Rob Imes
11-04-2008, 01:39 PM
I don't have home access to the internet anymore, so I don't post much on message boards these days. But back when I did have the internet, I used to write posts like this one on CBR, bragging about the back issues that I'd gotten dirt-cheap at comics shops or conventions.
So, here's a new post in that vein, inspired by the fact that yesterday I went to a local comics shop and bought the comics listed below for a total of... five bucks.
The shop has one of the coolest ideas for their cheap bins that I've ever run across. In one side of the shop, they have several rows of long boxes of comics, the cheap-o stuff that is priced at 25 or 50 cents each (I forget which). But they have some brown paper bags nearby, and the deal is that you can fill up a bag of these cheap comics for five bucks. The brown paper bags are thin ones, the kind to put a magazine of two in, but of course I manage to pack a whole lot of comics into those things!
I have a notebook where I've written down all the comics in my collection, and I take that with me when I go comics shopping. In the end, I put some comics back because I already had them... including a 1970s Marvel Premiere starring Iron Fist issue. And others I put back because there was no room in the bag. (Money was short and I wanted to limit myself to one bag.)
So, here's what I bought yesterday at the shop, for a total of five dollars...
AMAZING HEROES #22 (April 1983)
John Byrne’s Alpha Flight previewed, including a Byrne cover. Funny little fine-print on the cover where it gives the price, “$1.95 . $2.50 in Canada (Sorry, John)” These old zines are good places to get info on comics of the time, including things which were planned but never got published. Page 18 shows Steve Ditko’s pencils to an upcoming Hangman story for Archie/Red Circle, before the page was inked.
ATTACK #13 (Modern Comics/Charlton, 1978)
Modern’s reprint of the 1973 Charlton war comic. The cover is by Tom Sutton, to go with the 8-page Sutton-drawn tale inside.
AZTEC ACE #9 & 13 (Eclipse, 1985)
This is one of those series that eventually I’d like to get ‘em all (cheap) and then read ‘em, as they look intriguing. I also bought #10, but it turns out that I had that one already.
BEYOND THE GRAVE #2 (Modern Comics/Charlton, 1978)
This is the Modern reprint of the 1975 Charlton issue. I actually already have this issue, but wasn’t sure what condition it was in, so I got this one just in case, since it’s in nice condition. This issue has an unusually long Ditko tale (11 pages) plus Ditko cover to go with the story. There was also a Modern reprint of an issue of DRAG N’ WHEELS in the bin, but I knew I already had that one in decent enough condition, so I didn’t get it. It’s always nice to get a 1970s Charlton comic in nice condition, since I’m so used to seeing them in less-than-perfect shape (to put it mildly).
BLACK DIAMOND #5 (AC Comics, 1984)
I didn’t know this series had run beyond 3 issues. The Paul Gulacy cover is what caught my attention. A full color indie comic, back when AC was doing that.
CENTURIONS #4 (DC; Sept. 1987)
Final issue of mini-series by Bob Rozakis, Don Heck, and Al Vey, based on a TV cartoon of the time.
CODY STARBUCK by Howard Chaykin (Star*Reach, 1978)
This is a full color comic which shows just how good Chaykin was back then. The art looks like something Frank Miller would draw, but a few years before Miller was drawing like that. Chaykin’s line art in the comic is really stripped-down, letting the colorist (Chaykin?) add the shadings with color, not lines. That results in a far more attractive looking art than what Chaykin’s art normally looks like, IMO. This is one stylish, good-looking, ahead-of-its-time comic.
CRASH RYAN #3 (Epic/Marvel; Dec. 1984)
Four-issue limited series written and drawn by Ron Harris. Still don’t have #1, but I’m sure it will turn up in these boxes one day.
