Ken Aldred

I think it was sometime during Mark Waid’s excellent 90s run on the Flash title, around the time of the introduction of Impulse, which was issue 92, second series.

The issues in the first series by Len Wein and Nestor Redondo are worth reading, as Redondo is a talented and underrated artist. The second series is okay, passable, but Moore elevates it considerably.

They’re superb. Great reads, incredible artwork. Classic western series.

On Titan, with a character called Chaos...

I deserved it. I knew you'd post it again.

Absolutely. A brilliant suggestion, Sharon. One of my favourite boardies. One of the nicest, most knowledgable comic geeks this board has ever had. And, I didn't know he was in hospital. I knew about his transplant, and that was always a concern. Get well, Larry.

Great suggestion. Apart from his hatred of John Byrne , pretty much the ideal comics geek boardie.

Yup. Not really on form this week. Completely missed that, and thanks for pointing it out. It's surprising how often that gets confused here; Howard Greber, not Gerber.

Sadly, I'm considering leaving. I’ve just finished having the heating and water system in the house completely modernised, which proved extremely stressful, more so because of my autism and OCD. It turned out to be necessary and lucky though, as the antiquated back boiler was dangerously rusted and a carbon monoxide risk. The engineers said it was in the worst condition they’d ever seen, and I believe them. And so, talking about condition… As far as comics are concerned I have quite a large physical collection, and if I’d only damaged a few drek items while moving boxes around I’d be able to accept that easily. Unfortunately, stressed, tired and not thinking sensibly, I stacked up some of my key slabs, the pile went over and a Tomb of Dracula 10 9.6, bought for $400, now irreplaceable at $3,000, got severely damaged. Blowie’s purely coincidentally-timed thread on a TOD 10 9.9 provided additional psychological salt in the wound on top. I’ve not checked the other keys yet, but that’s one of my all-time most important books. I just came to the conclusion that someone with my condition shouldn’t really be doing this; ordinarily hyper-careful and obsessive-compulsive, or, completely the opposite, spaced-out, clumsy, no common sense whatsoever when I’m depressed, hyper-anxious and burned out. The worst is that up until the point at which I started messing about with my key books I’d been extremely cautious. I burned out at exactly the right time to do maximum damage. Given the ridiculous and often unaffordable prices keys are going for now, I already find the money talk and boiler room attitude here very depressing, and time for me to stop being involved with a physical product that I can’t safely curate or replace in the long term. I’ll still obtain cheap reading material by buying digitally, huge bundles available there, but for someone with my meagre resources a lot of what goes on here isn’t relevant anymore. This is one of the few threads that I believe has a larger gathering of people that actually do care about the stories, artwork, creators, etc, and I appreciate your interest and concern. I wonder though, if it's enough to continue on here.

My nomination would be Howard Greber. A great boardie pal, and our conversations are still, several years on, sadly missed. A world-class level expert on underground comix, my mentor in the field, and the source of my specialist Richard Corben underground collection. As far as my 40 + year involvement in comics in general goes, one of the most enthusiastic, genuine, helpful and intelligent individuals I've ever had the privilege of knowing.

Once I started reading Mitch's posts in Golden Age I realised he was a real fan, not just focused on the market values, but someone who has a deep, genuine and long term interest in the medium itself; the stories, the artwork, the characters. We have similarities. I like Cal's randomness, the use of third person, and perhaps one day I'll get into Caltopia and acquire a citizen's copy of Iron Man / Submariner 1. High grade, hopefully, as I'm obsessive-compulsive.

Yup. A few years ago there was a craze for padding out counts by 1000s using graemlins.

Yup. The moral compass given to him by his upbringing with the Kents.

Unlikely you'd even have a few small pieces; remnants of a shattered planet light years distant, ending up making it all the way to Earth?

35 to 44 Justice Society of America (1992) 1 to 10 Good mainstream super-hero team book. The JSA return, freed from a period during which they had regained their youth but were imprisoned into fighting through cycles of Ragnarok time and time again, but, on returning to Earth, find themselves ageing again past their prime and concerned about whether they still have anything of value to offer, whether time has passed them by, whether to retire, etc. The best thing about the series is Mike Parobeck’s often quite excellent cartoony artwork.

Not convinced Seeley is objectively the best, as I like a very wide range of comics and subject matter to choose from, necessitating me to cast wider with less focus and to respect more than just the one A-list writer. Nonetheless, he is extremely talented; Hack / Slash, Revival, Grayson / Batman / Nightwing, all great stuff.

Not to mention the ridiculousness of The Thing trying to disguise himself with a black beard, and the confusion amongst the pirates about whether his dinosaur-like skin was the worst case of scurvy ever or cosmic radiation.

Very, very nicely expanded upon.

Interesting parallel with EC Comics, where Gaines gave his writers and artists more creative freedom. One parallel could be Graham Ingels, who seemed to be a very average, workmanlike artist while constrained by a stale, typical Golden Age house style (=The Silver Age of the late 50s to early 60s) but when unconstrained was discovered to be a genius horror artist. ( =The Marvel 60s renaissance.) Also, EC’s hard-hitting, groundbreaking relevance stories as another example of creating material that was beyond comics for kids. There’s a similar process, applied to different products.

I would’ve thought there would be much, much more interest in seeing Darkseid featured as the main villain. Steppenwolf will seem quite insignificant in comparison. As a character, as a ‘key’ to be flipped.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13249223/covid-predicted-1987-bunty-comic-deadly-virus/

There are a few things I need to catch up on. I can’t really write anything lengthy at present as I’m having some work done on the house that’s required me to take out the broadband, and I only have limited phone data.

Yup. Most likely a convergence of optimum conditions; creative synergy, right place at the right time, and a formula that basically seemed fresh and appealing in the 60s. Possibly me being a little agent provocateur as I’m out of here soon.

I like Kav’s enthusiasm. But, I’m likely to be off soon as well.