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Post by Prince Hal on Feb 12, 2018 11:37:51 GMT -5
Another great entry Prince Hal ! I too loved the oversized issues as a kid. The 64 or 80 page Giants or Annuals. Later in the 70's the 100 pagers from DC. And Dollar Comics. Back to the Annuals - they always seemed to be extra special. A celebration in some respects. I really enjoyed them. Glad you enjoyed it, Michael, and I think your description of the annuals as a "celebration" is spot-on. I loved that a theme was often used to unify the selection of stories. And the 100-pagers were, like the 80-pagers, manna from comic book heaven. They in particualr gave the editors (I think it was Bridwell) on many of them a chance to toss in lesser known characters without having to worry about their effect on the book's sales. What I loved about them was that they took their readers to unknown territory. I found that especially true with the Marvel reprint books... but more on those in another post. ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png)
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2018 11:41:47 GMT -5
Another great entry Prince Hal ! I too loved the oversized issues as a kid. The 64 or 80 page Giants or Annuals. Later in the 70's the 100 pagers from DC. And Dollar Comics. Back to the Annuals - they always seemed to be extra special. A celebration in some respects. I really enjoyed them. Glad you enjoyed it, Michael, and I think your description of the annuals as a "celebration" is spot-on. I loved that a theme was often used to unify the selection of stories. And the 100-pagers were, like the 80-pagers, manna from comic book heaven. They in particualr gave the editors (I think it was Bridwell) on many of them a chance to toss in lesser known characters without having to worry about their effect on the book's sales. What I loved about them was that they took their readers to unknown territory. I found that especially true with the Marvel reprint books... but more on those in another post. ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Absolutely. I loved the mix of a new story with reprints. It was a way to get those older stories without paying a lot. It gave you a glimpse into the rich history of DC & Marvel.
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Post by Prince Hal on Feb 12, 2018 11:58:23 GMT -5
Wonderful Prince Hal , truly wonderful. Growing up with a limited collection as my parents would allow it was the annuals which I sought out every summer for more pages, more action and more bang for the buck as you said. In those halcyon 70's of my youth annuals seemed to be much more special and exciting doing mostly one and done epic stories almost as if they were summer movie spectacles (shades of now when the movies ARE the big spring, summer, fall, winter specials) meant to blow your mind. The DC annuals were a great source of reprint material where you were able to enjoy a taste of anything and everything but the Marvel annuals really stood out for me. Thanks for reading, brutalis! We both obviously made our quarters and dollars go as far as we could! The Marvel annuals (more on them next time) mixed it up with both new stories and reprints. Sometimes, they were virtually book-length stories, as in the Hulk and Sgt. Fury annuals in 1968 Off the top of my head, I think DC only used new material in an annual twice in the "old days," first with the one and only Legion annual ( Superboy 147, May 1968). It featured an 8-page origin of the Legion as the first story. Later that year, in Batman 208 (the next-to-last 80-pager), a new story, with a superb surprise ending btw, was used as a framing device for stories about the important women in Batman's life.
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Post by chadwilliam on Feb 12, 2018 13:24:47 GMT -5
Wonderful Prince Hal , truly wonderful. Growing up with a limited collection as my parents would allow it was the annuals which I sought out every summer for more pages, more action and more bang for the buck as you said. In those halcyon 70's of my youth annuals seemed to be much more special and exciting doing mostly one and done epic stories almost as if they were summer movie spectacles (shades of now when the movies ARE the big spring, summer, fall, winter specials) meant to blow your mind. The DC annuals were a great source of reprint material where you were able to enjoy a taste of anything and everything but the Marvel annuals really stood out for me. Off the top of my head, I think DC only used new material in an annual twice in the "old days," first with the one and only Legion annual ( Superboy 147, May 1968). It featured an 8-page origin of the Legion as the first story. Later that year, in Batman 208 (the next-to-last 80-pager), a new story, with a superb surprise ending btw, was used as a framing device for stories about the important women in Batman's life. There is at least one other example of DC including new material in an 80 Page Giant - Batman 213 ![]() ![](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/marvel_dc/images/1/12/Batman_213.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20160801062226) Though the cover might suggest that readers would be treated to a reprint of Detective 38 in this issue, they instead got a retelling penciled by Ross Andru ![](https://babblingsaboutdccomics4.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/bat_13_002.png) ![](https://babblingsaboutdccomics4.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/bat_13_004.png) Popular those these giants were, they rarely dove into material as far back as The Golden Age - something about not have the materials needed to do the transfers. I can imagine kids at the time being disappointed, but now that Robin's debut has been reprinted many times over, it's nice to have an alternate version of the same tale.
