight coreography. Throw in some gorgeous coloring (especially in the opening pages) and you have a very pretty comic book.

Slott peppers in some of his trademark humor in there, and we get a pretty nice moment between Eddie Brock and Peter, especially for people who grew up during the time period when they were arch enemies, before feces collide with fan. A lot of my enjoyment of the Brand New Day Spidey feels like I’ve got a mental checklist and the writers are just marking off all the boxes. Not that I’ve ever had a problem with being pandered to, but it is odd how well these are working for me with based on what amounts to a recipe of things I want in a Spider-Man comic.

Blue Beetle #30- It took Sims’ description of Matt Sturges description of the supehero kitsch golf course to finally get me to sample an issue of this series. While that was a fun sequence, the rest of the book also kept my attention by doing many things right.

I was impressed with how well Sturges juggled a lot of disperate plates of story here. He was able to integrate topical material that the setting demands (a Texas border town), the tropes you expect from a teen supehero comic (he has to juggle his personal life with superheroing!), and some elements specific to the character (even if the dialogue with his suit reminds me of Dwayne McDuffie’s Deathlock). Nice to see some humor come from there, too. Sturges even throws a nice, Julie Schwartz-esque science less in there, although I don’t think they were ever applied like this in Julie’s comics. Heeven caps it off with the best line I’ve read in awhile.

In the obligatory “I know next to nothing about comics art but am obligated to talk about it” section, Rafael Albuquerque does a great job here, although it’s not nearly the most expressive/adorable thing he’s drawn lately, as I will mention later.

It all adds up to a comic that zips along and ends on a pretty interesting cliffhanger for our young hero. So my interest is piqued, and all it took was a cardboard Vigilante popping a wheelie just off the green to get me in the door. Take note, other superhero writers! Also, old school fans; a bone was totally thrown to you with that foot note referring to the Manhunter crossover!

Brave and the Bold #16- First thing’s first; not a fan of Scott Kollins art here. Something about it seemed sloppy and drab to me. That said, it doesn’t hinder Mark Waid’s snappy, fun script, it just didn’t do a lot for me as being anything more than illustrations for the story instead of an integral part of it.

The fact that this is only the third issue of this incarnation of DC’s legendary team up book brings up something I’ve found about self contained stories. I like the idea of them, and am more likely to pick one up on impulse, but I find it easy to not buy them in serial form due to the fact that there’s not the same kind of hook to pick them up as there is in an ongoing (i.e What’s gonna happen next!). Oddly enough, the fact that it had a running storyline made me less likely to pick one up during its first two arcs.

That is to say, I wish there were more done in one comics (especially when it comes to superheroes), but I don’t put my money where my mouth is often enough to help make that a reality. Also, this book is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t. Furthermore, Magneto and the Wildstorm Universe are equally deserving of my disrespect. It is really hard to keep a lid on this whole internet douche thing now that I have unleashed it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #18- Yeah, so, this sure was a part of an ongoing storyline. The plot was certainly advanced somewhat. It was totally like a segment of the television show, expect I paid $2.99 for it.

There are portents of heavy things going down and double crosses and all, but this seemed to be stalling for time before the big cliffhanger. Well, we did get a pretty nice contrast between what Buffy’s become thanks to her new role as general of a slayer army and what she was in Fray. So, that was an interesting piece of writing from Whedon. We also got one of those fun “mythical creatures talk like real people” gags he likes to use with some mutant offsprings of these guys. He is making the best of Dawn as a Centaur, I guess, although the fact that his name is on the damn comic makes it hard to pretend this could have possibly been forced on him. Maybe he lost a bet and really did have to use random monsters from a D&D book, and Dawn was the most expendable characte for that exercise.

That said, the sooner Fray and her sub-Mutant Gang slang go away, the better. She just really annoys the crap out of me every time she shows up on panel. The weird thing is, I don’t remember hating her at all in her solo mini-series. I mean, that thing left me cold, but I didn’t have any problem with her then. I guess my tolerance for Whedon’s attempt to take his already stylized dialogue to the absolute limit of coherence has greatly dissipated in the intervening 5 years since I read the mini the special (and I do mean special!)guest star sprung from.

All that said, I have to hand it to Dark Horse; I have never been happier to see a variant cover than when I had to choose between this and this. So, thank god I could choose Jeanty’s there, although his tend to have more charm than Chen’s anyway. Seriously, though; I only thought Trachtenburg being sexualized in Road Trip was creepy. What is this, a Buffy comic or dirty, dirty centaur porn? Of course, Jeph Loeb is next up on scripts, so maybe I better enjoy this while I can, even if it’s nice to see them finally get something out of that Buffy cartoon.

Superman/Batman #51- Well, that was certainly the most adorable comic I’ve read in a long time. In fact, if there were an Eisner solely for most adorable superhero comic, this would win hands down. I mean, that’s both not much of a contest these days and an exceptionally specific award that you’d be making up just to give this one (just like best letterer! Seriously, did they just make that up to give Todd Klein a bunch of statues and Augie something to geek out about besides Chuck Dixon?)

Green and Johnson deliver a light, fun script while still getting in some shots and the current sturm und drang of supercomics, while Albuquerque does a great job on the Lil’ League (seriously, just typing that makes me smile). I really liked the device of the little hearts being visible when one of the Lil’ Leaguers (I’m beaming right now) was lusting after some one. Just some fun work here, the kind you don’t get to see in mainstream books too much these days, due to all the crises and what not.

Hey, I actually like that stuff, it’s just nice to have a different flavor out there when I want something beyond Skrull paranoia and Grant Morrison’s technicolor superhero apocalypse in my capes and tights comics. I’d seriously at least consider buying a Lil’ League (I just vomited from the saccahrine head rush I get typing that!) ongoing by this team. I mean, Red Tornado looks like his mini-mate! I mean, the kids get Tiny Titans and Super Friends; I deserve an infantile version of my favorite superheroes! Respect the primacy of the Babyman! RESPECT IT! (I still kind of hate that word, although at least it doesn’t cause me physical pain any more. But seriously, was manchild not adequate, Manley?)

