Ken Aldred

In the 90s, a collector friend had a dog with an extremely bad temperament that had a habit of occasionally attacking the other dogs in the neighbourhood. Being a comics fan, of course, he nicknamed it The Hate Mongrel.

Hatefro sounds good.

At least by hating it you're still on topic.

Musical interlude...

They’re trying to be old Germanic. Same pronunciation as Cenwulf in the Vikings series.

Not Keith Giffen's best work.

As a Brit I could never take this one seriously.

-1 Nope. Classic Ditko. Classic Marvel monster.

Detective Comics 27. Atrocious artwork. The only way that guy could've improved his quality was if he'd just given up and got someone else to draw for him instead.

Werewolf by Night 32 Currently very expensive, also very mediocre

Lots of very smart people read comic books. I'm not surprised.

I don't mind either format. Being British, and thanks to Brexit, I can't afford to buy old American comic books from your side of the pond anymore anyway.

I've thought this about most variants I've seen, regardless of publisher, that the artwork wasn't good enough to entice me to pay multiples of cover price. The only one I've been really happy to obtain, and for £2 / $2-99 cover price, is the Supergirl 23 Adam Hughes variant; my all-time favourite. Now that is superb artwork.

I get that he's a comics fan, Jimmers, but the only part I can guess at from amongst all the preceding archaic stuff is that 'quintessence of dust' might mean that he likes the odour of old newsprint comics. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I was going to post my favourite ad, the Polaris submarine, but given the context above it would seem too obviously phallic.

The way I started here was by mentioning to another collector at a British comic mart that I'd just bought a couple of slabbed CGC books via eBay, and he suggested I have a look at the CGC site and Collectors Society. I lurked for about a year and then decided to join and participate. I've always liked having a very broad-based, bit-of-this-and-that knowledge about comics across all periods, as with my equally-unfocused collecting approach, but I'm always willing to listen to and learn from collectors who have far greater experience in certain Ages or genres, or whatever their specialty here might be. It's been interesting to read and learn a great deal over near a decade now. I've always enjoyed participating in some of the competitions here to learn more about my strengths and weaknesses; a strong visual aptitude for 'Guess the Cover' contests but absolutely, pitifully OCD and inept when it's down to grading. Alternatively, when it's a quiet day there's always the option of goofing off with Jimmers and the rest of the 'Water Cooler nutjobs', as we've been referred to here in Comics General. I've certainly met a number of like-minded individuals who I have a lot in common with in terms of taste in comics and sense of humour but, due to my bluntness, probably alienated some as well. Because of health issues I've cut back a lot on my active, physical involvement with comics; not attending marts or conventions, not going to the LCS, buying neither new material nor old back issues. The only involvement I have now is reading digital comics and the boards and so, if anything, checking in here to see what's going on is more important than ever.

I did too. Completely ridiculous comic books. Then again, I would've posted the first two Ambush Bug mini-series as being more ridiculous and enjoyable drek, but the 'best story' aspect excluded them.

Personally, I’m against animal testing of all kinds, even if it’s on a screwed-up chicken-fish hybrid rather than on a beagle or mouse. Let’s be honest, it’s been dealt a crappy enough hand by life without having its lungs destroyed by cigarette smoke, or, should that be its gills, or, its lungs and gills? You have to feel sorry for man’s first attempt at creating an amphibious chicken.

It's a shame that these great stories weren't reprinted in the Avengers vs Thanos trade paperback. Maybe they should've chosen a different name for the collection in order to make it all-inclusive?

I agree. It's a pity that he did so little comic book art.

Not so much satirical deconstruction as out-and-out satirical destruction. I most remember the one-shots featuring analogues of Marvel characters and another of the JSA.

Also, I found mid-90s Milestone titles such as Icon, Blood Syndicate and Hardware to be good reads.

I'm guessing porcupine47. There's a long, family tradition.

Still not sure if One More Day was worse than Chuck Austen's X-Men run.