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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 26, 2018 10:02:46 GMT -5
I read Batman #321, "Dreadful Birthday, Dear Joker... !" The Joker tries to give himself a birthday present by getting revenge on everybody who's crossed him.
I'm also making my way through "Panther's Rage" as I've read Jungle Action #6-12.
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 26, 2018 14:20:19 GMT -5
I read Batman #321, "Dreadful Birthday, Dear Joker... !" The Joker tries to give himself a birthday present by getting revenge on everybody who's crossed him. I'm also making my way through "Panther's Rage" as I've read Jungle Action #6-12. Is that the one where the Joker has a giant birthday cake and the giant candles are dynamite and all his enemies are tied to the candles and are about to be blown to bits? It's been a while since I read it but that's not an image you're likely to forget. And Panther's Rage is pretty awesome. Picking up Jungle Action #17 in the summer of 1975 is what got me into reading comics regularly instead of just picking up the odd Iron Man or World's Finest or Sad Sack now and then.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 26, 2018 15:29:11 GMT -5
I read Batman #321, "Dreadful Birthday, Dear Joker... !" The Joker tries to give himself a birthday present by getting revenge on everybody who's crossed him. I'm also making my way through "Panther's Rage" as I've read Jungle Action #6-12. Is that the one where the Joker has a giant birthday cake and the giant candles are dynamite and all his enemies are tied to the candles and are about to be blown to bits? It's been a while since I read it but that's not an image you're likely to forget. And Panther's Rage is pretty awesome. Picking up Jungle Action #17 in the summer of 1975 is what got me into reading comics regularly instead of just picking up the odd Iron Man or World's Finest or Sad Sack now and then. Yup, that's the one, with the giant cake & candles. Yes, Panther's Rage is very good, but believe it or not, I'm reading it for the first time now, even though I've always considered myself a Black Panther fan. I wasn't really collecting comics yet when these came out and somehow overlooked them after I did start collecting.
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Post by MDG on Mar 27, 2018 8:19:54 GMT -5
Pulled a couple out of the middle of my underground box the other day. A lot of multi-creator undergrounds were very uneven, but Occult Laff Parade is one of the more solid ones. Jay Kinney did some very good work and then seemed to disappear. The main story has to do with a cult preying on disaffected young urbanites, with a bit of love-comic satire, and generally well done. Also a great story by Kim Deitch. Projunior was a fanzine character created by Don Dohler, and a bunch of A-to-Z listers provide 1-4 pages with the character. (Crumb had also used him in some longer pieces in another book.) As you'd expect, horribly uneven. Crumb and S.Clay Wilson team on a two-pager alternating panel-by-panel (kinda) and Wilson just starts throwing in non-sequiturs after a page and a half. Some good stuff by Justin Green and Art Speigleman.
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Post by String on Mar 27, 2018 20:53:20 GMT -5
Excalibur #59-67
#59-60 is a two-part story by Scott Lobdell with art by Scott Kolins. The pair give a typical story that tries to fit in with the usual humor/comedy tone of the book, with guest stars Black Panther, Captain America, and War Machine. It doesn't take itself too seriously though as the villain Icon seeks to depose T'Challa from his throne while hosting Brian, Meggan, Kitty, and the others on possible solutions to toxic waste dumping in Wakanda. In fact, in the ensuing altercations, Brian, in an effort to protect his civilian identity, even goes so far as to done a new look, that of Jungle Man! to help out the others. It's tongue firmly in cheek and rather silly.
Beginning with #61, Alan Davis takes back over as writer/artist for his final run on this title. It's amazing how Davis is able to weave in long standing plot threads or loose ends from his previous time with Capt Britain while also giving credible time to the rest of the team. If you've never read any of his previous Capt Britain work (especially the British stories), he does a fine job of filling in enough backstory for you to follow and enjoy these stories. However, if you have been keeping up (like I've been catching up on for the last few months), then wow, an incredible fulfilling set of stories.
Davis also draws what has to be one of the finest renderings ever of Nightcrawler.
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Post by Batflunkie on Mar 30, 2018 9:25:39 GMT -5
Journey Into Mystery #97
After ten issues of meandering plot outlines, small glimmers of greatness, Loki being a carbon copy of a mustache twirling silent era film villain who ties helpless women to railroad tracks, and Thor consistently being hypnotized into helping the bad guy, it's good to finally see somebody smashing the eject button on the pilot's seat and actually taking some semblance of control of the book. And who better to do it than Kirby?
