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Post by MDG on Oct 7, 2023 13:19:38 GMT -5
I may or may not--I just decided to have a Halloween party, so have a bunch of stuff to do to get ready.
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Post by MDG on Oct 6, 2023 20:22:40 GMT -5
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Post by MDG on Oct 6, 2023 20:18:25 GMT -5
I've always heard that DC didn't care so much about sales as it did about the merchandising that went along with the WW brand. However, what revenue did that earn for them in the 50s and 60s? To begin with, there were so few comics-related tie-ins compared to the deluge later on, and what there was was not Wonder Woman-oriented. Superman and Batman, yes, and especially during Batmania, but WW? maybe a Ben Cooper Halloween costume or one of a few stickers in a package with gum? Once the Linda Carter show debuted, you had merchandise, but that was a helluva dry spell post-Golden Age for DC to ride out publishing a loss leader. There were a couple of WW figures in the context of JLA sets, and in 1967, Ideal, the same company that produced Captain Action, launched the Super Queens line, so there was at least some interest in the character and in marketing comic character toys to girls.
These are all pretty rare, but I don't know if that's because they never caught on or if they never got a full launch (e.g., with an appearance in the Sears or Montgomery Ward xmas catalog).
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Post by MDG on Oct 6, 2023 13:14:47 GMT -5
Sexual Politics: The first issue of Ms. magazine was released in summer 1972: “Wonder Woman for President!” Recall that it was an election year. Editor/founder Gloria Steinem had Dick Giordano provide the cover, showing Silver Age Wonder Woman as the ideal woman, astride a city which was half modern paradise and half war-pocked hellhole. Apparently the magazine interior contained an article about Diana, but I have not been able to scrounge up the text online. However, Steinem did tell Vanity Fair a few years ago: Steinhem may have hired Giordano, but the cover was drawn by Murphy Anderson. his signature is visible on the right edge of the cover. between WW's boot and the tank.
(One of Steinhem's early magazine jobs was as Assistant Editor for Harvey Kurtzman on Help!)
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Post by MDG on Oct 6, 2023 11:50:21 GMT -5
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Post by MDG on Oct 6, 2023 9:08:12 GMT -5
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Post by MDG on Oct 5, 2023 19:35:17 GMT -5
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Post by MDG on Oct 5, 2023 12:27:37 GMT -5
I honestly don't see Morbius as a horror character. He's a super-villain/hero character with some minor horror trappings. Now, I'll admit that I'm not sure that I've ever read his short-lived solo series, but the dude started out as a Spider-Man villain. That just ain't horror. Yeah, this reminded me of a point I wanted to make but forgot: I see most of the books you mentioned as monster books, not horror books. The same could be said for Charlton's Gorgo and Konga series and Swamp thing under Wein and Micheline (though not Moore).
That is, they follow the typical adventures of these characters and the folks around them as adventures. They are not really aiming to frighten or create a "sense of dread," though they may do so sometimes. But so did Ditko's Dr. Strange.
There was no legal age restriction on selling Creepy and Eerie to minors. It's not like they were skin mags. Some sellers may have taken it on themselves to not sell, but it was definitely not a legal issue. Mad magazine was essentially the exact same thing and it definitely was being sold to kids. I know that (this was a few years later, admittedly) nobody was keeping junior high me or my friends from buying Epic Illustrated, Heavy Metal or National Lampoon. This stuck out to me too (I was listening while driving, so wasn't taking notes). It may vary state to state, or, as Slam says, retailer to retailer, but in the 60s, comics were for kids, color or B&W. Checking the GCD, my cousin had a copy of Creepy #1 that he bought himself when he would've been 8 or 9 at the time; I bought #5 on my own when I was 6 and had no qualms about bringing it home, though I would have hesitated to walk in with an issue of MAD due to my mom's dislike of anything that seemed to show disrespect to adults (and the great Three Stooges purge of 1965).
(I knew better than to try to buy Vampirella #1, opting to read most of it at the magazine rack and, when I started buying Creepy again w/ #54, didn't leave them around due to the nudity in them. Ditto Lampoon.) (A couple years later, my sister narced on my underground stash, but by then my mom was trying not to be shocked by anything.)
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Post by MDG on Oct 5, 2023 10:29:32 GMT -5
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Post by MDG on Oct 4, 2023 19:17:46 GMT -5
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Post by MDG on Oct 4, 2023 14:02:44 GMT -5
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Post by MDG on Oct 4, 2023 11:19:26 GMT -5
Did anyone read this continuity-shattering event? It seems it singlehandedly destroyed the 90s comics market! From Wikipedia: I don't know about that, unless so many stores spent so much money overordering a book that never got mentioned again.
There was also Total Eclipse, put out by Eclipse where they offered a money-back guarantee--if you didn't like the book, the shop would take it back and, I assume, send it back to Eclipse for credit. I think a lot of folks took them up on that, since a year later, I went to several bigger shows (like mid-ohio con) and there were stacks of it for the taking.
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Post by MDG on Oct 4, 2023 11:11:59 GMT -5
While posting a cover in the Cover Association Game, I was reminded of a question I have been meaning to ask. Has anyone read Wasteland, DC's horror/suspense anthology book from the late 80s? I have often been intrigued by the covers, and the list of creators involved. Is it worth picking up? I picked it up in the spirit of supporting DC in it's efforts to break out of usual formats and genres, but it's not really my kinda stuff.
The art was generally very good. I love Loebs' art, but more when he's doing the whole thing, like in Journey. Ditto Simpson (and I like Simpson much more now than I did then). But the others are folks I can appreciate, but don't really like.
The writing was good, but, again, not the EC/Goodwin type of stories I like from horror. The highlights, looking back, are the semi-autobiographical pieces by Del Close; if there are enough of these to fill up a book, I'd probably buy it.
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Post by MDG on Oct 4, 2023 10:59:03 GMT -5
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Post by MDG on Oct 3, 2023 14:26:22 GMT -5
This one's new to me: album cover for the Buffalo, NY band Enemies by Gene the Dean.
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