OtherEric

Good luck on the auction! My latest addition. Is it just me, or are a lot of the covers in the 90's kinda similar? Not super close to one another, but similar enough you need to double check do I have this one already or not?

I've said this many times before... there was never a comic book artist better than Wally Wood on a good day. The problem is, he had plenty of bad days, too... Wish I had grabbed a better copy of this, but happy to have it at all... Weird Science is getting hard to find these days.

Pretty clearly, yes. Although I do know some comic companies specifically forbade use of the word for fear that sloppy lettering would render it impolite.

Somewhere I read an article where Issac Asimov described it as being one of the three times where Science Fiction straightforwardly just changed, the writer having had such an enormous impact on the field that you could just look at everything being either before or after they appeared. Everything that followed was in some way reacting to it. (The other two were Stanley Weinbaum and Robert Heinlein.) And he's talking about Doc Smith's Skylark of Space, not Buck Rogers. I don't think anybody can dispute the impact Buck Rogers had on Science Fiction, or at least the way the public sees it. This is the pulp equivalent of More Fun #73, where you can argue which of the two stories is actually more important... but there's no denying both of them are absolutely key in their own right. My answer is Skylark was more important among creators and Buck Rogers was more important among the public.

I probably would have grabbed it at that price if I didn't already have my copy. I don't see that one going down any time soon, and it looks like a complete copy is going to run four figures minimum these days.

Nice! I understand if you don't want to answer, but what did the coverless copy run you?

It's always fun to look at famous books like that, even if you can't afford them, isn't it?

Doesn't look like it to me. I think this was actually produced in Canada, not the US. Not positive. Wondering if the P on the cover means anything, I doubt it's a Pennsylvania copy... but it's enough to make me go "interesting", at least.

There is apparently also a Youngblood 1+, with a 4 page story, just to complicate matters even further.

I was five years older would be the main thing, I think. The Warren was around 10, the Playboys were around 15.

Agree across the board that Carl Barks, Will Eisner, and the EC's are the first places to look for stories that are still good reads today. It's worth noting that they're some of the most continually reprinted Golden Age books. There's good reasons for that.

Found at ECCC a few days ago. No idea what it's worth... only that I'm pretty sure $14 was a good deal. Fun in any case:

I was always very aware of my limitations as a kid, and my parents were always good about letting me see stuff if they felt I was ready for it. In our house, the Playboys were in the magazine rack in the living room, along with the US News and World Reports. If I recall the time frame, my mom got my dad the subscription around the time I was 15 and I was never prohibited from looking at it. I had awesome parents. Still do, in the case of my Dad. (My mom passed over 30 years ago, sadly.)

More in today. Three Porkys and six Bugs Four Colors to go, getting close... but also definitely getting trickier to find:

And a couple others. I've been looking for the Albert & Pogo for ages... I personally think it's harder to find than the 105, and people seem to want to ask a fortune for it. So happy to have won it on an auction on MCS for far less than I was prepared to pay. The Jacky's Diary is just one I've wanted to see for a while... Jack Mendelsohn was an incredible creator who isn't as well known as he should be. But I've enjoyed his work ever since I first saw Yellow Submarine on TV as a kid. (He was one fo the writers.)

Some issues in today. Let's start with the Looney Tunes. I particularly like the Phantom and Frozen Kingdom covers:

I can now verify that the Avatar Glory 0 just reprints the Awesome Glory 0. Supplemental material in both is different, and the Avatar version doesn't flip two pages on their sides to form double-page spreads. Personally I think the Avatar version works better. I think the only one I don't have at all is the Judgement Day sourcebook, which apparently has a new 6 page story by Moore. But who knows where in storage my copies are of lots of the issues.

Three in today. The Creepy puts me at 100 issues total for the title. The Charlton Bullseye is from Bob Layton's stash; complete with flimsy COA. Not sure how many copies he actually had when he released them, though. And the big one is the Warren Presents, although I didn't know it when I ordered it. But flipping through the issue showed that it's the one Warren issue I remember from when I was a kid. My family lived in Germany when I was around 10, and some friends sent us a care package of comics from the US at some point. I've know for ages there was one Warren in the bunch, because I vividly remember the ads. But for the life of me I had no idea what book it was. Once I saw the interiors, I knew it was this one- certain images from the stories (and the article on Empire Strikes Back) just jumped out at me. I recall asking my dad to vet the issue for me, I sensed it was a bit more "adult" than what I was used to. He read it and though it would be safe for me, which certainly wouldn't have been the case with a lot of Warrens at that age.

Let the MADness continue!

We've lost Doctor Zarkov: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/chaim-topol-fiddler-on-the-roof-actor-dead-obit-1234693551/ RIP

Oof. I'll probably still grab it... I tracked down the variants on The New Golden Age, and the only LSH reference in that one was a mostly redacted Who's Who page.

Thank you for pointing this out to me, I'll need to grab a copy. Do you know if that's a ratio variant or just a standard?

A fair question. For better or worse, it is the first appearance. But I suppose the Pini's dislike of the book could explain, at least in part, why it's so deemphasized compared to the exaggerated demand for the Elfquest #1 1st print. I'm sure most of the reason is just people being unaware of the actual publication order. But it helps explain why the correct info isn't more widely known.

To follow up on my own question, let me list what I have figured out, and perhaps people can chime in if they see something I missed: Supreme: 24 issues total: 41-51, 52a, 52b, 53-56, The Return 1-6, 63 Judgment Day: 5 issues: Sourcebook, Alpha, Omega, 3, Aftermath Youngblood: 4 issues: Awesome Holiday Special, 1-2, Awesome Adventures Glory: 3 issues: 0-2. There are 0 issues from both Awesome and Avatar, not sure if the Avatar version reprints the Awesome one. Anybody know of anything I'm missing?