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Post by Prince Hal on Feb 12, 2018 13:47:19 GMT -5
chadwilliam, good catch! I didn't notice that one because I was confining myself to the 80-pagers and Batman 213 was one of the first 64-pagers, but point well taken. Andru and Esposito were trying hard to capture the Golden Age look, weren't they? That issue was a superb collection of stories, too. It was the first time I'd read "The Man behind the Red Hood," and it immediately became a favorite of mine. And I was a sucker for "Game of Death," and all those Robin solo stories from Star-Spangled. You're right, and I'd never really noticed that. The annuals were heavy on "Atomic Age" stories. Maybe it was because of reproduction problems. Maybe they thought the "modern" fans would think that those stories looked too dated? A sort-of-related question: why did Green Lantern never get an annual? Or Wonder Woman?
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Post by chadwilliam on Feb 12, 2018 15:06:03 GMT -5
chadwilliam , good catch! I didn't notice that one because I was confining myself to the 80-pagers and Batman 213 was one of the first 64-pagers, but point well taken. Andru and Esposito were trying hard to capture the Golden Age look, weren't they? That issue was a superb collection of stories, too. It was the first time I'd read "The Man behind the Red Hood," and it immediately became a favorite of mine. And I was a sucker for "Game of Death," and all those Robin solo stories from Star-Spangled. You're right, and I'd never really noticed that. The annuals were heavy on "Atomic Age" stories. Maybe it was because of reproduction problems. Maybe they thought the "modern" fans would think that those stories looked too dated? A sort-of-related question: why did Green Lantern never get an annual? Or Wonder Woman? From the letter column of Batman 218 (also a reprint issue) on the contents of Batman 213 "Sorry we couldn't bring you anything from the '40's except the newspaper strip, this issue. The fact is, we only have negatives of issues from the early '50's - and no original art of anything from the early years. Photographing from the magazine is difficult because the colors come out in black or grey. "Here Comes Alfred" and some other older stories have been reproduced by tracing them. But this takes some time, and costs too much. There were more complications with the Robin story. In the original story, the Dynamic Duo occasionally acted in a way contrary to their code. We made a few minor changes and put in some new details in the rewritten version."I agree with you on Andru and Esposito's efforts to capture that Golden Age feel. As you mentioned, The Man Behind the Red Hood appeared in the same issue and no attempt was made to draw Batman any differently in flashback from how he was portrayed in the current day. I suspect that Justice League 37 was the first time DC recognized that how Batman looked in his early days differed from how he appeared later on. At some point however, DC decided that the Silver Age/Bronze Age Batman had always worn the New Look uniform even when he debuted. I don't know why Green Lantern never got an annual - even taking into consideration that DC would only be reprinting stories that were at most, less than a decade old, that didn't stop them from doing Justice League and Flash Annuals at the same time. DC did retroactively release a "Lost" Green Lantern 80 Page Annual in 1998 but at the time... who knows? ![](https://d1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.net/n_iv/600/660269.jpg) I believe that Wonder Woman actually acknowledged the interest kids had in Golden Age stories and for a while, adopted an older style of art for some of their tales. Why they didn't make an attempt to at least reprint the occasional Golden Age tale - or at least reproduce a page of an issue here and there as Batman's 30th anniversary issue in Detective Comic's 387 did - is something I don't understand either.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2018 15:22:54 GMT -5
Prince Hal & chadwilliam. I don't know why DC never did a GL or WW Annual in the 60's. As far as the Flash & JLA... I only found one Flash Annual printed back in the 60's. I didn't find any JLA Annuals until the late 80's. Outside of Superman & Batman...Wonder Woman was the only other hero that had 40's & 50's stories to reprint. Flash & GL had 40's stories also but they were stories of a different Flash & GL. But by the mid 60's readers were eager (at least I was) to read stories about the 40's heroes.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Feb 12, 2018 15:45:10 GMT -5
Yeah, great post. I also loved annuals and really, any jumbo-sized special issues (also why I loved the digests so much, too - bang for buck and tons of stories to sink your teeth into). Since brutalis compared annuals to summer movie spectacles, I have to note that back in those halcyon '70s (my initial comics-reading years), another thing that made me look forward to summer was the fact that that was when the annuals were released.