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a great scan of a Kirby-drawn Mother Box, especially if it’s Scott Free’s?  Well I bet the first line of this post has given you a hint about the degree of difficulty (which is pretty damn high, without even factoring in the other awful things that you find when you type in “mother box” into a search engine).  So I thought I’d come here and once again selfishly abuse my ability to post here.  Does anyone have a good scan?  Could someone, if they’re not out there, make one for me?  I would totally say something nice about something you like and something awful about something you don’t like or some combination thereof in repayment.

Yours frustratedly,

Joe Rice

Every day this month I’m going to feature a current comic book art “star,” someone whose work I absolutely love.

I’m mostly going to try to keep from the biggest names as much as possible, because, really, do I need to talk more about the awesomeness of JH Williams, Frank Quitely and Darwyn Cooke? Here’s the archive of the artists mentioned so far!

Here’s one of the best artists working on DC Comics superhero comics today!

Enjoy!

Mahnke’s first mainstream work was working with John Arcudi on Dark Horse’s The Mask.

He then teamed up with Arcudi on Major Bummer, a very humorous superhero send-up at DC Comics.

The book, while good, wasn’t setting the sales charts on fire, but Mahnke got a lot of attention for the run - he was clearly a star on the rise.

After the short-lived run, Mahnke was well-established enough to quickly get a regular gig drawing Superman: Man of Steel, which felt like the first new Superman artist in years at the time.

And that run placed him into a good position to take over from Bryan Hitch on JLA, alongside Joe Kelly, where Mahnke really put on an art show…

After JLA ended, Mahnke started an impressive run on Batman, but ever since then, he has been used a bit…oddly by DC.

First off, he was one of the artists hand-picked to draw a Seven Soldiers book. Mahnke drew Frankenstein, and he did a smashing job on it.

Since then, and perhaps very well due to Mahnke’s own desire to try new things, he has done a number of lower-attention titles, such as a World War II mini-series with Chuck Dixon, a run on Stormwatch PHD with Christos Gage, then a few projects with Peter Tomasi, the man who hand-picked him on Seven Soldiers.

His latest project is the Final Crisis tie-in, Superman Beyond, and it is also gorgeous.

Here are some examples of Mahnke sequentials.

First, a page from JLA…

Next, three pages from another Final Crisis one-shot he did with Tomasi…

What an amazing artist - he really ought to get another high-profile title. At the very least, he ought to draw an issue of All Star Superman post-Quitely.

Here are ten cool comic covers involving superheroes and boxing!!

Enjoy!

Speaking of Earth-B (which we just were, promise!)…

Perhaps the most famous superhero boxing comic book…

ANOTHER comic that I talked about recently, the first appearance of the split Spider-Man face on a cover!

The last Justice League America issue before Breakdowns began…

The SECOND most famous superhero boxing comic!

In the past, boxing and stuff like that appearing on a comic book cover would not be all that out of place, so here are five older comics with boxing themes…

Any other cool boxing covers that I missed?

Let me know!

Every so often, I take a pile of stuff, any individual item of which isn’t worth a whole column in and of itself, but nevertheless may have some interest for regular visitors to this site… and put them all out at once in a patchwork hodge-podge column outing.

Guess what? It’s that time again. Oddly enough, a theme developed over the course of the week… getting more bang for your comics buck. Let’s see what’s in the pile, shall we?

*

To begin with, some reader mail.

Most of the time, when people get testy with me about something I’ve written, I try not to get into a big back-and-forth about it. Only so many hours in the day, nobody ever wins these things, everybody’s entitled to an opinion, etc., etc.

But this one kind of stuck in my craw, a little, because I find it symptomatic of the craziness that drives the superhero comics industry.

Without getting too into the specifics — I don’t want to embarrass the guy, he wasn’t nasty, just emphatic — a reader ventured the opinion that there was something ideologically wrong with my suggestion that if comics are going to be designed, written and sold with an eye towards their eventual home as a trade paperback collection, that maybe we should just, you know, get on with it and BE a book-publishing industry. That this suggestion somehow implied my secret shame at being seen with a standard 32-page booklet, or that I was being disloyal to comics, or that I took some sort of elitist, smug pride in reading my comics in book form.

Normally after reading comments like that I would just snort and move on, but this is worth taking some time to walk through, especially since our Dread Lord And Master was talking about Marvel and DC’s book pricing policies earlier this week.

First of all, let’s dispense with the “shame” charge, okay? Of all the Comics Should Be Good crew, I think I have confessed to more nerdy fan ridiculousness than any of my colleagues. I’m here in print every week talking about loving socially-irredeemable crap ranging from Mack Bolan novels to the Filmation Aquaman cartoons to Marvel’s 70’s Godzilla comic. Under my real name, even, complete with photograph. If the accusation is that I’m worried I might provide ammo for people to embarrass me about my pop culture tastes, well, sorry, guy, but I’m thinking that ship sailed years ago. It’s all in the archives. Fanboy with a capital F, that’s me. I’m afraid there’s just too much textual evidence out there for me not to own it. How does my preferred format for the stuff make a difference?

But the reason I tend to stump for the idea of comics-as-books isn’t ideological, at least not in the sense that I’m pushing for some kind of superhero-comics “We’re books now! Behold our legitimacy!” pride parade. It’s simple economics. The plain truth of the matter is that the comic book, as the format’s traditionally been understood in the U.S., doesn’t really exist at Marvel and DC any more.

Look, I loved the spinner-rack monthly periodical as much as anyone (and was so willing to be seen with them I started a class in how to make them for Seattle’s after-school arts program.) But the fact is that those are pretty much gone. At least in the sense they once existed– as a mass medium, a newsstand presence comparable to any other monthly magazine. Even Archie Comics maintains their market presence largely in digest form these days.

Certainly the “comic book” in its spinner-rack incarnation is dead as far as superheroes are concerned. Modern superhero monthly comics strike me as nostalgia publishing, about on a level with those pulp replicas from Adventure House. (Those are pretty awesome, by the way, but my point is that nobody confuses them with the mainstream magazine presence pulps used to have.) Comic books as produced by Marvel and DC today exist largely to placate an audience that stubbornly refuses to let them go. Because economically, currently this is a plain stupid way to read superhero stories.

Just pulling a random example out of a hat:

When I was a kid, long ago, I was a big fan of Iron Fist. I liked a lot of what Marvel was putting out then, to be honest, and in those days I could keep up with almost all of it.

