The Seventh Day of Classic Comics Christmas 2012

[dan bailey]

Hmmm. At this late date, only one of my remaining 5 hasn't shown up at least once on others' lists (unless I missed it). It'll be interesting to see if that continues to be the case.

[Polar Bear]

Hmmm. At this late date, only one of my remaining 5 hasn't shown up at least once on others' lists (unless I missed it). It'll be interesting to see if that continues to be the case.

3 of my top 5 are no-shows, but in only one of these cases is it a big surprise to me. With the other two, I know I'm just weird.

[MDG]

#6. Captain Action #1-5

Aaaarrrrgh! I'm really sorry I forgot this one. What Kane was doing on this title was really ahead of it's time. I imagine licensing hell keeps this one from being reprinted.

6. 1963 1-6 1993

A fun series that was homage and more.

Nathaniel Dusk

Anyone who has been here a while knew this one was coming up. Two of my favorite things together, noir and comics. Add in absolutely gorgeous artwork by Gene Colan (shot directly from his pencils) and a somewhat subdued Don McGregor and you have one of the best noir comics ever. The only real complaint I had is that it should have been in black and white. That's not to say that Tom Zuiko didn't do a fine job coloring the book...but this screamed out to be in black and white...just like the films noir that it so brilliantly evokes.

"Subdued" Don McGregor probably saved this series. Yeah, I would've liked to see it in B&W, and the decision to print the second series in color from uninked pencils just exacerbated the problem.

[Slam_Bradley]

Aaaarrrrgh! I'm really sorry I forgot this one. What Kane was doing on this title was really ahead of it's time. I imagine licensing hell keeps this one from being reprinted.

"Subdued" Don McGregor probably saved this series. Yeah, I would've liked to see it in B&W, and the decision to print the second series in color from uninked pencils just exacerbated the problem.

I suspect that also keeps Hot Wheels from being collected. Another fantastic licensed book from that era.


As to Dusk, both mini's were reproduced directly from Colan's pencils. The covers for the first mini were inked, but not the interiors. B&W would have helped both the reproduction and the "feel" of the book though. And it was easily the most subdued I've ever read McGregor.

[MDG]

6. Extra (EC, 55)



A really solid book from post-code EC. Crusading reporters solving mysteries and busting criminals, with art from Johnny Craig (two stories each issue!), who also edited, Reed Crandall, and John Severin. Also different from most ECs, it featured recurring characters.

Craig was hoping to be able to do longer stories, but Gaines and Feldstein were unwilling to break their publishing process which was built on an 8-, 7-, 6-, and 7-page story each issue, but Craig would sometimes link his two "Keith Michaels" stories to produce something more substantial.

Like all the New Trend books, it never really had a chance, but a good contribution to the crime comics genre (without the less savory connotations), and Craig approaching Eisner in a couple of sequences.

[MRP]

Ok I said we would see this one again...

On the seventh day of Christmas I give unto thee again...

The Adventures of Luther Arkwright #1-9 (Dark Horse Comics, March 1990-February 1991)

Bryan Talbot’s sci-fi epic blew my mind when I first encountered it during by senior year as an undergrad, but I couldn’t complete the journey until years later. I bought the first handful of issues of the Dark Horse series one day while exploring Newbury Street in Boston when I wandered into the Newbury Comics there, but being a poor undergrad didn’t have enough money to pick up the rest of the series when it came out. It was a story that nagged at me and when I encountered Talbot’s work other places, I always went back to wanting to finish reading it, but never seemed to find the issues when I was looking for them or remembered to look for them when I had the chance at cons and such as other comics took priority. When Dark Horse was ramping up to publish Heart of Empire, Talbot’s sequel, they collected the issues in a trade which I snapped up and finished reading this grand scale adventure of parallel universes, secret histories, wild mind trip plots, and other such fascinating tidbits.

Luther Arkwright is an agent who operates throughout several parallel universes whose framework is reminiscent of Moorcock’s Multiverse, and has the ability to shift through these parallel realities at will. Aided by Rose Wylde, whose parallel existences can communicate with each other, Arkwright opposes the machinations of a subversive group known as the Disruptors who have unleashed something known as the Firefrost.

The series is a mature comic in all the good senses, it revolves around political, social and philosophical themes, explores historical and speculative historical ideas, and engrosses the reader in a wild adventure while doing so. There are some explicit scenes sprinkled throughout for those sensitive to such things, but this is a writer/artist/storytelling at the top of his craft creating a magnum opus.

Cover to #1




-M

[Roquefort Raider]

6. The dark knight returns, four issues, DC comics



I admit that I was never a fan of Batman after the age of five. Since it was one of the few comics sporadically available at the newspaper stand in my neck of the woods, I did buy a few issues of Detective Comics here and there during the early 80s (or the last two issues of "Untold legend of the Batman"), and duly appreciated the good work done by Don Newton and Alfredo Alcala. But Batman, the disguised Bruce Wayne, never got me involved emotionally the way other characters (mostly at Marvel) managed to do. To me, Batman and Superman worked best as icons, not as characters who know a sea of trouble and by opposing, end them. My favorite part of any Superman movie, for example, is when we just get to see Supes appear, with the John Williams fanfare playing in the background. He doesn't need to actually do anything; just by being there he fulfills his iconic role.

And boy, did Frank Miller play with that in this mini-series.