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Post by Prince Hal on Feb 12, 2018 15:45:59 GMT -5
Prince Hal & chadwilliam . I don't know why DC never did a GL or WW Annual in the 60's. As far as the Flash & JLA... I only found one Flash Annual printed back in the 60's. I didn't find any JLA Annuals until the late 80's. Outside of Superman & Batman...Wonder Woman was the only other hero that had 40's & 50's stories to reprint. Flash & GL had 40's stories also but they were stories of a different Flash & GL. But by the mid 60's readers were eager (at least I was) to read stories about the 40's heroes. Michael, there were six Flash Annuals/ 80-page Giants, from 1963-68: Flash Annual #1; 80-Page Giant #s 4 and 9; and Flash (regular series #s 160, 169 and 178). Pretty impressive considering everything else except for the Sgt. Rock annuals was tied to either Superman or Batman. There were four 80-page JLA annuals, all within the regular run of the title: 39, 48, 57, and 67. Keeping track of the 80-pagers can be a pain because of changes made for the sake of easier distribution, all of which is far better explained by Mike at his Amazing World of Comics, all glory and honor to him, begorrah! You can see it all here: www.mikesamazingworld.com/mikes/features/guide.php?page=giant&groupid=29
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2018 16:07:05 GMT -5
Prince Hal & chadwilliam . I don't know why DC never did a GL or WW Annual in the 60's. As far as the Flash & JLA... I only found one Flash Annual printed back in the 60's. I didn't find any JLA Annuals until the late 80's. Outside of Superman & Batman...Wonder Woman was the only other hero that had 40's & 50's stories to reprint. Flash & GL had 40's stories also but they were stories of a different Flash & GL. But by the mid 60's readers were eager (at least I was) to read stories about the 40's heroes. Michael, there were six Flash Annuals/ 80-page Giants, from 1963-68: Flash Annual #1; 80-Page Giant #s 4 and 9; and Flash (regular series #s 160, 169 and 178). Pretty impressive considering everything else except for the Sgt. Rock annuals was tied to either Superman or Batman. There were four 80-page JLA annuals, all within the regular run of the title: 39, 48, 57, and 67. Keeping track of the 80-pagers can be a pain because of changes made for the sake of easier distribution, all of which is far better explained by Mike at his Amazing World of Comics, all glory and honor to him, begorrah! You can see it all here: www.mikesamazingworld.com/mikes/features/guide.php?page=giant&groupid=29Thanks for this info! I sit corrected (feeling too lazy to stand)...
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Post by Farrar on Feb 12, 2018 16:27:47 GMT -5
Yes, I agree with my esteemed colleagues--another great entry, Prince Hal I've waxed poetic about Adventure #360 over in the 50 Years Ago thread (and elsewhere), as the acquition of this Giant DC remains one of the happiest and most cherished memories of my childhood. I'd seen this cover in the house ads and was promptly enthralled--what kid wouldn't be mesmerized by that game board?--but I never actually saw this on sale anywhere, not at the newsstands or candy stores. Lo and behold, about a year after its publication there was a guy selling comics on the street--including this comic! ![](https://i.imgur.com/RLqz9RB.png)
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Post by Prince Hal on Feb 12, 2018 16:46:06 GMT -5
Yes, I agree with my esteemed colleagues--another great entry, Prince Hal I've waxed poetic about Adventure #360 over in the 50 Years Ago thread (and elsewhere), as the acquition of this Giant DC remains one of the happiest and most cherished memories of my childhood. I'd seen this cover in the house ads and was promptly enthralled--what kid wouldn't be mesmerized by that game board?--but I never actually saw this on sale anywhere, not at the newsstands or candy stores. Lo and behold, about a year after its publication there was a guy selling comics on the street--including this comic! ![](https://i.imgur.com/RLqz9RB.png) Like Blanche DuBois, we comics fans sometimes depend on the kindness of strangers. I love serendipity stories!
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Post by Farrar on Feb 12, 2018 17:13:26 GMT -5
Here's another early cover I saw in the house ads when I first started reading DC (mid-1960s). Loved this cover too, but I never actually owned this Superboy issue. I wasn't able to buy many comics back then but I still got such a vicarious thrill just by seeing the various house ads for the Giants...it seemed as if every couple of months or so there was a new Superman-related Giant on sale, or a Batman Giant. Great time to be a kid! ![](https://i.imgur.com/NqHQsEH.png) Anyway, though I didn't actually own a lot of these Giants, my cousins had a lot of these Batman and Superman-related Giants so I probably read a bunch of these thanks to them. To be perfectly honest, for the Superman stuff it was the smooth and clever Curt Swan cover art that drew me in, much more so than the interior stories, which usually disappointed me--the interior art typically struck me as so old-fashioned and crude. Whenever I would actually read a Giant, I remember thinking wow,Clark, Perry, Lois, Jimmy, et al., look so strange. The only exceptions were a couple of Lois Lane Annuals; these contained enough interior Schaffenberger art so that the older stories didn't look so different from the then-current Lois mag I was used to. Now when I started to read Marvel a year or two later, at the time their Annuals contained new material and this truly represented--to me anyway--a real event (as the current storylines were deepened). Looking forward to Hal's (promised) post on the Marvel mags!
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Post by Prince Hal on Feb 12, 2018 17:18:19 GMT -5
Thanks, Farrar. Working on those Marvel Annuals from the summer of '65 next!!
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Post by Farrar on Feb 12, 2018 21:41:43 GMT -5
Thanks, Farrar . Working on those Marvel Annuals from the summer of '65 next!! Excellent ![:D](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/grin.png) ! I loved that initially Marvel's Annuals featured primarily new material--after all, Marvel already had several other books for the reprints (both of the few-years-old-Silver Age-variety and the years older, more vintage 1950s plus Golden Age stuff), what with MCIC/Marvel's Greatest Comics, Marvel Tales, and the like. And boy, was I was po'd when the Annuals resorted to reprints starting in 1969. I know, I know, it was due to economics, personnel changes, other business decisions etc., etc., etc....but still, it was sooo disappointing to me back then.
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