A comic book was thirty cents. Even adjusted for inflation from 1977 to 2008, that’s still only $1.09. Not unreasonable even when I was confined to just mowing lawns on the weekend for my spending money.

Now Iron Fist is back. I still have affection for the character and I’m interested in his new adventures, especially since several of my fellow writers here at CSBG seem high on the book. Worth checking out?

Sure… until I look at the price tag.

$2.99 is almost three times the price of the comics I grew up on even after that 1977 price is adjusted for inflation. And for three times the cost to me, I get… less story.

Think I’m kidding? Here’s a typical Iron Fist page from the Olden Tymes.

That was a pretty dense read. For my money I got somewhere between twenty-five minutes and half an hour’s entertainment…. for the equivalent of one 2008 dollar. That’s not bad.

And here’s a random sample from the current version.

Bear in mind that I’m simply talking about presentation. For the sake of argument let’s say I enjoy both incarnations of Iron Fist equally– and in fact I do, pretty much. There’s no qualitative judgment here… it’s a matter of density. There’s measurably less story content in the newer, more expensive periodical.

Not to beat it into the ground, but since most comics writers today think in terms of the eventual paperback collection, stories run six issues or more. In the older books I grew up on, stories were generally two to three-parters at most, and several were done-in-one. But let’s say they did go six parts. Again adjusting for inflation, even in 2008 dollars I’m still only out six and a half bucks or so. But in the real-life 2008 comics retail marketplace that six-part story costs me $17.46, and I can usually read it in about an hour at most. No matter how good the art is, it still goes by pretty fast. Now split that hour over six months. Ten minutes to read the comic each month… if I linger over it and admire the art. Ten minutes… for three dollars. Sorry, that’s not “widescreen”… that’s “padded,” at least to my old-school sensibilities.

(And none of this even addresses all the stylistic changes; the inability to walk in on most modern superhero comics in the middle, for example. Today’s books are meant as chapters. You’re signing up for at least a six-month ride or you might as well not bother.)

On the other hand, if I am a patient man, my patience is rewarded. I can wait for Marvel to collect this story in a book, the same six-issue arc plus an additional eight-page story and a few pages of extras.

Here it is in hardcover. I get it in an attractive, permanent format, I have the added bonus of getting to read the whole thing at a sitting along with some nice extra frills, and best of all, I get it cheaper.

Right now this hardcover edition is offered on Amazon for $14.99. That’s already a significant savings over the $17.94 you’d pay for that story at six months the hard way, but there’s more. Only a dope would buy it new when you can click on “used” and get it for $6.00. Hell, that’s less than six 1977 inflation-adjusted original Iron Fist comics. My $6.00 hardcover arrived looking brand-new. Read once and resold, most likely.

The Amazon listing for the trade paperback version looks even more attractive in terms of price– $10.99 new and $5.39 used.

There are downsides, certainly. There are shipping charges, and you are always gambling a little bit when you get things mail-order. But you can minimize your cost and risk in those areas and the bottom line is still that it’s a hell of a lot more sensible.

The crazy part, though, is that this system depends on the hardcore Wednesday-or-bust ideologues like my critic to make the whole thing work. They subsidize the operation.

Seriously. I could never afford to cherry-pick Marvel hardcovers off Amazon for five to seven dollars each without the booklet loyalists out there proving their devotion to a clearly outmoded format.

I certainly appreciate it. Honest, I do.

But maybe… if we ALL got on board with the book-packaging idea, we might drive publishers to produce comics that would be a little more affordable for everybody. As, say, book publishers have done.

I miss the days when comics were a mass medium and not a specialty item. I think that’s healthier for everyone, from both an artistic and economic perspective. Book-format comics, marketed and sold like mass-market paperbacks or manga digests, seem to me to be the easiest way to get there. In short, I’m hoping we can get comics that are more inclusive, with a wider audience. I don’t think that’s an elitist position, to be honest.

Does that clarify why I like the idea of comics as books? (If anyone’s still reading this and not over searching Amazon for “Marvel+hardcover”…)

*

Of course, the day after I pulled the above column fragment out of the file, dusted it off and proofread it, Supergirl #33 came out.

Who let this James Peaty guy into the club? He’s not doing any of the things a writer’s supposed to do on a DC book.

First of all, this comic’s done-in-one. Not just done-in-one but self-contained, I got through it without needing any other comics to reference. Entertaining, well-written, the setup was good and the twists were clever, Supergirl won by being smart and then she showed decency and mercy towards her antagonists… and even though Empress is a character I knew nothing about and apparently one who also has an incredibly convoluted backstory, I never got lost. It even took me a little longer than ten minutes to read it.

On top of all that, it’s something that not only entertained me, but that I could pass on to a bright youngster without any fear of reprisal. We even got a Supergirl cover that doesn’t look like something off a Hooters calendar.

What the hell? I didn’t think there was anyone working on a DC spandex book that even knew how to do this stuff any more. (Not counting Kurt Busiek, anyway. He used to try it sometimes when nobody was looking, but he’s all tied up with Trinity now.)

Seriously, this was one of the nicest throwbacks I’ve ever seen. You know when geezers like me are grumping about how things used to be? We’re not arguing for the return of Streaky the Super-Cat or any of that crap. We just would like to see more comics like this. Smart and fun and (relatively) continuity-free; and best of all, not filled with cheap pandering to the arrested-adolescent demographic that demands all superheroes have EXTREME VIOLENCE! and HOT BABES!, whether that’s appropriate for a particular title or not.

I don’t think it’s asking a lot… and it can’t be that hard because DC showed in this week’s Supergirl that they can still publish stuff like that.

So of course it’s a fill-in. Next time we will be seeing a Supergirl from a new creative team that’s all tied in with the Superman continuity and so on and so on.  (Ironically, I picked this up by accident, I thought the new team started this month and figured I’d see what was up.) I still wish the new team well, but in the meantime, I’d like to see writer James Peaty do more stuff like this. He looks like a name to watch for. Pity it apparently won’t be on Supergirl.

(None of the above is meant to slight artist Ron Randall, who does a very nice job on the story too. But I expect Ron Randall to be good. The writing was a pleasant surprise.)

