Advance Warning: The Twelve Days of Classic Comics Christmas 2012

[Scott Harris]

Dunno if it's the series you're talking about, but it looks like this exercise will inspire me to finally get around to reading a certain 4-issue series that shares its title with one of the grandest comics zines ever.

Wait, there was also a magazine named Street Poet Ray?!

[Cei-U!]

Dunno if it's the series you're talking about, but it looks like this exercise will inspire me to finally get around to reading a certain 4-issue series that shares its title with one of the grandest comics zines ever.

Nope. I too have yet to read said series-that-shares-its-title-etc. Mine is a 12-issue run I've mentioned here on the Classics board before.

Cei-U!
Its initials are Mars!

[dan bailey]

Nope. I too have yet to read said series-that-shares-its-title-etc. Mine is a 12-issue run I've mentioned here on the Classics board before.

Cei-U!
Its initials are Mars!

Which I need to finish after starting a few months ago.

I summon the reading list as long as the accumulated arms of everyone who's posted in this thread!

[shaxper]

I'm pretty comfortable with my list (but then I've had a year more than you guys did to think about it ). Once I reminded myself that the part about "personal favorites, not what I think is the best" applied to me too (about a week ago), the process got simpler. I could let go of series like Watchman that I admired and respected and focus on those titles I genuinely love, the ones I consistently look forward to rereading. I've got titles from the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s, mini-series and sales casualties, about evenly split between Marvel and DC (plus an indy--if First counts as an indy), almost all of it unapologetically super-hero. And yet just today I had to rearrange my list because until dan pointed it out I'd forgotten that Kull was eligible under my own flippin' rules!

Loving the fact that you're still wrestling with your own selections a year in. Way to be an exemplar to our own sense of wondrous indecision :)

Looking at my own finalists at this point, I have:

5 cancelled series
3 renamed series
17 limited series

1 1940s series
0 1950s series
2 1960s series
5 1970s series
8 1980s series
6 1990s series

[Scott Harris]

I've decided to make a list with no limited series. I think one of my picks was intended to only run 12 issues or less even though it wasn't advertised as a limited series, but the rest of them were canned for one reason or another.

[dan bailey]

In the spirit of shaxper's accounting above, at the moment my off-the-cuff culling yields:

7 cancelled series -- 2 from the '60s, 2 from the '70s, 1 from the '80s, 2 from the '90s
1 renamed (& later cancelled) series -- from the '70s
1 limited series that continued as a renamed & renumbered new series -- from the '70s
9 limited series (1 of which, from the '90s, led to a new, renumbered series that continues today after a couple of similar reincarnations) -- 2 from the '80s, 3 from the '90s, 4 from 2000-'02

4 DC
6 Marvel
1 Charlton
1 Top Cow
2 Image
3 Oni
1 Renegade

[shaxper]

1 Charlton

I almost considered the 1967 Blue Beetle series, but that typed lettering just kills me.

[shaxper]

I've decided to make a list with no limited series.

Darn commendable.

My only self-imposed restrictions are:

1. No reprint volumes (It was hard turning down DC 100 Page Super Spectacular and Swords of Cerebus, but what's done is done)
2. No picking a series based entirely upon the merits of a single exceptional [usually first] issue (this kicked DKR, The Untold Legend of the Batman, and the 1990 Deathlok series off my list fast).

[inferno]

It is, with a single exception: your citation can begin with #0 but must then continue in consecutive numerical order (#1, #2, etc) up through #11 (as the 12-issue maximum still applies).

One of my choices debuted with #12 then continued in consecutive numerical order (#11, #10, etc) down through #1.

[DubipR]

One of my choices debuted with #12 then continued in consecutive numerical order (#11, #10, etc) down through #1.

If it's the run I'm thinking of, that was one of my runs I thought of as well.

[dan bailey]

Would that perchance be John Byrne's Marvel: The Lost Generation? No doubt it's been done by others (didn't Zero Hour use a similar approach a few years earlier, albeit for only 5 issues?), but that's the only one I happen to own.

I've read only the first couple of issues, which didn't happen to grab me, though I usually really like that sort of thing.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

I woke up in the middle of the night last night and couldn't get back to sleep until I finished my list and came up with my final twelve. In a few cases, I'm missing one issue, but hopefully that won't be a problem. And with a couple of series I'll be relying on online scans. Now I have to read them--and hopefully they'll hold up, or I may have to strike 'em off my list and go to the titles that didn't make the cut.

[Aaron King]

Would that perchance be John Byrne's Marvel: The Lost Generation? No doubt it's been done by others (didn't Zero Hour use a similar approach a few years earlier, albeit for only 5 issues?), but that's the only one I happen to own.

I've read only the first couple of issues, which didn't happen to grab me, though I usually really like that sort of thing.

I assume it's Invisibles volume 3.

[shaxper]

I woke up in the middle of the night last night and couldn't get back to sleep until I finished my list and came up with my final twelve.

Man, isn't that the power of this annual ritual? I love this thing!!

In a few cases, I'm missing one issue, but hopefully that won't be a problem. And with a couple of series I'll be relying on online scans. Now I have to read them--and hopefully they'll hold up, or I may have to strike 'em off my list and go to the titles that didn't make the cut.

Just tonight, I fell head over heals in love with a ten issue series that I only have three issues of. I'm going to be scrambling to track down the others but, either way, it's still going on my list.

[thwhtGuardian]

I think the single biggest challenge I am seeing in this year's assignment is the following logic proof:

1. If a comic was cancelled prior to issue #12 and never later recontinued, in most cases this means it wasn't very good.
2. I have read very few of the Marvel Giant Size comics and do not have any series of annuals that I find particularly noteworthy.
3. This means the majority of my picks will be from limited series.
4. The limited series was not common until the 1980s.

= Most of my picks will be from the 1980s and 1990s.

Worse yet, I fear this will result in an overabundant and unbalanced celebration of Alan Moore and Frank Miller.

Right now, I have one pick on my list from 1977, one from 1966, and one from 1949, but the rest are all '80s and '90s. Fortunately, there are only two Moore works on my list and only one Miller (and it ISN'T DKR).

Anyone else having this struggle?

That's certainly my issue, nearly all of my picks come from the 80's and with the exception of one they are all limited series.

Another thing i've noticied is that nearly all my picks were part of Marvel's Epic imprint.