I read a few Hero Illustrated and it mostly felt like a Wizard Wannabe, but with more maturity and less speculation cheerleading. That said, the articles weren't exactly that deep, compared to other publications, a problem shared with Wizard.

I was a regular CBG subscriber and bought a lot of issues of The Comics Journal, depending on the interview subject or issue theme. I periodically read Amazing Heroes (again, cover dependent) and The Comics Interview. I had every single issue of Comics Scene, both the original and the revamped Volume 2, which had more focus on comic-based movies, while the original run was pure comics (since there weren't many movies, yet). The original run carried a great column by Howard Cruse and many of the main interviews were in my realm, like a long one, with Mike Grell, talking Warlord and his then-run on Tarzan. It also had some great comic technique features, including lettering, which were a big help to me, in working on my own drawing.

The revamp was good and a nice source of information about some of the indie comics out there (like Continuum's The Dark, from Joseph Neftali and Mark Bright) and had some great early info about things like Tiny Toons and the subssquent Batman TAS. It also had an early feature on Liefeld's impending Youngblood series, before the Image launch, which I found hilarious, based on Rob's apparent ignorance of basic biology. He is talking about characters and points to the generic "big guy," Brahma, and says he came about because of a conversation he had, with friends, who were triplets. He asked them how that happened and they said one egg that split into three (which is rarer beyond twins, I believe, versus more than one fertilized egg), and then says, "So my warped mind says, 'Well, what if the egg doesn't split?' Would a giant baby emerge." I just burst out laughing and said , out loud, "Normal birth, fool." Twins or triplets aren't born from a giant ovum that splits, but a normal one. I was shaking my head, wondering if he ever had a biology class and then he says something about wanting to quit high school to break into comics and his parents made him finish school first. I just chuckled and thought, "Well, that explains it."

Nothing against Rob, but you can see where his head was, in adolescence (and after). Then, I saw the debut issue of Youngblood and the scene of Shaft hurling a ballpoint pen, upwards and impaling the throat of someone on a catwalk above, killing them, despite throwing against the force of gravity and without enhanced strength in the character or abnormal velocity of the pen (or a sharper point....I mean, maybe if it had been a fountain pen, fired out of something) and tossed down the comic, laughing hysterically (I was a cruel Twentysomething). Guess he didn't study physics, either.

I get Rob wanted to make the character a badass, but I just found it ludicrously funny. By the time Captain America is jumping out of airplanes, without a parachute, it didn't seem so stupid. Plus, I've mellowed. Rob has his fans and I like Frank Robbins' art on comic books, regardless of what anyone says otherwise. Sometimes you just have to celebrate your blindspots.

Hmmm....drifted a bit, there.

Comic Shop News was an independent publication, not a Diamond in-house magazine.  My local used Capital and they had it, as well.  It was started by Cliff Biggers & Ward Batty and sold to comic shops as a bundle, for free distribution (or nominal fee, as I heard with some shops), just as the DC Direct Currents was distributed to shops.  The bundle cost a certain amount and then the shops made them available for free (or nominal fee) to subscribers and customers, to induce sales and as a reward.

Biggers and Batty owned Dr No's, in Marietta, GA and did their own newsletter and expanded it with Comic Shop News.

They had a great issue one year, when April 1st was the release day for comics, which had a banner headline that Marvel had bought DC (which was ludicrous, since Time-Warner owned DC, while Marvel was (I believe) owned by New World, which hardly had the same level of capital available.  It talked about proposed changes like Justice, from the New Universe, becoming the leader of the Justice League.  When you unfolded the paper, you got the reveal of the April Fools headline.  There was some funny stuff, in the fake article..  My shop had the fake headline showing, in their bundle display and my first reaction was "What?" and my second was "Bulls@#$!" based on the fact that DC was owned by Time-Warner.  Then I unfolded the paper and smiled and actually read all of the phony story.

Biggers had written for Steranko's Mediascene and contributed to the Comic Buyer's Guide and even wrote some comics, as time went on.  He was also very active in several Amateur Press Alliances (APAs), including CAPA-Alpha, Myriad, Apa-5 and the Southern Fandom Press Alliance.