comfort food comic

[benday-dot]

A couple days back, looking for something fun to read from my back issue boxes, something light for a rainy day, I pulled out DC Special #16. It's not the first time I turned back to my old copy of the perfectly, wonderfully titled "Super-Heroes vs. Super Gorillas." Just reading Dan Baily's recent entry about his affectionate feelings for his mid-60's run of Legion of Super Heroes from Adventure I thought a lot of us here must have what is the comic book equivalent of comfort food, as Dan put it.

The sub-title of DC Special #16 alone is enough to sell it for me... I mean "Super-Heroes vs. Super Gorillas"?!! How great is that. Inside we find such classics as "Batman Battles the Beast Bomb" from Detective 339 (of which I also have a much loved original) and the magnificent Wonder Woman #170 tale where the first lady of DC gets transformed into a "pretty" girl gorilla.

Yeah, this is comic comfort food for me. This is not the dearest comic I own, or even, I guess, among the few great favourites in my collection, but it sure does make for a smile, and a nice rainy day read.

Got any of your own?

http://www.comics.org/graphics/covers/2216/400/2216_4_16.jpg

[Scott Shaw!]

I hear you, bruthuh!

I bought the original printings of all of those reprinted, gorilla-centric stories right off the newsstands, and loved every one of 'em. And if you check out ODDBALL COMICS' archives, you'll see dozens of more gorilla stories that'll be chicken soup for your simian soul!

Aloha,

Scot!

[The Confessor]

Well, for me, my comic book 'comfort food' would be pretty much any issue of the Marvel Star Wars series from the 70's and 80's (of which I'm proud to own the entire run).

I suppose it's because I grew up reading and re-reading these comics at the time and as such, they always take me right back to being the wide-eyed little Star Wars fan that I was when I first read them. There's a nice familier feeling to reading them, kinda like seeing old friends again, you know? I always get a nice, warm fuzzy feeling inside from them.

As I say, it could pretty much be any issue from this series but in particular, the following issues really do it for me...

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/616/mvsw001xl4.jpg
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/7314/mvsw008xe3.jpg
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/7495/mvsw031lk2.jpg
http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/5264/mvsw081np0.jpg

[The Confessor]

Oops! Double post!

[The Confessor]

Damn it....triple post!!

Anyone else finding these forums to be more than rather troublsome lately?

[Graham Vingoe]

Funnily enough, I've been tracking down my back issues of Groo for this very purpose. You always pretty much knew what to expect from an issue of Groo and they very rarely failed to deliver at least 1 or 2 real belly laughs per issue.

[dan bailey]

In addition to the aforementioned mid-'60s Adventure Legion, off the top of my head I also find myself going back again & again going bask to bask in the nostalgia-fueled glow of --

Sgt Fury & the Howling Commandos, especially during John Severin's 3 1/2-year stint inking Dick Ayers pencils (ishes 44-81).

Not Brand Echh.

The 80-Page Giants featuring Superman, Jimmy Olsen or Lois Lane (I love 'em all, but these were the ones that I really cut my teeth on as a comics-reading kid).

Early (through #30 or so) Gold Key Ripley'sBelieve It or Nots.

Any Mad or Peanuts paperback that had come out by 1970 or so.

As it happens, Sgt Fury, NBE, 2 Superman 80-pagers & 1 Jimmy account for my top 5 favorite single comics ever, as delineated in the 12-days-of-Xmas thread from '05, & the 94 ishes of Ripley's constitute my 2nd-longest complete run (behind only MOKF) ... Obviously, I take my comics comfort food very, very seriously. (Unfortunately, my increasingly Volstaggian waistline indicates that I take my food comfort food very, very seriously as well ...)

[MDG]

Most 60s DC superhero and mystery books, up until the end of go-go checks, especially Weisinger and Schwartz titles.

Gold Key Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery and Ripley's Beleive it or Not.

Creepy and Eerie while Archie Goodwin was editing (and doing most of the writing)

MDG

[scratchie]

Almost anything from right around 1975, when I started buying comics. Especially Marvel Team-Up or Two-In-One, and Legion of Super-Heroes.

[Red Oak Kid]

The Challengers of the Unknown Super DC Special from 1971.

http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=75451&zoom=4

A great new Kirby cover and 68 pages of sweet Kirby/Wood stories.

[Red Oak Kid]

Damn it....triple post!!

Anyone else finding these forums to be more than rather troublsome lately?

The rare triple post.:)

Yes, often the board seems quite sluggish when trying to process posts and edits.

However since I have a dial-up connection anyway, I'm used to waiting and waiting for stuff to happen.

[Cei-U!]

DC 100-Page Super-Spectaculars. There's no mood so foul that those books can't jolly me out of. They're the Singin' in the Rain of comics, just pure feelgood entertainment.

Cei-U!
Lessee, which box are those in...

[MWGallaher]

The Challengers of the Unknown Super DC Special from 1971.

A great new Kirby cover and 68 pages of sweet Kirby/Wood stories.

"Starring the World's Most Dangerous Villains" ?! What's that doing there?