Anyway, I don’t think comics like this blow a hole completely through the let’s-just-do-books argument, because they’re clearly the exception.  (If there were more of them and they went to a wider audience there’d be no need to have the argument at all.)

It’s nice to have a current example around of what I’m talking about, though. Everyone? This is what I mean when I talk about “fun comics.” It’s not re-inventing the wheel, it’s not a turning point, it’s not anything other than an entertaining Supergirl adventure, which is a reasonable expectation for someone picking up a Supergirl comic book. Understand? This should be the baseline. This is at minimum what we should get every month. (Now if we could just get it cheaper.)

But it’s not the baseline. Instead it’s a freak accident. Which is why guys like me get so irritated at the DCU’s current direction.

*

Speaking of giant hunks of comics at bargain prices, I’m surprised I’ve seen so little on the review sites about the new comics entries in the Mammoth Book Of… series.

I fell for The Mammoth Book of Best War Comics a few weeks ago and I really like it. Marvel and DC and EC all have refused to allow stories from their respective libraries to be included, so really it ought to be called Best War Comics That Aren’t All That Famous. Still, that limitation has forced the editors to think outside the box a little and the result is a very cool collection with a nice indie sensibility. You get Will Eisner’s Last Day in Vietnam, the short manga that eventually was revamped into Barefoot Gen, and lots of Archie Goodwin’s Blazing Combat. “Best” may be a bit much, but it’s good, and you can’t beat the price.

Likewise The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics is way cool, and here the fact that the major comic publishers snooted inclusion in the book doesn’t hurt nearly as much.

All sorts of good stuff, including a choice Ms. Tree reprint, a Will Eisner Spirit, and Dashiell Hammett scripting over Alex Raymond’s art on Secret Agent X-9. Take a look at the list of names on that cover. This one gets a lot closer to ‘best.’

Actually I’m rather fond of some of the prose entries in the Mammoth series, as well. The Pulp Fiction and Pulp Action volumes are great fun.

All available for what you’d spend on a Marvel Essential– or considerably less, if you order online. Recommended.

*

It’s not strictly comics-related, but people seem to enjoy the tales of Julie’s and my scrounging around for weird old rarities in bookshops. (This can actually be a profession for some people, though we’re not that hardcore about it.)

We’ve been having a bit of good fortune in that area recently. Since the last time I mentioned this hobby, I’ve had an astonishingly easy time picking up a number of the old Whitman “TV Favorite” hardcovers for cheap. I love these books and quite a few comics people worked on them. For example, here’s Maverick from Alex Toth.

This is a lovely book just to look at, and the story by Charles Coombs is pretty good too.

Finding a couple of these on the road renewed my interest in them, so I’ve been looking around here at home, too. In an amazing run of luck, over the last few weeks I’ve managed to score some very hard-to-find volumes… for peanuts.

Here are three I’ve wanted for quite a while. The trouble with hunting antique books based on TV shows is that you’re not just competing with bookscouts; you also have to get there ahead of the memorabilia collectors. Because of that, books that are spun out of “cult” shows are particularly hard ones to find.

So I was very pleased to nail down, at long last, Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea (by old-school SF writer Raymond Jones!) and the first of the two Man From UNCLE entries, as well as the second Mod Squad volume. (We’ve been catching up with the Squad on DVD the last week or so, and there’s only one word for the experience: “Solid.” Check out this clip –about four minutes in– if you think I’m kidding…)

But I’m getting distracted. The point is, the score I am most pleased with from the last couple of weeks is this one.

The Green Hornet: The Case of the Disappearing Doctor is damnably hard to find for under fifteen or twenty dollars… at least, in anything like readable condition. That one has the antique collectors, the TV-memorabilia people, the comics fans, and the Bruce Lee fans all after it.

The story, by Brandon Keith, is pretty good and certainly hits all the marks one would expect in a story based on the Hornet’s TV show. The illustrations are by Larry Pelini.

They’re pretty good too, but curiously static. No action scenes are illustrated at all, though there are several good ones in the plot. The closest we get to an action scene with the Hornet and Kato are the book’s endpapers.

Which are admittedly kind of cool. But that’s it. Still, I’m very pleased to have found a copy at last… for three dollars, yet.

It was Julie that made the real score last week, though; she’s still grinning about it. I had to promise her I’d mention it in the column.

You have to understand that for me, bookscouting is just a fun way to kill a couple of hours nosing around thrift shops or used bookstores. For my wife it’s a mission.

The thing that absolutely fills my bride with joy is finding a bargain. She will spend hours happily burrowing through quarter boxes at a convention, or browsing the dustiest, most inaccessible shelves at a Goodwill, just for the thrill of scoring that one amazing find. So for her birthday last week one of the things I gave her was a forty-dollar gift card for Goodwill, thinking she could go out on Saturday with her sister and make a day of it. An orgy of thrift-store spelunking.

Julie actually has made several days of it. She has been stopping by the different Goodwill shops in town after work for the last few days, cheerfully searching each one inch by inch for that one cool thing that’s too awesome to pass up. As much as I protested that she should be spending it on herself, she insisted on looking for things for me, too.

She was quite smug to have found all four parts of DC’s The Prisoner Prestige Format miniseries.

Somehow they got larded in with “children’s books” and she got them for 79 cents each. That pleased her, but that wasn’t the real score.

The book she came home gloating over was this one.

The Silver Princess in Oz, by Ruth Plumly Thompson.

Julie loves the Oz books. She has always loved the Wizard of Oz movie, but she had no idea there was a series of books until she met me. And when she saw the books, she fell instantly in love with the illustrations. She adores John R. Neill’s work.

So Oz books are always on her short list.

She’s not alone. When it comes to children’s books, the Holy Grail for a bookscout is the Oz series. Believe it or not, the entries done by Ruth Thompson after Frank Baum passed away are just as highly valued as Baum’s originals, for the most part. (And– blasphemy– I think they’re better stories, by and large.) A good-condition copy of this particular one, Silver Princess, goes for anywhere from three to seven hundred dollars on the open market. Even a really shitty water-stained copy will net you between fifty and a hundred dollars.

