OtherEric

A slight variation on something I mentioned a few weeks ago: A heads up for anybody looking to participate more in the reading club but who doesn't have the books: for the next 17 days, Humble Bundle has the entire run of the CREEPY Archives in digital format available for just $18, and part of that goes to support the Hero Initiative. Once again, a nice way to get a lot of the books for the reading club, or just to read even if you don't want to participate here. Who knows, maybe Dynamite will do one with the Vampirella archives after this. They've done various bundles with Vampirella before this. I don't believe anybody has done official 1984/1994 omnibus editions, or the Goblin, and the Spirit is obviously completely separate. I think Dark Horse (or somebody) collected at least some of the Rook, but no idea how completely or if it ever got a digital release.

If you have a Ballantine Tales from the Crypt coming up soon, and it’s $50 or less, I would like to preemptively claim it.

It's really hard to explain just why giant salt shakers are so terrifying until you see them in action. But they are. My local station (KBTC) is currently in the middle of Invasion of the Dinosaurs on their rerun schedule, they're believed to be the only channel in the world that has kept continually running the classic series since the 90's. (And their predecessor has been showing it since the 80s').

In this week. There was not a lot of Doctor Who material released in the US in the 60's.

So, this came out a couple weeks ago, but I only got my copy today. A new Frazetta Vampirella cover is worthy of note, even if the Frazetta in question is @Sara Frazetta, not Frank:

In today. One of the very few Doctor Who items produced for the American market in the 1960's:

I always find the discovery of a new variant fascinating, I just rarely have anything to actually say about it and am reduced to reacting to the posts.

I need to find myself a reader copy, it's one of the major Walt Kelly books I'm missing.

I mentioned this thread in both the EC comics and the Mad Magazine threads, maybe somebody from there will have some ideas to add. My first thought is, how big are the covers? If they're bigger than the standard EC size, I'm guessing these might be from one of the Russ Cochran reprints rather than the originals. Other clues would be the paper stock of the interiors, and what's on the last page of each issue... is it the paid ad, or something else? Many of the reprints have the EC ads reprinted as well, so you would need to look for the paid ads.

I thought people here might have something useful to say in this thread, I personally have no clue:

Thought some people here might find this thread interesting:

And no, I didn't go in planning to do my review of the issue like that. But I was reduced to nearly identical comments on the Toth and Sutton stories, realized I had said more or less the exact same thing on the earlier stories, only with slightly more words, and decided to lean into it. Which then worked out perfectly with Torres being the last artist in the issue.

Creepy Annual 1971 I wonder why they changed it from Yearbook to Annual? Cover: Easily my favorite of the Creepy Yearbook/ Annual covers. Admittedly, this is not a high bar to clear at all. Beast Man: Ditko was such an amazing artist. A Curse of Claws: Adams was such an amazing artist. The Mountain: Craig was such an amazing artist. Grave Undertaking: Toth was such an amazing artist. Castle Carrion: Crandall was such an amazing artist. Image in Wax: Sutton was such an amazing artist. The Rescue of the Morning Maid: Mastroserio was such an amazing artist. Skeleton Crew: Torres IS such an amazing artist. And I'm glad he's still with us. Nothing new in this one other than the cover, but it really is an impressively good look at the artists of the early Creepy run, with a selection of better than average stories, mostly written by Goodwin. The cover is the low point, and even that's pretty good. A great choice if you wanted to hand somebody one magazine to show them what the early run of Creepy was like.

Whoever has that one needs to return it to the Library of Congress, assuming it's not the LoC. I've got at least one pulp (an issue of Operator #5) with a similar LoC stamp, I keep wondering if I should contact them about it or not. Does anybody know if they deliberately let items go at some point?

Today’s random box figs:

Cross posting this one. Not Golden Age, but this thread desperately needs a bump. In today, courtesy of Brock; this is one of the hardest, if not the hardest, Looney Tunes issue from the 70's-80's run to find:

In today, a gift from @Brock... he only charged me his cost and shipping, which is less than 1/3 of the next cheapest copy I can see at the moment. I know the #35 has the reputation as the rarest Whitman Looney Tunes, but in my experience the #34 is actually the harder one to locate. Of course, now that I've got 33-35 complete, I'm more or less committed to completing the run. But, as indicated, the hard part is done! I cannot thank Brock enough for this, I love these forums and the people here. The generosity of the group is staggering.

I always have thought the Playback design, with the curtain worked into the design, was a really great one. So is the Skull cover for Big Sleep, in a very different way. As far as I know, all of my copies are first edition, first printing paperbacks other than Little Sister, and from what I've seen I like the design on the Pocket 4001 a lot more than the one on the Pocket 750 (which I think is the first, I don't have a copy).

Not the first time I've shown my set, and probably not the last either:

I think the only Ayn Rand I have is the last issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries. OK, so I've seen the multiple spine on a Signet before... just not in person.

Those are both on the list of issues I still need, coincidentally. Nice pickups!

I don't think I've seen one of these Signet Double Volumes before, with the doubled spine. First print:

From the local store today, a couple of MAD books and reading copies of a couple books I've got much nicer copies of:

A SF digest from the local store today:

Found at a local store today. Under $20, so I figured it was worth grabbing.