My comfort food comic is THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD (after the team-ups got rolling). This has everything I could want in a comfort comic:
Almost always "done-in-one": you won't be left hungry for the rest.
Variety: you won't feel like you're reading the same story you read a few issues earlier.
Consistency: your lead character will be pretty much the same guy he was the last issue.
Quality: Aparo and Adams and Cardy, mostly? Unquestionably satisfying ingredients.
Novelty: Every next issue (almost) features a different "treat", from the old standbys like Green Arrow to the surprises like Scalphunter, with a nice helping of stuff you hadn't had the chance to enjoy in a long time, like Hawk & Dove.

[prince hal]

I've got a bunch...

I have to say that as much as I loved the 100-pagers, Kurt, for me they are surpassed by DC Annuals and Marvel's Fantasy Masterpieces/ Marvel Super-Heroes: heaven is the smell of all that newsprint...and all those heroes. Likewise the Marvel Westerns. Love those rannies!

Like Dan, I love the old Adventures...lip-smackin' good! Old Superboys,too. And I can have a lotta fun with the Howlers and Johnny Cloud, the Navajo Ace, another old favorite.

Another favorite is the oversized hardcover, THE CELEBRATED CASES OF DICK TRACY, from the early 70s: great stories, excellent format, wonderful memories.

Just this week I had a ball rereading The New Frontier. So much fun I wanted there to be a sequel or seven.

Once in a while, I'll grab all the parts of a favorite "arc" and read them all at once, as I did with New Frontier: the Engelhart/Rogers Detective run; the Virus-X stories in Action; the Mangog vs. Thor (60's);the all-too-brief Steve savage, Balloon-Buster.

Sometimes it's fun to grab all the books you have that came out in a particular month and reread them. Maybe it's not time in a bottle, but it is time between four-color covers and it really can bring you back.

[benday-dot]

Thor versus Mangog... Ah yes, Prince Hal... no debate as to Kirby Presence there. I just love going back to that arc, as well to Tales of Asgard.

And for something completely different. I nibble often at the comfort food that is a Jim Mooney Supergirl tale. There is just something so imperishably warm and sweet the way JM renders those stories. Superman's cold pizza compared to the way his cousin whimsical wings through the sky just trying get out of a fix and kick the bad guys off the page, without ever seemimg to get too terribly pissed that there is just too much shit in the world. Man, when its all over she still remembers to play with Streaky.

[The Confessor]

The rare triple post.:)

Yes, often the board seems quite sluggish when trying to process posts and edits.

However since I have a dial-up connection anyway, I'm used to waiting and waiting for stuff to happen.

I can't imagine how frustrating these forums must be when they're playing up and your on dial-up! I mean, you must literally feel years of your life slipping by while your trying to get something posted or edited.

I'm sure these boards have been worse over the last couple of months than they were previously. When I first joined the CBR forums I don't recall ever having any trouble...and I was on dial-up too in those days so I'm sure I'd recall.

It does my crust in! :mad:

[Red Oak Kid]

I can't imagine how frustrating these forums must be when they're playing up and your on dial-up! I mean, you must literally feel years of your life slipping by while your trying to get something posted or edited.

I'm sure these boards have been worse over the last couple of months than they were previously. When I first joined the CBR forums I don't recall ever having any trouble...and I was on dial-up too in those days so I'm sure I'd recall.

It does my crust in! :mad:

LOL.

But it's nothing compared to waiting for a page of cover thumbnails to load at the GCD.

Yes, CBR has gotten worse. They seem to be offline about 50% of the time too.

But old farts like me are just happy to have a computer. In the old days I had to write letters and wait for the U.S Mail.:D

[dan bailey]

Hmmm ... So at least two of us are on dial-up?

I don't have a cell phone, either, or for that matter cable TV. I feel more & more like a Luddite every day ...

[Red Oak Kid]

Hmmm ... So at least two of us are on dial-up?

I don't have a cell phone, either, or for that matter cable TV. I feel more & more like a Luddite every day ...

I have a cell phone, but only for emergency calls from my parents. I don't spend time chatting with my friends about Paris H. on it.

I had cable in the 80s, but quit when the price went over $10 a month.

Apologies to Ben Day for going off on a tangent.

[Aaron King]

My Old School/Comic Cred comfort food is post-Marvel Era Kirby comics: New Gods, Eternals, Kamandi, Captain Victory, etc. I can read them any time.

My Full-Fledged Geek comfort food might be Claremont New Mutants. It was the first comic I ever seriously tried to get a large run of. The Demon Bear Saga is probably foremost in this... as a kid, finding the first issue of the arc at a flea market with the top of the cover chopped off, I initially had no idea what the comic even was. That Bill Sienkiewicz art really dug itself into my head, though, and influenced my later art and art appreciation.

Modern Stuff that I can just pick up and read at any time include The Filth, Chase, Resurrection Man, and just about anything by Mike Mignola.

[Kirk G]

Hmmm ... So at least two of us are on dial-up?

I don't have a cell phone, either, or for that matter cable TV. I feel more & more like a Luddite every day ...