Julie’s wasn’t shitty. It’s a little beat-up looking on the back cover, and it’s got some crayon in it where its young owner decided to color in the illustrations. The latter would offend a purist, I suppose. But the kid did a really good job, it actually looks rather nice. (And Julie says, “It shows it was loved.”) Binding’s intact, pages are tight. It’s a nice-looking book. It’d retail for somewhere between a hundred and a hundred and fifty at Powell’s in Portland, I imagine.

My wife found it for $4.99 at the downtown Goodwill on Dearborn Avenue in Seattle, which is by the way a bookscouting mecca here in town. Seriously. Pro bookscouts are combing that shop every morning for the new stuff on the shelves.

My bride beat them all to it. And she found it in the afternoon, even.

Clearly, Julie’s shopping-fu is mighty.

*

And that’s all I’ve got, this week… remember, the moral is: spend your money wisely. Make that comics dollar count.

See you next week.

• At September 5, 2008, Chris Jones wrote:

  I wouldn't call bloating a page with insipid, needless internal monologing "more bang for my buck". I call it "getting ...

You know, Curran is getting all the angry comments that used to go to me, and I’m getting a little sick of it. So let’s see who I can piss off in this post! Plus: My eyes bled as I read one of this week’s comics! See if you can guess which one!

The Boy Who Made Silence #6 (of 12) by Joshua Hagler (writer/artist), Kari Marboe (letterer), and Thomas Mauer (letterer). $3.50, 23 pgs, FC, Markosia.

This comic came out last week, but I didn’t get it until this week. That’s just the way it goes.

I’ve been a bit effusive in my praise for this comic, and I’m going to keep flogging it until you hunt it down and buy it! This is the last issue for a while, as Hagler explains in a text piece at the end, because he’s lost a chunk of money on it and needs to work on the rest (and, presumably, make some real coin). Considering he started working on it in 2002, I hope his statement that he’ll start on volume 2 in about a year (meaning it might be 18 months before we see another issue) isn’t overly optimistic. Because this is an absolutely brilliant comic book, one of the most astounding you will ever see, and it would be a shame we didn’t get a chance to see the end of it.

Yes, I just wrote “one of the most astounding you will ever see.” EVER. Hagler has challenged what can be done in comics in the same way that Kirby did long ago and Bill Sienkiewicz and Sam Kieth have done recently. He doesn’t use multimedia like Sienkiewicz and Dave McKean do, concentrating instead on painting, but he completely upends what we expect to see in a sequential art book. He has done this throughout the comic, and we can see that he’s getting better at it. In this issue, for instance, Nestor is baptized, and although someone having visions while being baptized is nothing new, Hagler turns the book literally upside-down and shows us Nestor’s past, including a marvelous section where he and his mother converse in a banal, info-dump kind of way, highlighting the quiet tragedy that Nestor and his mother live with every day. (It reminded me of John Doe from The Heckler in a weird way.) Hagler also makes a valid point about Nestor’s miracle and what it means to the town and why he shouldn’t do it again. He reiterates this point when the preacher talks about Nestor’s miracle, but ironically, even the preacher doesn’t get it. This interesting observation about religion is just one of the many things that elevates this comic.

I really can’t stop gushing about this book. I do hope Markosia brings out a collection of the first six issues in the interim to goose interest in it. I’m sure you can find the comics on-line, and I implore you to do so. This is a groundbreaking comic, beautiful and haunting and fearless and unique. Even the lettering is fantastic! That’s how good it is!

Fables #75 by Bill Willingham (writer), Mark Buckingham (penciller), Steve Leialoha (inker), Andrew Pepoy (inker), Lee Loughridge (colorist), and Todd Klein (letterer). $4.99, 56 pgs, FC, DC/Vertigo.

The war comes to an end in a fairly predictable manner, with shit hitting the fan after everything was going so well, but things work out, as we knew they would (the series is continuing, after all, and it couldn’t do that if the Emperor killed everyone, now could it?). As always, it’s a wonderful read, plot-wise, and could be better in the scripting. The highlight of the issue is probably Buckingham, whose panels are all from the top to the bottom of the page, stretching across each page. Many of the pages cross the middle of the page - they’re not quite double-page spreads, but they are nice and big. It’s an amazing book to look at, with brutally beautiful battle scenes and lots of big explosions. BIG ONES!!!! Explosions make anything better. Including Sunday mass.

Fables has been cruising along toward this point, and it’s interesting to see it reach it, because it will be fascinating to see where Willingham goes from here. The way he has structured the book is nice, because it builds with a slow burn to a climactic point, and then the status quo completely changes. It’s happened again, and I’m keen to see how our heroes deal with it.

The Invincible Iron Man #5 by Matt Fraction (writer), Salvador Larroca (artist), Frank D’Armata (colorist), and Chris Eliopoulos (letterer). $2.99, 22 pgs, FC, Marvel.

I still don’t know what to do with Invincible Iron Man. There are bits and pieces that work really well, and Fraction’s wit comes through, and it’s exciting, and then … it turns into a supervillain fighting a superhero. Really? And the ending is so … dull. Nobody thinks it’s going to stick, and it’s so olde-skool, but not in a good way. It’s as if Fraction is trying to write an old-fashioned superhero story but desperately wants to make it feel new. Well, it’s not new, and sometimes, old-fashioned superhero stories work best without grafting hip new lingo and ironic commentary onto it (see Beetle, Blue). If, in the final issue of the arc, Tony says something like “So, Zeke, this was all about killing me? So you’re nothing but a punk out for revenge? How disappointing,” then I’ll really be put off. It just seems like this could have been a three- or four-issue story about a new, kind of cool supervillain (Stane is kind of neat, after all) trying to kill Tony. By stretching it out and dropping in all sorts of nifty jargon, Fraction is putting lipstick on a pig. And nobody wants that.

I do, however, like the “Tony was right” T-shirt that Zeke (that is Zeke, right?) is wearing on the credits page. I’d buy that!

Manhunter #34 by Marc Andreyko (writer), Michael Gaydos (artist), José Villarrubia (colorist), and Travis Lanham (letterer). $2.99, 22 pgs, FC, DC.

Middle of a story arc blah blah blah things happening yadda yadda yadda lots of plot threads blah blah blah why is Huntress wearing a green outfit? yadda yadda yadda OH MY DEAR GOD WHAT’S THAT????????