CROSSFIRE #21, 22, 24 (Eclipse, 1987)
I finally got around to reading some issues of this series (as well as the later Epic series HOLLYWOOD SUPERSTARS) a few weeks ago, and liked ‘em so much that I made a mental note to get more CROSSFIRE. So, I was very pleased to see these issues in the very first of the cheap boxes that I started to look through. (Great way to start a cheap-bin dig… when you immediately come across something you’d been hoping to find. That helps give you more energy in digging past so many undesirable comics, in the hope that you’ll stumble upon more of what you’d been looking for, so that you don’t feel like you’re wasting your time.) Each issue of CROSSFIRE has a great text-page (actually several pages) backup article by Mark Evanier about showbiz, which are worth reading on their own, never mind the comic part of the mag. However, the comic part is also terrific, with great art by the underrated Dan Spiegle. Dan has an art style reminiscent of the 1950s Alex Toth. I first discovered his work in 1983 in Black Hood #3 (great issue, by the way – Toth and Boyette are also in that issue), and I assumed that he was a younger artist for some reason. I only recently discovered, if his Wikipedia entry is correct, that he was actually born in 1920 (making him 7 years older than Steve Ditko). His art in CROSSFIRE is wonderful, and it’s great that Mark Evanier used him for this series (as well as WHODUNNIT? and the aforementioned HOLLYWOOD SUPERSTARS). Spiegle is one of those older artists (like Gray Morrow, Pat Boyette, etc.) whose style didn’t really fit the Kirby superhero style that began to increasingly dominate comics. The lead hero of CROSSFIRE is a masked hero, but I think that’s just a clever way of sucking in the superhero readers, so that it looks like a superhero comic without actually being a superhero comic. Anyway, if you ever see any CROSSFIRE in the back issue boxes, get ‘em, they’re great!
THE DESTROYER Vol. Two #1 (Marvel; March 1991)
I had known that Ditko had drawn at least two Destroyer stories, and didn’t have them in my collection, so I opened this comic up to check, and sure enough there was a Ditko backup tale (inked by Ditko, too) inside. The lead story was drawn by Lee Weeks, whose art I also like. And both stories were written by the great Will Murray, whose comics history articles I have enjoyed since I was 13 years old. (Incidentally, Will has a short article in the current issue (#69) of Ditkomania (http://www.ditko-fever.com/dmreturns.html) – a little plug for my fanzine there…) This comic is thicker than a regular comic and I look forward to reading it.
(Note: This post continued below...)
So, here's a new post in that vein, inspired by the fact that yesterday I went to a local comics shop and bought the comics listed below for a total of... five bucks.
The shop has one of the coolest ideas for their cheap bins that I've ever run across. In one side of the shop, they have several rows of long boxes of comics, the cheap-o stuff that is priced at 25 or 50 cents each (I forget which). But they have some brown paper bags nearby, and the deal is that you can fill up a bag of these cheap comics for five bucks. The brown paper bags are thin ones, the kind to put a magazine of two in, but of course I manage to pack a whole lot of comics into those things!
I have a notebook where I've written down all the comics in my collection, and I take that with me when I go comics shopping. In the end, I put some comics back because I already had them... including a 1970s Marvel Premiere starring Iron Fist issue. And others I put back because there was no room in the bag. (Money was short and I wanted to limit myself to one bag.)
So, here's what I bought yesterday at the shop, for a total of five dollars...
AMAZING HEROES #22 (April 1983)
John Byrne’s Alpha Flight previewed, including a Byrne cover. Funny little fine-print on the cover where it gives the price, “$1.95 . $2.50 in Canada (Sorry, John)” These old zines are good places to get info on comics of the time, including things which were planned but never got published. Page 18 shows Steve Ditko’s pencils to an upcoming Hangman story for Archie/Red Circle, before the page was inked.
ATTACK #13 (Modern Comics/Charlton, 1978)
Modern’s reprint of the 1973 Charlton war comic. The cover is by Tom Sutton, to go with the 8-page Sutton-drawn tale inside.
AZTEC ACE #9 & 13 (Eclipse, 1985)
This is one of those series that eventually I’d like to get ‘em all (cheap) and then read ‘em, as they look intriguing. I also bought #10, but it turns out that I had that one already.