Make that three of us on dial up...
ANd I downgraded Cable TV from $42/mon to $13.72 again when they jacked the price of basic up over 18 years from $18/month in stages. I used to pay $5/month for each HBO and Cinemax but released it when I moved from an apartmen into my house. And have never looked back at movie channels since.... until I ran to a bar to watch the last Soprano's episode last night. I was disappointed.

[Cei-U!]

Make that three of us on dial up...

Make that four. I have promised myself I'd upgrade to DSL before summer's end, though, so the end may be in sight.

Cei-U!
I summoned the lightning ten minutes ago and it's still loading!

[Cherokee Jack]

Make that four. I have promised myself I'd upgrade to DSL before summer's end, though, so the end may be in sight.

Cei-U!
I summoned the lightning ten minutes ago and it's still loading!

Make it five.

[Metamorpho]

Dial up here too.

[Cei-U!]

Jeezus, we should just rename this the Old Farts Board and have done with it.

Cei-U!
I summon the Geritol!

[scratchie]

Jeezus, we should just rename this the Old Farts Board and have done with it.And you're just realizing this now.... ???

Hey, you kids! Get off my lawn!!

[Lone Ranger]

Hmmm... I have high speed but no cell phone, so I feel like I am in some sort of hybrid generation.


As for comfort reading, when I really want to relax and clear my head I actually find that flipping through the Gerber Journals or an Overstreet Guide usually does the trick. I am always interested in spotting a title I'd never noticed before or finding out some strange factoid.

I find that flipping through those books helps me relax and shrug off the stress of the day.

[Randy Reynaldo/WCG Comics]

Though the conversation was winding down, I had to weigh in here...

First, I still have dial-up too. I have a high-bandwidth connection at work, so I don't feel the need for speed at home. If I need one on the fly, I can slip out with my laptop to someplace with wi-fi. I resisted having a cell phone for years then got one thru work. Of course I immediately discovered how useful they are and got one for my wife so that we could easily stay in touch since she works as well. And it certainly comes in handy at a huge comicon.

I also resisted cable for years 'cause I felt cable companies had a monopoly. And now, of course, I have DirecTV with TiVo. I look forward to telling my two children when they're older of the days when I used to actually get up to change the channel. And when the President was on TV, he was on EVERY CHANNEL and ruined your night.

The main reason I felt compelled to post however was the main subject of comfort food comics. The person who mentioned the Marvel run of Star Wars brought back some nice memories. One of my favorites of that run was the Michael Golden fill in issue -- aside from Al Williamson's run on the series, it was the most faithful, and man the art was BEAUTIFUL, and all in a self-contained story. That remains one of my favorite single comics of all time.

Other comfort food comics include Our Army at War/Sgt. Rock during the same period, the Batman books (Aparo, Chan, then Englehart and Rogers), and when I was in college, American Flagg and Nexus. I haven't read it in years, but I also recall being blown away by a one-shot Mister Miracle book that Mark Evanier and Steve Rude did. At the time, I felt that that was one of the most purely fun and entertaining "popcorn" comic I had ever read. I should go back to see if it holds up.

[DocL]

Avengers Annual #2

(And for the record, I'm 50 and have no cell phone...and proud of it!)

[Chris N]

Everybody on this forum seemed so wise once and I wanted to be just like you one day... now you just all seem kinda old and I'm no longer sure.

Dial-Up? Land lines?

I haven't even had a home phone in 8 years.

My comfort food comics are the stuff around when I started reading in the early '90s like Infinity Gauntlet and Bob Harras' Avengers.

[Sir Tim Drake]

Everybody on this forum seemed so wise once and I wanted to be just like you one day... now you just all seem kinda old and I'm no longer sure.

Dial-Up? Land lines?

I haven't even had a home phone in 8 years.

My comfort food comics are the stuff around when I started reading in the early '90s like Infinity Gauntlet and Bob Harras' Avengers.

Just think... one day, you and I will be participating in this same conversation, but from the other side.

We'll be ashamed to admit that we still use physical computers to access the Internet, instead of those new-fangled ethereal computers. And we'll feel apologetic about using cell phones instead of telepathy.

And we'll reminisce about the great classic cartoonists of the past, like Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld and Michael Turner.

[Aaron King]

Eff Michael Turner.

But wasn't that Evanier/Rude Mr. Miracle special awesome? I know it was on my Top 10 from two year ago. Man... it's so good. I just pretend that the Kirby run on Miracle was followed up by that issue. And that the rest of the New Gods universe was followed by Walt Simonson's Orion and Hawkgirl and then by the Great Darkness Saga.

[Chris N]

Just think... one day, you and I will be participating in this same conversation, but from the other side.

We'll be ashamed to admit that we still use physical computers to access the Internet, instead of those new-fangled ethereal computers. And we'll feel apologetic about using cell phones instead of telepathy.

And we'll reminisce about the great classic cartoonists of the past, like Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld and Michael Turner.

I find that statement highly dubious (not the part about telepathy or ethereal computers; that's plausible)