As a public service, I purchased this comic. I knew that there was a possibility of what I’m about to divulge to you, but I bravely soldiered on, thinking that if I made the sacrifice, I could warn you about it and save countless thousands from my fate. That day is today, good readers. If I am the only victim, I will accept it. As long as I can save you from this comic.

Of what do I speak, you might ask? Well, on page 15 of this comic is the most horrific thing I may have ever seen. Yes, childhood (and childish) cartoon characters from 30 years ago getting slaughtered by a mutated dog in the pages of a comic book merrily sold to children cannot even begin to compare to the horror. On page 15, the artist, Michael Gaydos, puts several pencil lines together to render a drawing of … two men kissing each other on the lips. ON THE LIPS!!!!!! Won’t someone think of the children!!!!!!!

“But Greg,” you might say, “there’s nothing wrong with that! It’s just a drawing!” THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK! First, it’s just a drawing, and then, some San Franciscan pillow-biter is knocking on your door and claiming your first-born red-blooded American son for the Gay Movement! Don’t you people listen to the Savage Nation? He lives in San Francisco, man! He knows the truth!

I wanted to warn you about this because it’s far too late for me. I innocently turned the page and was instantly fixated with horror. But even though I felt revulsion, I looked at the drawing longer than a nanosecond, and now I find myself thinking dark, disturbing thoughts, like how much I’d like to see a Broadway show and that Joan Crawford is criminally underrated and that I really should try to dress better. Dear God, I think I’ve turned. Suddenly Rupert Everett makes sense to me. Suddenly I understand the appeal of the Weather Girls. Suddenly I’m focusing on different aspects of the highlights of last night’s football game, the aspects that deal with well-muscled men in tight pants. OH NO!!!!!!

That’s why I’m performing this public service. My poor wife and kids will have to adjust to a whole new me. But it’s not too late for you! Please avoid this comic at all costs. AT ALL COSTS!!!!!! You can still be saved from seeing a drawing of two sets of lips, both of which are male, meeting each other. I can’t. But with my last vestige of sanity before I buy the Village People’s Greatest Hits CD and start my new job as a fashion designer and/or women’s shoes salesman, I beg you to put this book aside. Buy something manly with lots of naked women in it. Do it for the children!!!!!!

I just thank God this book came out the same week at the Republicans were holding their convention. It just serves as a reminder why we have to continue the Bush regime this November. Then books like this will be consigned to the flames, just like they ought to be!!!!!!

Noble Causes #36 by Jay Faerber (writer), Yildiray Cinar (artist), Ryan Vera (colorist), and Charles Pritchett (letterer). $3.50, 21 pgs, FC, Image.

Speaking of good old-fashioned superhero books, there’s another issue of Noble Causes out, not that it matters now that it’s on the block. This is one of those books that you’re always pretty sure what you’re going to get, but Faerber still manages to surprise - not shock - you. It’s always the little things about the book, because the overall plots tend to be much like old-fashioned superhero plots - the bad guys have the upper hand, then lose - but Faerber takes so much time to make sure everything fits together so nicely, and every issue is just a joy to read. Cinar really does a great job with the big fight, too, ramping up the action with asymmetrical panels and characters smashing through the borders. It’s cool stuff.

Why do I like this when I can’t really enjoy Invincible Iron Man? Perhaps it’s in the perception. Noble Causes has always been a soapy superhero comic in the grand tradition of those great books of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. It doesn’t pretend to be anything else, and so we can just enjoy the heck out of it. Fraction appears to be trying to make Iron Man something different, but falling back into the old-fashioned patterns. Noble Causes moves fast, jumping from one crisis to another without allowing us to catch our breath, but still finding plenty of time for good character interaction. So far in Invincible Iron Man, the pace is glacial, the characters are cardboard cut-outs (this month’s Moon Knight had a more nuanced portrayal of Tony Stark, for crying out loud), and it feels vaguely embarrassed to be an old-fashioned superhero comic. If Fraction just admitted what it was, I think it would work better. Noble Causes has never had that problem.

Four issues left! Jump on the bandwagon now!

Secret Six #1 by Gail Simone (writer), Nicola Scott (penciller), Doug Hazelwood (inker), Steve Wands (letterer), and Jason Wright (colorist). $2.99, 22 pgs, FC, DC.

Speaking of good old-fashioned superhero comics (what is that, a theme this week?), well, Simone’s new title isn’t exactly that, but it’s pretty damned good. We’ll see where Simone goes with this, but based on this single issue, it might be the best new title of the year. Yes, I make bold proclamations like that! What are you going to do about it?

Simone returns to probably her best DC proper work, the six supervillains united by … well, sex, apparently, but that’s not important right now. What is important is that she manages to do something that’s kind of rare these days in comics, especially comics from the Big Two, and that’s create a true sense of menace. From the bad guy living in a crate (which isn’t as dumb as it sounds, and is actually kind of creepy) to the fact that Batman is worried about what the Six are up to, this comic has a tangible feel of something bad coming down the pike. It’s an intriguing set-up, and the fact that these are bad guys and are therefore perhaps a bit more expendable than heroes (not Deadshot, Catman, and probably Bane, of course, but still) makes us a bit more worried about our “heroes.” Simone, astonishingly, also makes this a damned funny book, from Ragdoll making jokes about how women react to him to Lawton and Blake talking about Blake’s newfound conscience while a grocery store robbery goes on around them to the thug with a life coach. Scott’s art, while not as good as Eaglesham’s or Walker’s, is solid. I’m not sure why Huntress’s outfit is green in Manhunter and not here, but whatever.

And, of course, now that I’m putting from the rough, so to speak, the fact that we get a naked Catman just makes this book all the more yummy. Damn! I was trying to suppress it. Didn’t work.

If you try a new comic this week, you should try this one. It’s a cool little thriller with some laughs and a nice set-up. Let’s see if Simone can draw enough of a crowd to sustain an ongoing with these characters, because she’s really done a nice job with them.

Storming Paradise #3 (of 6) by Chuck Dixon (writer), Jackson “Butch” Guice (artist), Carrie Strachan (colorist), and Patrick Brosseau (letterer). $2.99, 22 pgs, FC, DC/WildStorm.

