OtherEric

Eerie #33 thoughts: Cover: We've seen Larry Todd's work before, with Vaughn Bode, and he's using a similar style in his solo cover here. I do like this cover, it manages to create an ambiguity between are we looking at a ship, or at an alien, and narrowly but successfully avoids looking ridiculous doing it. Monster Gallery: Apparently, there's some rule stating that every 11th issue of Eerie has to have The Minotaur as the Monster Gallery. Neal Adams' version appeared in #11 and was reprinted in #22. (I wrote that before I saw @Axe Elf commenting on the same thing in the intro.) Clif Jackson does a decent version here, although the female human looks rather odd compared to the rest of the illustration, at least to me. A Trip in Time: A fairly neat conceit for avoiding a paradox in a time travel story; but the actual script was pretty ludicrous. The concept of a scientist threatening to have another scientist arrested for talking about creating a time machine is absurd, even if he was just trying to make a point. 243 Blank Pages: This is actually a fairly clever idea for a story, but the punchline just falls completely flat for me and, I strongly suspect, the rest of us here. Who among us would even dream of writing our name in the front of a collectable book and reducing the value? (Yes, I'm aware that this was a much more common practice in the not too distant past.) Whom the Gods Would Destroy: While some of these are certainly reprints, the GCD lists 34 stories with the title "Whom the gods would destroy". It's beyond a cliche. It's not even the only time Marv Wolfman has used the title. Speaking of Marv Wolfman, he only does a couple stories for Warren, although the index says he was a story editor for a bit as well. He has over 6000 credits at the GCD, but is probably best known for his work on The New Teen Titans and Crisis on Infinite Earths. He's also responsible for DC having creator credits more consistently. An intro page in one of DC's mystery books had the host introducing a story as something the Wolfman brought. The comics code objected until DC told them it was the real name of the writer, and they started adding credits so the code would allow the joke to go through. The story isn't particularly to my taste, it's a bit too heavy on message at the cost of the story and too long for the premise. This was at the height of the relevance trend in comics; so it's not surprising to see something like this in Warren magazines at some point. It's just not a particularly good example of the trend. Escape into Chaos: A fairly flimsy story, but it works perfectly as a frame for Colon to draw some beautiful artwork. I may have already said this, but Colon is another one of the artists who is just a revelation going through the reading club... I've definitely stopped thinking of him as primarily a Richie Rich artist, that's for sure! Starvisions: A very offbeat story by Larry Todd, this feels very much like something from an Underground Comic. A excellent change of pace from what we might normally expect from Warren. The Pest: Another slight story; but Corben knocks the art out of the park. It's not as good as his stuff will get, but it's fascinating to watch his style develop. I wonder how this looked to people reading it when it came out, it's one of those stories where a high point for me is based on what I know about Corben's future work and seeing the development. Fan Page: I don't believe Rick Bryant or Pat Broderick ever have any Warren credits other than the fan page. But Bryant has over 300 credits at the GCD and Broderick over 1200, so they're definitely worthy of note, at least. The Painting in the Tower: Not the best art we've seen from Boyette, but pretty good. The tone of the story felt a bit off, though; either way too grim, or not grim enough if they were trying for a particularly dark piece, or possibly too serious without some dark humor to balance it. Lots of ways this could be made to work but I don't think they quite hit any of them. So, not a spectacular issue; but enough good stuff that I can't call it a bad issue either. Just somewhat average; the sort that would happily have gotten my 60 cents if I was a regular reader but not a lot to make it stand out either. But as I've suggested before, good enough so you don't feel you're wasting your money on the lesser issues so you can get the occasional masterpiece is really a pretty good baseline for a book.

The for real, honest and true, no we've really figured it out this time 1st Boba Fett, Yoda, and Lando Calrissian in comics! (Other than possibly some Marvel UK books, but that's still up for debate last I heard.)

Maybe they used the obsolete Shilling stamp rather than a normal non-returnable stamp to try and catch who was returning what should have been non returnable material? It could give them a tracking mechanism of some sort on where the books had been if they used different stamps. Admittedly, that's a wild guess, we've shown they don't make much sense any other way, either...

I remember when Star Blazers first came out in the US, I loved it so much that I actually voluntarily got up early so I had the half hour to watch it uninterrupted, rather than try and see it while eating breakfast and getting ready for school. I was in 3rd grade at the time.

Love the A Maze of Death, it's one of four PKD SF novels I don't have either a true 1st, a BCE, or a 1st paperback edition of. A couple more covers I don't think we've seen here yet:

The last one I had on order. First Yosemite Sam in comics:

New Jersey Post Office? That's 100% a wild guess...

Merlin being imprisoned in a tree is definitely one of (several) classic fates attributed to Merlin. I recognized it, at least.

Take The Young Outlaw at $12

In today. Only 4 Four Colors with Looney Tunes to go, and only one Porky Pig. That's #16, the Porky Pig #1. Which will generally cost more than #48 with Carl Barks art, but is actually easier to find from what I've seen.

Two more today. Both 1st print, non-Book Club editions. Up to 33 1st edition PKD books in my collection now.

I can now, thank you.

That recently?

I've already got a copy, but this is my favorite map on a mapback.

Unknown, June 1940? Cover scans grabbed from MCS:

Fresh in today, 1st print non-BCE. (Did I start this thread knowing I had several PKD books on the way? Maybe...) Maybe it's just me, but this one seems actually seems to be easier to find in HC than the 1st edition paperback. BCE's are pretty common as PKD books go:

It is, the book is a collection of stories, although they somehow forgot to mention that on the front cover.

A couple more:

as per PM!

as per PM.

as per PM.

In today. Only 5 Four Colors with the Looney Tunes characters to go:

Well, it does seem clear to me there was enough interest in PKD to support an appreciation thread for at least a few days, my thanks to everybody who has contributed. Here's a couple that I don't think have turned up here yet. One thing that's always struck me as odd: while the other three VALIS books were all hardcovers, as near as I can tell the only standalone hardcover edition of VALIS itself was an extremely limited edition released in the UK in the late 80's. I get it being a paperback original, about 2/3 of the books released in PKD's lifetime were. But I would have expected at least a SFBC edition, particularly since I know there are BCE editions of Divine Invasion and Radio Free Albemuth.