AKA... John Byrne's First Published Comic Book!

 

AKA... Thank you Marvel Comics and Dan Slott for the Distraction!I went to Midtown Comics Grand Central yesterday during my lunch break. It was busier than normal, and I just assume everyone was there buying up the sickening glut of variant covers of Amazing Spider-Man #700... the last issue and "death" of Peter Parker... well lots of them were, but some shoppers were lucky recipients of X-mas gift cards looking to redeem and take advantage of post holiday sales... myself included!Quite honestly, I really couldn't care much about ASM #700! Dare I say!!! Although I'm not a huge fan of Spidey, I did love the 60's cartoon show. The very bizarre "Revolt in the 5th Dimension" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF8fasFUucQ) is my favorite episode of the series featuring the best soundtrack and score for a cartoon show (that's my opinion)... funny thing... the episode is actually directly lifted from Canada's Rocket Robin Hood episode "Dementia Five" (check it out:

), which was written by the legendary Ralph Bakshi best known for Fritz the Cat, The Lord of the Rings, and Fire and Ice animated movies. Any-hoot... I have a bone to pick with Marvel over their consistent maltreatment and abuse of Peter Parker. I know he's just a fictional character, but the poor guy's been through so much misery and pain in his life... he's literally been treated like a whipping boy... enough is enough!!! Easy Spidey... easy Spidey... don't lose your cool. But that is a separate topic of conversation which I may quite possibly broach another time.Meanwhile, back at Midtown Comics... there's a Holiday Sale going on: a whopping 40 percent off on all back issues until December 31st! They do this virtually every year... a great opportunity for savings. So, yesterday afternoon, I began searching through their vintage section looking for a bargain, and lo and behold I spotted this little rare gem: ACA Comix No. 1.What you say? What in the heck is ACA Comix No. 1? Glad you ask. ACA Comix is an Alberta College of Art publication (May, 1971), a "brochure" featuring the very first published comic book written and illustrated by none other than the master... John Byrne. John Byrne, the color-blind, English born but Canadian bred writer/artist, best known for his legendary works on Avengers, Uncanny X-Men, Alpha Flight, Fantastic Four, Superman, and his creations Rog-2000, Doomsday Plus 1, Danger Unlimited, and Next Men, attended the Alberta College of Art in the early 70's ('70 -- '73). For some enlightenment onto ACA Comix No. 1, I decided to take an excerpt (used without permission... please forgive me) from an interview conducted by Jon B. Cooke, which appeared in Comic Book Artist #12:"Comic Book Artist: You mentioned in an interview that your first full-length comic story was Death's-Head Knight back in the early '70s. What was that?John Byrne: Not sure I would actually have called it my "first full-length comic story." Death's-Head Knight was a project done for the Alberta College of Art, which I was attending at the time. The curator of the gallery had brought in a comic art show, and needed a "brochure" to be given away at the door. He asked me if I could prepare something on relatively short notice, and I did, some 20 pages, each double-width. It was a sword-&-sorcery story."To my knowledge, only 500 copies were ever printed... Holy Sh*t! Only 500 copies... incredibly rare! And I Google searched ACA Comix No. 1, in an effort to determine a price-value and any known counterfeiting and reproductions... but my search came up empty. I also cross-referenced the CGC census, and only one... count it... 1... graded copy exists... an 8.0!If you visit John Byrne's website, Byrne Robotics, you can click and view his scanned panels of the comic book brochure: http://www.artofjohnbyrne.com/gallery/earlydays/collegedays/. Amazingly, I bought ACA Comix No. 1 for the incredibly low price of $3.00... that's right!... just three bucks... that was the final price paid after a 40 percent discount from the original asking price of five bucks (see pic for the sticker price). I really can't believe it! I somehow feel it's too good to be true! To be honest, I don't know if it's the genuine article or not... but I'm willing to bet it is. In a way I think it's serendipitous! For the last few months I have been eyeing a CGC 9.4 of John Byrne's classic Charlton title: Doomsday Plus One #1; a high grade copy of Uncanny X-Men #129 (1st appearance of Kitty Pride, White Queen, and Sebastian Shaw: by the way... my very first X-Men comic book back in 1979... which I still own but it is in terrible shape... it's been read to death!); and I've also been aching to buy The Art of John Byrne soft cover portfolio book published back in 1980, which I used to own and carried nearly every day with me in an art portfolio along with my HC copy of How to Draw the Marvel Way... but due to an unfortunate accident involving spilled ink... was forever ruined (along with my late 70's Balantine Book Volumes of The Art of Frank Frazetta)... and in a stupid act of blind rage... I threw it out! God I miss that book... those really slick illustrations of Wolverine... or the painted iconic image of Superman flying through the sun... to the very tech-heavy black and white comic book involving an astronaut (a dead ringer for JB himself), crash landing on an alien barren planet, only to discover a sinister dome/moon base which contains its own artificial "Garden of Eden-like" ecosystem inhabited by a mysterious woman and her giant robotic protector. JB is actually kind enough to include on his website, selected images from The Art of John Byrne... check it out: http://www.artofjohnbyrne.com/gallery/artofjohnbyrne/. So, to be an absolute hypocrite... A "shout-out" and really BIG THANK YOU goes to Dan Slott and Marvel Comics for ASM #700... for helping to distract all those rabid comic book hunters at Midtown Comics yesterday... and of course to Midtown Comics for their always exceptional service and for a very nice and truly historic key!SW3DTo see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.