There’s not much to say about this issue, as it’s squarely in the middle of the series. It’s more fighting and bombing and killing with some intrigue thrown in, and it ends rather oddly, seemingly in the middle of a scene. But that’s okay - it’s built for the trade anyway, so I don’t care. It’s just one of those comics that is entertaining and has nice art, but we can’t really tell if it’s worth it until we see the whole thing. So that’s when I’ll assess it properly.

Universal War One #3 (of 3) by Denis Barjam (writer/artist). $5.99, 46 pgs, FC, Marvel/Soleil.

I missed the second issue when it came out (who knew my comics shoppe wouldn’t order dozens of copies of a ten-year-old French comic?), but I got both issue #2 and 3 this past week, so I was able to finish the series. Marvel seems committed to the Soleil books for now, and that’s a good thing. Universal War One isn’t terribly groundbreaking, but it looks fantastic and is an entertaining hard sci-fi story, with lots of explosions (remember, explosions make everything better) and tense action. Yes, there’s plenty of time travel paradox talk, which always makes my head hurt, but Barjam makes sure everything fits together nicely, even if it’s easy to figure out soon after Baltimore shows up alive. If certain things go unanswered (what happened to Amina, for instance, and wouldn’t they all be stuck in a time loop if things work out the way Kalish explains?), the notions of heroism and how even the lowest members of society can act nobly is nicely examined without being too obvious (Barjam is not as subtle as he could be, but he’s not as obnoxious as he could be, either). This has a different vibe than American comics, too, even as American comics move out of the long shadow of superhero comics and into other genres. This is a “mature” book in that Barjam presents adults doing adult things, and not necessarily just because of the coarse language. Too often in American genre comics, we see stereotypes of characters - for instance, a hero who’s heroic but still has some issues. In this comic, nobody is a hero, but some characters act heroically. On a different page, they might act heinously. It’s not because Barjam is trying to confuse us, it’s because they’re real people who are simply trying to get by. We see this a lot in independent American comics, true, but it’s nice to see that kind of character work in a “big-budget” sci-fi comic. If only this kind of characterization would seep more into superhero comics. Oh well.

That’s all I have for this week. I’ve been trying to think of some way to piss people off, but if Manhunter’s assault on American values didn’t do it for you, you’re probably voting for an inexperienced “community organizer” who’s probably Muslim in the upcoming election. No wonder I now think Bowie in the “Spiders from Mars” period is a good role model. It’s all your fault! Oh, and Marc Andreyko’s.

Nobody guessed the totally random lyrics from last week, which made me sad, as they were from “Dr. Heckyll and Mr. Jive,” one of the best Men At Work songs. So I’ll give you an easy one this week, even though it’s still totally random!

“Watched by empty silhouettes
Who close their eyes, but still can see
No one taught them etiquette
I will show another me

Today I don’t need a replacement
I’ll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going boom boom boom
Hey, I said, You can keep my things, they’ve come to take me home.”

I’m embarrassed at how easy that is!

In celebration of his reaching the halfway point in his project, I’d like to note how impressed I have been with Wolden’s year-long sketch project where he does a sketch to match each one of Bill Reed’s 365 Reasons to Love Comics subjects.

Congratulations on all the fine work so far, Wolden, and I look forward to the rest of the list!

Check the project out at WoldenWorks.

She’s going to be at Rocketship tonight to celebrate the release of her new book, Slow Storm.

It was hilarious when Alex told me he was having a party for Novgorodoff, because I had her on my schedule for this month’s Art Stars, but for later in the month. Still, it’s a pretty funny coincidence!!

Every day this month I’m going to feature a current comic book art “star,” someone whose work I absolutely love.

I’m mostly going to try to keep from the biggest names as much as possible, because, really, do I need to talk more about the awesomeness of JH Williams, Frank Quitely and Darwyn Cooke? Here’s the archive of the artists mentioned so far!

Today, let’s take a look at a great young talent.

Enjoy!

I knew of Danica Novgorodoff for her work with First Second, so I was quite pleased when she won the 2006 Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics.

Ms. Novgorodoff won for her mini-comic, A Late Freeze, about the relationship between a bear and a robot - it is as elegant as it sounds bizarre. Her art is expressive in telling her story (and it better be, as it really IS her art that HAS to tell the story, as dialogue is not a real element of A Late Freeze) while still having a wonderful design quality to it (which makes sense, as Ms. Novgorodoff has done design work as well, not to mention paintings, drawings, photographs - a veritable cornucopia of artistic talents).

First off, here is a page from her earlier mini-comic work, Neck of the Moon.

She mixes media really well, although I’m afraid that panel really doesn’t demonstrate that all that well (I’m working with some limited choices of samples here). Just trust me that she mixes media well!

Here are a bunch of samples from A Late Freze…

Here is the cover. Remember what I said about the designer impact? Totally present here on the cover for the comic.

Here is a particularly brutal scene with the Bear at a factory…

It is funny how something as silly as a Bear and a Robot getting together can still be so brutal/heart rendering.

Here is a piece that goes to the elegance I spoke of earlier…

And here is Novgorodoff, showing her storytelling abilities…

Novgorodoff is just now releasing her first full-length graphic novel, Slow Storm.

Here are some sample pages from Slow Storm.

You can read more about Novgorodoff at her website here.

This is the one-hundred and seventy-first in a series of examinations of comic book urban legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the previous one-hundred and seventy. Click here for a similar archive, only arranged by subject.

Let’s begin!

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: An artist stopped working on his comics without informing anyone, including the editors on the books he was drawing.

STATUS: True

Malaysian artist Mahathir Buang (who went by the name Milx - originally meant to be Milk but he felt Milx sounded cooler) had a quick rise in the comics world in 2002, when he was in his mid-20s.

After working on a pitch for Marvel’s Epic line of comics with Steve Niles, Milx quickly found himself offered a gig drawing a brand new Silver Surfer series for Marvel Comics!

Not only that, but he was simultaneously working on a bi-monthly series for IDW with Niles called Wake the Dead!

Milx was on the way up, and finished the first issue of both series with no problem, even though he himself noted that inking himself on Silver Surfer could have been a problem.

Then he hit a bit of a snag….he more or less vanished.

