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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 13, 2023 8:12:02 GMT -5
Hm, MWGallaher put an interesting twist on this theme, i.e., first first issue. Depending on how one defines it, there are three options for me: DC Comics Presents #1 Although this might not count, because I did not buy it off the spinner rack when it was first released, but rather several months later in a 3-pack bag with the Whitman logo on it. So then maybe it would be World of Krypton #1... But this was a mini-series rather than an ongoing title, so maybe that really doesn't count, either. In that case, as near as I can recall, the first first issue of an ongoing series would be Rom #1:
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 13, 2023 5:57:59 GMT -5
Since my original collection is long (long) gone, it's hard for me to determine precisely which issue was the first of a given series I had (using the newsstand at Mike's Amazing World or the cover galleries at Lone Star has only been partially useful). However, there's a few that I know for sure, like my first issue of Marvel Team-up (#38)... ...and my very first issue of X-men (#120), which sparked a love-affair of many years... And, of course, the first comic book I ever recall having, the one that started it all, Marvel Tales #59:
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 13, 2023 5:49:47 GMT -5
(....) AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #125. "Wolfhunt!" - Written by Gerry Conway. Pencils by Ross Andru. Inks by John Romita and Tony Mortellaro. Cover by John Romita and Tony Mortellaro. Man-Wolf continues to play predator in the streets of NYC. Will Peter discover the true identity of his foe before Man-Wolf strikes again? Can the amazing one save Jonah, Kristine, and himself from the madness of John's savage alter ego? Or will they all be thrown to the (man) wolves? Always a good read, this series. Spider-Man may have the greatest rogue’s gallery in comics history. The Man-Wolf’s first storyline was top-notch. Can’t wait for his next appearance. Speaking of “next appearances”, just as I praise Spidey’s rogue’s gallery, next issue is the return of the Kangaroo. *Sigh* Grade: 8.5 (...)
This is indeed a good (origin) story. I first encountered it in the Power Records episode that features a condensed version of ASM 124-125, and only then read the complete story when it was reprinted in Marvel Tales. And I've had a soft spot for Man-Wolf ever since, esp. after reading the excellent two-parter in Marvel Premiere #45-46, in which he's a sword-wielding bad-ass with his human intelligence intact.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 13, 2023 5:30:04 GMT -5
There wasn't a single writer working for the Big Two in the '60s and '70s--except *maybe* Archie Goodwin--who wouldn't have benefited from a good hard-nosed editor.
(...) Totally agree. Although I'd probably remove the 'maybe' qualification for Goodwin. He really was a cut above everybody else back then.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 13, 2023 5:25:29 GMT -5
Albert
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 13, 2023 5:07:07 GMT -5
And here's the key if you can't quite tell who that is in the spot between Dr. Fate and the Vigilante... Yeah, I thought it was Stripesy. Too bad he doesn't have distinctive headgear, like the Golden Age Flash...
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 12, 2023 12:45:53 GMT -5
The Ministry for the FutureKim Stanley Robinson, 2020 Man, it took me almost a month to get through this, not because it’s bad or anything (just the opposite, in fact), but just because I had work and other commitments that meant I could mainly only find time to read bigger chunks of it on weekends. The novel takes place over the course of several decades, starting in 2025, when a horrifyingly severe heat wave hits a part of India, leaving hundreds of thousands dead in a matter of days. The immediate aftermath is political turmoil and change in India itself, but a rather muted response from the rest of the world. However, many non-state actors are sparked into action, as are the top officials what is known as the Ministry for the Future. The latter is a UN body formed to oversee implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement and represent the interests of future generations, which are seen just as valid as the interests of the world’s present population. It begins to more aggressively push a number of projects aimed at urgently combating climate change that cover numerous fields, not just renewable energy production, but everything from agriculture through banking to hydro-engineering, and the book chronicles how those efforts get taken increasingly more seriously as the world’s problems due to climate change become ever more obvious and pressing. Meanwhile, many of non-state groups also take matters into their own hands (one method becomes the assassination of ‘climate criminals’, i.e., indifferent billionaires and the like, a point frequently underscored in several reviews of this book I’d seen before reading it myself). There’s also a strong suggestion that some of these less conventional actions may have been conducted by the Ministry’s own secretive black ops section. The book has many characters, but the main two are Mary Murphy, a former Irish civil servant who at the beginning is the newly appointed head of the ministry, a post she will end up holding for decades, and Frank May, who at the start of the book is a young American aid worker in India – he ends up being the sole survivor of the aforementioned heat wave, and the physical and psychological trauma will mark him for the rest of his life. The lives of these two main characters eventually become intertwined (not romantically). The overall arc of the book is also interspersed with chapters that read more like current affairs articles – they’re sort of mini-info dumps, as well as first person accounts of various crises or incidents by anonymous narrators. I highly recommend reading this one.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 10, 2023 5:59:56 GMT -5
I think you mean Ron Goulart. I wish they'd left the artwork alone - Weiss's facial expressions were probably the best thing about his art. The description of the issues are mostly cut and paste jobs. More than likely, wherever I clipped that from, the name “Robert“ came from there. Since I never heard of him, I didn’t catch it. I’ll make the edit. Otherwise, I'm a bit behind in reading through these, but I have to say this caught my eye. Never heard of Ron Goulart? The guy was like one of the patron saints of all things geeky in the late 20th century - he was a prolific writer of SF and fantasy (often with a humorous bent), he scripted comics (including the wonderful Starhawks newspaper strip that was drawn by Gil Kane) and he wrote a bunch of non-fiction reference books and histories dedicated to comics and pulp magazines.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 10, 2023 5:50:38 GMT -5
(...)