While Lava Man is fairly generic, he does provide Kirby with ways of showing off Thor's true might for the first time and brings the very much needed sense of "Awe & Wonder/ Mighty Marvel Pageantry" to the book
I also love the first Tales Of Asgard entry. While it's incredibly short, it's very storybook like and provides a good prologue to Thor's world
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Mar 30, 2018 11:39:17 GMT -5
Pulled a couple out of the middle of my underground box the other day. Poor Bob. That shouldn't happen to a man that young.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Apr 1, 2018 4:29:31 GMT -5
Giant-size Fantastic Four #3:
My brother-in-law gave me this issue last January when I visited the US - I sorted all of his comics, a huge collection of stuff, mainly Marvels (but also lots of DC, as well as some Warren magazines and a bunch of National Lampoons), from the first half of the 1970s. He's got tons of goodies in there, like most of the Englehart run on Avengers, ditto Gerber's run on Defenders, most of the FF from that period, and, most notably, Giant-size X-men #1 and Uncanny X-men #s 95-99. He had two copies of this one so he let me have one. The main story is pretty standard for that period; it's credited to Conway and Wolfman (co-plotter & scripter), with art by Rich Buckler and Joe Sinnot. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse come back to Earth after eons in exile in some other part of the universe. The FF (with Medusa instead of Sue) defeat them pretty handily, but it ends with a lot of questions kind of unanswered: like who they were, exactly. Apparently they're members of some alien race who wanted to conquer Earth at the dawn of humanity, but were then vanquished and exiled by some mysterious "protectors" who are never identified (Reed keeps hinting that he knows the whole story but never divulges it). That said, it's a readable story, and the art is pretty solid. One thing that made me do a double take is when Ben and Reed are flying over Cambodia to confront one of the Horsemen, Ben complains about would-be world conquerors always picking some "blamed pest-holes" to take their stand. Shades of President Spanky! The issue also contains a reprint of FF #21, the first Hate Monger story, which never fails to depress me a bit, because some aspects of it always seem relevant whenever it's read. All in all, though, a good issue: well worth the 50 cent cover price back in the day.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 1, 2018 13:54:09 GMT -5
The tomb of Dracula #1-24
By Gerry Conway, Garder Fox, Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan, with Tom Palmer, Tom Sutton, and a few other inkers.
It is always a pleasure to return to this truly classic series. I can’t say enough good about the stellar combination of Colan’s pencils and Palmer’s inks, which positively shine in the Black and White Essential ToD reprint books. (I find that colours do not serve the Colan-Palmer art as far as this series goes).
The book hits several high notes for a new series: a classic figure with a new slant, several interesting supporting characters, a welcome distance from the rest of the shared Marvel Universe, a clear sense of direction, and the willingness to cross genre boundaries (Hammer-style horror, gumshoe detective stories, science-fiction, oriental pulp adventures and the like).
Dracula himself is handled brilliantly by Wolfman, who may not have created this version but really made it his own. Dracula is vain, egotistical, quick to anger and dishonourable; the only quality he seems to have is to be true to his prideful self.
The earliest issues show that things were still being improvised; the timeline of the events preceding issue #1 is rewritten several times. For example, Dracula is first presented as having been dead for more than a century before being revived; then it is only something like 50 years: then it is only a few years. His look also changes, with a certain goatee coming and going.
Not all plots make sense, even comic-book sense... but hey, even when that happens the action is enjoyable. We can also see that crossover-related problems aren’t a recent invention as demonstrated when a major character in one comic is turned to an ordinary (and disposable) bystander in another. No biggie.
I feel very grateful that Wolfman didn’t try to give all the characters fake British accents. Phew!
The romance between Frank Drake and Rachel Van Helsing seems forcedin these issues. I think Wolfman must have felt the same as he would explore the issue later on.
ToD is reaaly one of those classic series that bear re-reading. It neve4 comes off as dated, and the art remains gorgeous.