Eventually, without being able to contact the guy, both Marvel and IDW moved on with other artists. In IDW’s case, since the book had not come out at the time, they were able to avoid delays. Marvel, however, had the second issue of the Silver Surfer series delayed by two months due to the change in artists (Lan Medina took over, and did a heck of a job, really).

Eventually, Milx resurfaced with a letter written to Tom Brevoort at Marvel, Jeff Mariotte at IDW, Steve Niles and the writing team of Silver Surfer, Stacy Weiss & Dan Chariton….

First of all, I apologize for my unnecessary action of shutting down and running away from my responsibility. My action had affected everything, the project, others reputation and badly, myself. And by saying sorry over and over again won’t do any good at this moment.

It’s should have been smooth ride for me, but due to my greediness and over confident in tackling tasks in hands had lead me into this. People have been put their trust to me, and I wasted them away. A perfect mirror of my life. I run away when ever there’s a breakdown facing me. Especially, to Steve Niles, the man that gives everything to me, chances and trust.

The very reason I wrote this is, I don’t want to run away anymore. I going to face the consequences of the action that I made. I know that, from now on, nobody going to trust me or even pitch me a project but let me settle everything up. Sadly my life end up this way.

Tom: I know I have a contract with Marvel, and I blew the contract. Is there any legal action will be taken on me? If there is, I here to face it. I’m truly sorry for what I’ve done. It’s a mess, and I’ll clean it up.

Dan & Stacy: Sorry guys, for messing everything up. Truly I am, hope to see Silver Surfer flying with you guys in it.

Jeff: I know Wake the Dead is over for me. I regret it a lot. I’ll return the unused art board ASAP. I can’t do much. I’ll send the remaining cover of Wake the Dead if you still want to use it. Thanks for your support, and sorry for wasting them.

Steve: I know that you really disappointed in me. I wasted my talent and my life. Right now, I am facing my problems and ready to move forward. Right now, I just want to repair my relationship with you, and I might not get to collaborate with you, but I do need some word of advice. Very least that I can asked.

A feedback from you guys is very much appreciated. Thanks.

milx

Pretty amazing, no?

Niles ended up giving Milx a second chance, and in 2006, Milx drew the 30 Days of Night mini-series, Dead Space.

There were also a bit of a hubbub at the time of his disappearance about whether Milx was the same guy as a person named Mo_o who posted at the Marvel fan fiction site, Marvel 2000. I don’t believe I could prove it one way or the other, so I’ll just leave it alone.

Still, it’s amazing to me that a fellow could just stop drawing his comics like that!

Thanks to reader Gabriel for the suggestion!

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: The DC Multiverse had an Earth-B.

STATUS: Kinda Sorta True (but not so much)

Reader Bertrone asked me about something he read on Wikipedia that suggested that there were stories featuring Catwoman killing people and that DC later stated that these stories took place on Earth-B. He wanted to know what the deal with Earth-B was.

Well, the answer, like most things in life, begins with Bob Haney.

The Brave and the Bold had an interesting start, as it first began as a non-superhero book…

then, when the Silver Age began, it became a counterpart to Showcase, as a try-out book…

finally, with #50, the book became a team-up book (in one of the oddest moves you would see, the book went BACK to being a try-out book for two issues, #57 and 58, then returned to a team-up book).

That first issue was written by Bob Haney, who would go on to write the book on a more or less ongoing basis (a couple of fill-ins mixed in) for the next seventeen years.

As mentioned in one of the very first Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed, Bob Haney was not exactly a stickler when it came to continuity, especially in the pages of the Brave and the Bold, so soon, he began “violating” continuity left and right…

The Spectre…

Plastic Man…

Wildcat…

All these books did not technically fit into the Earth-1/Earth-2 dynamic, so DC fans, and ultimately DC personnel, began referring to Haney’s Brave and the Bold stories as being on “Earth-B,” with the B either standing for Haney’s longtime editor (although not his editor when he began or his editor when he finished with Brave and the Bold #158), Murray Boltinoff or for the Bs in Brave and the Bold.

Eventually, Earth-B began what people at DC would refer to to explain ANY events that did not fit into continuity - “They took place on Earth-B.”

One example of an event that was placed on to Earth-B was a number of Catwoman stories during the 1970s that involved Catwoman killing people. These stories were considered to be on Earth-B.

Now, Earth-B was never actually referenced in an actual comic book. The closest it came was Bob Rozakis referring to it in a letters column. So that’s why I have this marked down as kinda sorta true (but not so much).

Still, it’s interesting to see how continuity mistakes were dealt with decades ago.

Chris Elam had a fun, if short-lived, blog called Earth-B!

Thanks to Bertrone for the question!

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy were going to do an Elric comic book for Marvel.

STATUS: Basically False

Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy’s run on Master of Kung Fu is rightfully hailed as a classic (it made the Top 100 Comic Book Runs, as voted on by Comics Should Be Good readers!).

However, were they ever going to work together on another classic character, Michael Moorcock’s Elric?

Reader Rob sent in the following a month or so ago…

Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy were once lined up to do an Elric Series for Marvel.

Though I seem to have misplaced the comic in question, I remember reading a response to a letter in the lettercolumn of MASTER OF KUNG-FU #34 (Nov ‘75) in which whoever put the column together announced that this would be happening soon. Obviously, it never did but given that Elric had appeared in Marvel’s CONAN comic a few years earlier, this certainly made sense. So did this get no further than that one announcement or do never-published pages exist somewhere?

I asked Paul Gulacy about it, and he was gracious enough to tell me that while the idea was bandied around, it never actually got to the point of being authorized, so no, he never did any pages for it.

I say “Basically False” because there is a fine line between “it is lined up and it will be happening soon” and “the idea was bandied about” - there’s not much difference, is there?

Gulacy was kind enough to point me to a pin-up of Elric he did for Jim Steranko’s Mediascene magazine.

And thanks to Job B. Cooke and Comic Book Artist, here is that pin-up!

Well, that was one of the more straightforward answers to a legend, no?

Elric did, by the way, end up making his way to comics for many different companies.

Thanks to Rob for the suggestion, Paul Gulacy for the answer and Jon B. Cooke and Comic Book Artist for the pin-up!

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Thanks to the Grand Comic Book Database for this week’s covers!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is cronb01@aol.com.

See you next week!

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