Ken Aldred

Yup. Too many variables. Magazine, 100 pager, 52 pager, Dollar Comic, etc.

Very antiquated now, dating back to the Wertham "Seduction of the Innocent" / Introduction of the Comics Code period in the 1950s. Even in the 1970s you would see Skywald horror magazines, Tomb of Dracula, Werewolf by Night distributed here. Nothing to worry about.

I don't really feel they're that different. For example, Jonathan Hickman's work, which I like, reads very similarly to Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis material from 20 years ago, even further back, and with a decompressed, drawn-out structure which could be traced back to the emergence of Brian Michael Bendis around the same time. In that way, there isn't a clear-cut Age transition.

I'm clinically OCD, and so for me, comics, both raw and slabbed, present just one focal point for rumination over and over the same way. Reading digitally helps to put a brake on that.

I have to concur. Buscema was a good match to draw Tarzan, in parallel with his Conan work, but I much prefer Kubert’s interpretation.

Here being the only social medium I’m involved with online, the loss of an easily-accessible dopamine boost, even for a few hours, was quite crushing.

Yup. More tedious preaching. More Doctor Doomwatch than Doctor Who. A show with an identity crisis. The stony, crystallising effect of the skin infection reminded me straight away of the aliens from the Outer Limits episode ‘Feasibility Study’.

Hard to believe that anyone with Kirby's level of creativity, with the energy and excitement in his stories and visuals, could ever be considered that. The opposite end of the spectrum is overwritten, turgid, boring prose, devoid of any excitement and which is a chore to wade through, as you get from the Bronze Age onwards in particular. Maybe Kirby was a bit less technically gifted with dialogue, but his stories are so engaging, so imaginative, that I want to return to them far more often.

It’s radar-assisted targeting.

I particularly like the scene in the sandpit, while he's trying to reassemble himself ...

No. There are many baby boomer ‘silver surfers’ here, with tremendous knowledge accumulated over many decades. Lots to learn.

Fits the cover and Jean Grey's sacrifice, motivated after the events in the Dark Phoenix Saga. Lyrically, a good match.

Also a classic example of dated, and to me unreadable, teenage / hippy dialogue, written by the middle-aged Haney and Kanigher, which explained why even as a kid in the 70s it could sound a bit off at times to me. Nice Cardy and Adams art, though.

I found them dated when I read them circa 1980. The run aged in a very accelerated manner.

Well spotted. So tiny I missed it. I didn't think Aquaman was going psychotic and hearing voices, so I just assumed the chat was filtering through the wall.

Yup. One of the most exciting-looking comics I've ever seen in over 40 years of collecting. Incredible that I missed it. I haven't checked the Mile High website, but I'd expect it to be even more pricey than normal there because of a spike in demand up in the Aspen region.

25 Parker Vol 1 : The Hunter (ComiXology digital edition) First in a series of four crime noir novels, brilliantly adapted by Darwyn Cooke, whose artwork is a perfect match for the subject matter and 60s period. Short, but excellent.

Better than the squid. To me, anyway.

I much prefer the film’s ending. Huge improvement.

Watchmen. The space squid invasion ending. Spoils it for me now.

As a baby boomer I remember John Craven as well, and the Reeves and Mortimer sketch where he sounded like a Dalek. Happy Birthday !!!

And it only happens when viewing figures deteriorate to a point where something desperately radical has to be attempted, or there's an emergent market to be tapped into by superficial, self-serving inclusion.

I continued with some of the Lobdell and Nicieza stories, but the quality declined quickly, I lost interest quickly, and I didn’t follow the X-titles much throughout the 90s. As a huge Claremont fan I was very disappointed when he returned in the late 90s; a descent from being the writer of some of my favourite comics to being pretty much unreadable.

Understandable. That was the end of the very consistent Chris Claremont era. Never rated Gambit very highly either.