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Post by Batflunkie on Apr 3, 2018 23:31:01 GMT -5
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter #2 Honestly had forgotten how much I'd loved this series, warts and all. As good as the original Dell comics were, the overall premise of a Native American fending off Dinosaurs has always been pretty damned outlandish. Here they just take it a step further by having Turok stranded in Columbia, living in the sticks, and operating out of a nearby trading post as a mercenary for hire (not to mention having it set in the late 80's for an added layer of cheesy machismo) David Michelline's prose is strong here, as is Bart Sears' artwork. It does seem to be awash with the fads of comics of the era, but the book has heart and that makes it stand above the rest
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Post by MDG on Apr 5, 2018 15:38:23 GMT -5
Pulled two more out of the underground box the other day... DOA comics was a compilation of previously published stories by Jim Osborne. Osborne was a very talented artist who produced some very well-drawn work, a lot of it good, but some of it is really dark. The stories rage from a beautifully-drawn story of the suicide of Lupe Valez to a wordless tale dedicated to Lynd Ward, to a noir pastiche, to a tale of an amputee cannibal dwarf eaten by circus freak caterpillars (oh--spoiler warning.) You could edit this into two different versions that would give readers totally different impressions of Osborne (though one would need as new cover). Dopin' Dan is the creation of Ted Richards, one of the Air Pirates (with Dan O'Neill, Bobby London, and Sherry Flenniken). He works in a pretty conventional "bigfoot" style, and Dopin' Dan is essentially Sad Sack in the Vietnam era. Most of the stories are single- or double-page gag strips and the longer stories seem to have punchlines in every lower-right panel. Mostly funny, but some pain just below the surface in a few parts.
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Post by Batflunkie on Apr 7, 2018 22:25:18 GMT -5
Radioactive Man #1 A book that I've owned for as long as I can recall and re-read for just as long. It wasn't until I started becoming the comic fanatic that I am now that some of Steve Vance's more direct homages/satirisations began to sink in. It's not The Tick levels of great, but it's up there. Really wish the series was more well known and better collected
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Apr 8, 2018 21:23:44 GMT -5
Reading Conan #44 and I noticed the artists are credited as John Buscema and The Crusty Bunkers. Upon a brief search I found this...
Crusty Bunker was a name that was used for a group of artists, organized by Neal Adams, that would pitch in together to get projects done by working together as a team.
The Crusty Bunkers comprised of the following...
Jack Abel, Neal Adams, Vicente Alcazar, Sal Amendola, Steven Austin, Terry Austin, Joe Barney, Rick Basile, Pat Bastienne, Pat Broderick, Joe Brozowski, Frank Brunner, Rick Bryant, Rich Buckler, Frank Cirocco, Howard Chaykin, Dave Cockrum, Mike Collins, Denys Cowan, Ed Davis, Joe D’Esposito, Darrell Goza, Karin Dougherty, Steve Engelhart, John Fuller, Dick Giordano, Dan Green, Larry Hama, Steve Harper, Russ Heath, Klaus Janson, Jeffrey Catherine Jones, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Paul Kirchner, Alan Kupperberg, Carl Lundgren, Estaban Maroto, Gary Martin, Bob McLeod, Al Milgrom, Steve Mitchell, Yong Montano, Tim Moriarity, Gray Morrow, Mike Nasser/Michael Netzer, Bruce Patterson, Carl Potts, Ralph Reese, Mark Rice, Marshall Rogers, Josef Rubinstein, Walter Simonson, Jim Sherman, Mary Skrenes, Bob Smith, Jim Starlin, Greg Theakston, Trevor von Eeden, Alan Weiss, Bob Wiacek, Gary Winnick, and Berni Wrightson
I love learning new comic things like this and thought I would share, for those unaware:)
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Post by Hoosier X on Apr 9, 2018 14:01:37 GMT -5
The CCF Podcast this week is about The Brave and the Bold, and it's inspired me to go back to my Brave and Bold #50 to #73 project (which I sort of gave up on because I read several DUDS in a row) and I read #56 (not the worst issue of B and B I've read recently) and there was a house ad for Rip Hunter #20 that was IRRESISTABLE! I remember reading one or two Rip Hunter stories (in those Super-Spectacular issues of The Brave and the Bold in the 1970s I think), but it's been a while. I'd forgotten how weird the Rip Hunter series could be!
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Post by Hoosier X on Apr 9, 2018 14:12:11 GMT -5
There's an advertisement for the next issue: I may have to read this as well before I go back to The Brave and the Bold!
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