In hindsight I do not like what the dark knight returns did to Batman. It treated Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent as mythology, which is all well and good, and gave us a rousing "hero returns to save us all" tale in the bargain. But in so doing, in distilling Batman to his simplest essence (that of a scary man doing whatever he must to safeguard society), it opened the door to a generation of writers who thought that TDKR works because Batman is brutal and scary in it, and who stuck to that formula for the next decades. It's a bit as if people who had seen Raiders of the lost ark only remembered the hilarious scene where Indy shoots the swordsman, and proceeded to tell twenty years of stories about Jones shooting people who are clearly at a disadvantage. That was not the point!

That being said, Miller isn't responsible for what people did with his legacy. The dark knight returns, as a comic-book story, is pretty darn good. (I probably prefer Miller's Daredevil work, but still). That multi-page sequence in which Bruce Wayne apparently comes out of retirement, even though we don't see him, and in which there's a crescendo of events throughout Gotham all leading to the full page revelation of Batman, "who's a man of thirty, of twenty again" with a thunderstorm in the background, is extremely cinematic.

I read and re-read the dark knight returns when I first bought the trade paperback (the initial series having come out during my "NO MORE COMICS" period) and loved it each time. It led me to try more Batman books, such as "Year one" (which I loved even more), and then... blech. Miller's Batman doesn't work for me without Miller, apparently.

[Rob Allen]

A series that's been getting a lot of love in this year's festivities, and all well-deserved:

Shade, the Changing Man by Steve Ditko with Michael Fleischer



Clearly, a lot of thought went into this series. It was nice to see that Ditko was still devoting time and energy to entertainment, creating interesting stories and characters. This was about the last time I saw the "fun Ditko"; after this it was mostly the "didactic Objectivist Ditko" or the "just drawing for the paycheck Ditko". I was out of comics when Speedball came out; that looks like it may have been a re-awakening of Mr. D's creative side.

Only one of the five series remaining on my list has not been mentioned yet.

[mrc1214]

6. Crisis on Infinite Earths 1-12

In a lot of people's opinions (at least on here) this probably did more harm to the DCU then it did good. While I may not love what happens to Superman post COIE , this series is very special to me. When I first began reading comics Infinite Crisis was just starting and I had signed up for here and I saw COIE mentioned quite a bit. So I sought out the issues. I didn't really have a clue what was going on in both COIE and Infinite Crisis but I do know I wanted to know more about these characters. The art in COIE is really what blew me away, so many characters I literally had to pause at every page to take it all in. I went onto look up more about this George Perez guy and found the New Teen Titans. And I'm still hooked on comics to this day. So storyline aside the Perez art is why this pick is here and it's one of the main reasons I am a comic fan.

[Chris N]

Tale of One Bad Rat #1-4
by Bryan Talbot

I see another Talbot entry up above. He's an excellent writer, artist, storyteller... one of the all-time greats.

This tells the story of a teenage runaway escaping a history of abuse from her parents.

The rough subject matter is dealt with delicately and poignantly, and it is woven into a hopeful tale. It is not about the abuses suffered, but about finding the strength to overcome and move forward.

The secret to moving forward? The kindness of strangers, books to connect with, and the power of imagination.

Everybody should read this series.

[Cherokee Jack]

GINGER FOX. Comico, Four issue series by Mike Baron and The Pander Brothers.

The story is about a movie studio head (the title character), trying to get a movie made, and winds up in a murder plot. Bizarre art from the Panders, but it works well here. Very bright use of colors, it's a real trip back to the 80s MTV era.

Like SILVERBLADE, I enjoy it due to it's Hollywood setting. And again, it's a Mike Baron script (did I mention I was a fan?).

http://www.comics.org/series/7447/covers/

[Chris N]

I have not yet noticed any of my next 5 entries. A couple may be still to come on others' lists. The others likely won't be.

[Slam_Bradley]

I have not yet noticed any of my next 5 entries. A couple may be still to come on others' lists. The others likely won't be.

I don't even know what two of mine are. When Chase and Chronos were ruled ineligible I just decided to pull two off my list that hadn't been seen yet.

Of the other three only one has been seen thus far. You know what one of the remaining three is.

[icctrombone]

6. The Man of Steel 1-6
Dc comics 1986
Writer/artist John Byrne



In 1986 John Byrne was given Superman to redefine to a modern audience. It was 2 months after Crisis on Infinite Earths ended and the fallout from that mini was that many characters were altered. This book was a major move because everything from the city of Kandor to Streaky the Supercat, was jettisoned in order to streamline the Man of Tomorrow. In the 6 issue series you’ll see the “new” relationships with Batman, Lex Luthor, and Indeed , Krypton itself. In it’s day, this was an important book.
Remember, Byrne, was arguably , at the peak of his powers. This was quite an event for DC.

The First encounter with Batman



One of the best Bryne drawings of Superman

[Red Oak Kid]

#6. Tales of Evil 1-3 Atlas/Seaboard

This anthology series from Atlas Seaboard probably never registered on anyone's radar. I don't have the first two issues and I don't see any reason to seek them out. But being a fan of Rich Buckler I got issue 3 with his Man Monster character and for some reason that I can't even explain, I like it. I doubt if anyone involved with this story managed to plan out a second appearance before Atlas Seaboard bit the dust. Very nice Buckler art. And there is a female character who was written and drawn as black, but is colored white in the finished comic. Don't know if this was a printing error or was done on purpose.