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #124. "The Mark of the Man-Wolf" - Written by Gerry Conway. Pencils by Gil Kane. Inks by John Romita and Tony Mortellaro. Cover by John Romita. Peter is frustrated by Spider-Man’s unfair treatment in the press, particularly in connection to Norman Osborn’s death. Plus, Man-Wolf’s first appearance! Why is Man-Wolf targeting J. Jonah Jameson? And what are the mysterious forces behind his transformation? I can only laugh when I think about the group members that say that this book has lost its luster. Sure, the stories are not on the level of the classic Lee/Ditko or Lee/Romita days, but some pretty good stuff is still printed in these pages. 124 issues in and I’m still enjoying this book. Grade: 8.5
(...)
This is something that surprised me ever since I started to frequent comics blogs and forums like this one in the mid-'00s, i.e., a very commonly held view that '70s Spider-man wasn't that good. I came into comics in the mid-'70s and read most of Conway's ASM run in reprints in Marvel Tales and thought it was all quite good; I'm also pretty fond of Len Wein's run that immediately followed.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 10, 2023 5:37:06 GMT -5
Animal House is a movie I still like, but nowhere near as much as I did when I watched it the first time as a teen in the early '80s. It lost some of its luster for me when I reached college age and came into contact with actual frat boys, who were often an obnoxious combination of the Delta guys and the stick-up-their-butt Omega creeps; also, when I watch it now I cringe a bit at some of the humor. Up in Smoke is a movie I only watched all the way through rather recently, although I had been familiar with and a fan of Cheech & Chong's humor since I was a little kid. I'd agree that it certainly has its funny parts, but it's really uneven, given that it's basically a bunch of their humor sketches strung together into a story. The Great Train Robbery is just a well-made, extremely fun caper movie with a stellar cast. The novel that it's based on, by Michael Crichton (back when he still wrote good books), is similarly enjoyable.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 9, 2023 3:24:18 GMT -5
(...) My wife started to wonder how much of the McCarthy "anti-Communist" crusade was really antisemitism in disguise. (...) I believe that was a very big component of it for many. It was also an opportunity for racists to let their freak flag fly. Before, during and after that time, Black political activists - and non-Blacks sympathetic to or actively involved in assisting their cause - were also often accused of communism (although many racial justice advocates were in fact actual communists).
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 8, 2023 11:28:06 GMT -5
Avengers #187 (Marvel, 1979)
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 7, 2023 4:01:04 GMT -5
Farrar
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 6, 2023 12:55:49 GMT -5
"Define irony: Bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash."
I must shamefacedly admit that I had not realised that any members of the band had still been alive. Yeah, people less familiar with the story often assume that pretty much the entire band was killed (which had a whopping 8 members at the time), when actually only lead vocalist Ronnie van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines died (together with a back-up singer and, I think, one or two members of their road crew, as well as both pilots). Obviously, though, most of the survivors sustained pretty serious injuries.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 6, 2023 10:02:58 GMT -5
Gary Rossington, last surviving founder of Lynard Skynard, died yesterday at 71. Y'know I'm beginning to understand why my parents would get so bummed out when somebody like Benny Goodman or Count Base would pass. (...) Yeah, I saw that news yesterday. I was a bit surprised that he was the last one left, though (also surprised to learn that drummer Artimus Pyle, who survived that unfortunate plane crash, wasn't a founding member).
It's Lynyrd Skynyrd, by the way...
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