BEYOND THE GRAVE #2 (Modern Comics/Charlton, 1978)
This is the Modern reprint of the 1975 Charlton issue. I actually already have this issue, but wasn’t sure what condition it was in, so I got this one just in case, since it’s in nice condition. This issue has an unusually long Ditko tale (11 pages) plus Ditko cover to go with the story. There was also a Modern reprint of an issue of DRAG N’ WHEELS in the bin, but I knew I already had that one in decent enough condition, so I didn’t get it. It’s always nice to get a 1970s Charlton comic in nice condition, since I’m so used to seeing them in less-than-perfect shape (to put it mildly).
BLACK DIAMOND #5 (AC Comics, 1984)
I didn’t know this series had run beyond 3 issues. The Paul Gulacy cover is what caught my attention. A full color indie comic, back when AC was doing that.
CENTURIONS #4 (DC; Sept. 1987)
Final issue of mini-series by Bob Rozakis, Don Heck, and Al Vey, based on a TV cartoon of the time.
CODY STARBUCK by Howard Chaykin (Star*Reach, 1978)
This is a full color comic which shows just how good Chaykin was back then. The art looks like something Frank Miller would draw, but a few years before Miller was drawing like that. Chaykin’s line art in the comic is really stripped-down, letting the colorist (Chaykin?) add the shadings with color, not lines. That results in a far more attractive looking art than what Chaykin’s art normally looks like, IMO. This is one stylish, good-looking, ahead-of-its-time comic.
CRASH RYAN #3 (Epic/Marvel; Dec. 1984)
Four-issue limited series written and drawn by Ron Harris. Still don’t have #1, but I’m sure it will turn up in these boxes one day.
CROSSFIRE #21, 22, 24 (Eclipse, 1987)
I finally got around to reading some issues of this series (as well as the later Epic series HOLLYWOOD SUPERSTARS) a few weeks ago, and liked ‘em so much that I made a mental note to get more CROSSFIRE. So, I was very pleased to see these issues in the very first of the cheap boxes that I started to look through. (Great way to start a cheap-bin dig… when you immediately come across something you’d been hoping to find. That helps give you more energy in digging past so many undesirable comics, in the hope that you’ll stumble upon more of what you’d been looking for, so that you don’t feel like you’re wasting your time.) Each issue of CROSSFIRE has a great text-page (actually several pages) backup article by Mark Evanier about showbiz, which are worth reading on their own, never mind the comic part of the mag. However, the comic part is also terrific, with great art by the underrated Dan Spiegle. Dan has an art style reminiscent of the 1950s Alex Toth. I first discovered his work in 1983 in Black Hood #3 (great issue, by the way – Toth and Boyette are also in that issue), and I assumed that he was a younger artist for some reason. I only recently discovered, if his Wikipedia entry is correct, that he was actually born in 1920 (making him 7 years older than Steve Ditko). His art in CROSSFIRE is wonderful, and it’s great that Mark Evanier used him for this series (as well as WHODUNNIT? and the aforementioned HOLLYWOOD SUPERSTARS). Spiegle is one of those older artists (like Gray Morrow, Pat Boyette, etc.) whose style didn’t really fit the Kirby superhero style that began to increasingly dominate comics. The lead hero of CROSSFIRE is a masked hero, but I think that’s just a clever way of sucking in the superhero readers, so that it looks like a superhero comic without actually being a superhero comic. Anyway, if you ever see any CROSSFIRE in the back issue boxes, get ‘em, they’re great!
THE DESTROYER Vol. Two #1 (Marvel; March 1991)
I had known that Ditko had drawn at least two Destroyer stories, and didn’t have them in my collection, so I opened this comic up to check, and sure enough there was a Ditko backup tale (inked by Ditko, too) inside. The lead story was drawn by Lee Weeks, whose art I also like. And both stories were written by the great Will Murray, whose comics history articles I have enjoyed since I was 13 years old. (Incidentally, Will has a short article in the current issue (#69) of Ditkomania (http://www.ditko-fever.com/dmreturns.html) – a little plug for my fanzine there…) This comic is thicker than a regular comic and I look forward to reading it.
(Note: This post continued below...)