vaillant

You have done a great work on those, wdb23, but if you wished them to be as much realistic as possible, it would have been great to hand-letter them and use colors more attained to the palette Marvel used in those years. (This is not meant as fussy criticism, it’s just that besides being a longtime Dr. Stranga fan I am a graphic designer and particularly enjoy care in the details. ).

A Marvel Zombie with five DC GA keys is not a believable Marvel zombie…

Doesn’t imageshack provide links to smaller size versions of the images, Eerie? This way they are virtually unwatchable on smaller screens, unless you download them on your computer first.

Ed’s analisys is good: ASM #160 has been my very first Spider-Man book (in Italian, of course), and I did not think it was trashy: it was well written, but even at age nine I thought it was an odd story, featuring a scientist and a car. The action kicked in with the following issue, however: really fascinating, but Nightcrawler looked TOO MUCH like a vampire, and I was scared to death by vampires (Morbius was yet to come for me) and so that pretty much put to an end my childhood career as a Spider-Man reader. When the Hobgoblin appeared the Marvel books were no longer published in Italy, and we had to wait for a few years to see them again in full swing (late eighties), so I did not know of the Hobgoblin except for some articles in italian fanzines in the late 1980s. Same happened with Cloak & Dagger. I still have to read a single Hobgoblin story (except for the Power Pack issue where he appeared), and I am waiting to find a VERY CHEAP copy of #238 (I have a #239).

But except Walking Dead, Rip, all these are Copper…

Hey Im impressed there's been one Dr Strange listed! When you are constrained to 5, it's tough. Doctor Strange #183, Sub-Mariner #22 and Incredible Hulk #126 form a single story, that is why I listed them together. To me they are among the most important "key" of the late Silver Age, as important as Marvel Feature #1 but they preceed Bronze.

(thumbs u Series ended at #12…

There is NO love for the Defenders and Dr. Strange…

Very cool idea, to list "one’s own Keys" rather than uniformly accept the "Keys" designation. I’ve tried to lay down quickly a list, but surely needs refinement… For the SA and following, mostly I am limited to Marvel. I have purposedly left Disney comics out, as I don’t consider them strictly in "comic book" form. Golden (1) Captain America Comics #1 (2) Great Comics #3 (3) National Comics #18 (4) Silver Streak Comics #6-7 (The Claw, Daredevil) (5) Air-Fighters Comics #2 (Airboy) Silver (1) Fantastic Four #1 (2) Fantastic Four #5 (3) Amazing Fantasy #15 (4) Tales to Astonish #27 (5) Avengers #4 Bronze (1) Marvel Feature #1 or Dr. Strange #183/Hulk #126/Sub-Mariner #22 (either one) (2) Amazing Adventures #11 (Beast goes furry) (3) Ghost Rider #1-2 (Son of Satan) (4) Amazing Spider-Man #101 or #121-122 (either one) (5) Giant Size X-men #1 Copper (1) New Mutants Annual #2 (not just for Psylocke) (2) Amazing Spider-Man #252 (2) Amazing Spider-Man #300 (3) Amazing Spider-Man #361 (5) Modern (1) Fantastic Four v2 #35 (Carlos Pacheco) (2) Next Men #21 (Hellboy) (3) (4) (5)

Do the Mexican books have comics features or written articles with illustrations?

This is one of my favorite stories (FF #136-137)… Miss Hulk is also awesome.

One of my favorites of the favorites!! Bombie the Zombie and early Uncle Scrooge. +1

On a side note, I preferred the pre-Miller's Bullseye, but as a non-DC reader I love the Hawkman (and now that I have seen the early stories thanks to tabcom’s Flash Comics Journal I am really intrigued… )

Why don’t we listen to Collin? Oh well, not when he offends Greggy, that’s clear!

Here’s a present for Jimmy as well:

I’m not defending slym here, because I don’t like these kinds of quarrels (and disappointed to hear about Tony’s dad) but I just wished to say that often slym’s behavior can be perceived as "trolling" even when he isn’t. He is precise, he likes to use language properly, and thus can be felt as annoying when discussions arise, but you know you are all good guys and I love you… (Well, most of you, as Roy once said! )

Yes, the book, and antiquary book terminology is almost always appropriate for comics as well. I have a specific example which works just fine: years ago I got into the writings of Robert Hugh Benson, which was an anglican priest which converted to catholicism and was also a novelist. His novels, published in the 1900s and 1910s, have a double simultaneous edition, exactly like the Marvel SA books: one British (UK) and one northamerican (US). They both weight as a "first edition", but in my collecting I favored the UK one for certain titles, and the US one for others, because the american editions were beautiful. This sits more or less in the same place as the debate "US vs. UK Pence copies". Generally speaking I consider the US books to be the original edition, because they are an original american product, which stemmed from your country’s culture (albeit speaking "universal values"), and thus I should have chosen the UK editions for the Benson books, as being the author british they are the "actual firsts". But in this case the situation is more shaded: besides having been published simultaneously, the author traveled at the time, did some conferences in the US as well, and wrote for catholic US publications, so the american editions would deserve the title of "firsts" as much as the UK ones. I also collected foreign language editions of this author, including the ultra rare italian ones (a pair still missing) and some danish, german, etc. (I am missing spanish language ones). The reason for which I got interested in the foreigns (besides the italian ones) was because of the universal interest his work raised, and the universal breathe of his writings, in a way very similar to the one which prompts me to look for foreign edition of certain comics, for their inherent qualities. Ironically enough, I would never collect foreign Punishers, as I have always found the character very "local" and tied to a certain public perception of the crime and violence rate arising in the US in the 1980s and 1990s.

Do you have an example? Not from my collection. I’ll send you a PM.

Now you need an italian one, Ches! (thumbs u They just printed #1-13, but they are damn hard to find, and usually command at least a whopping $90 (or more) each.

So you agree with me Claudio that the traditional American category/classification idea concerning foreigns in that some would call lets say a Italian 300 a foreign reprint is misleading or even wrong? And, that a different classification is needed or should evolve? ie: foreign edition, or foreign, or something else? I agree that "reprint" is not an enough explanatory term. "Reprint" generally means reprinted more or less in the same form as the original, so at least in the original language, possibly unedited ("anastatic reprint" is a reprint which tries to replicate as much faithfully possible the original). The various language foreign editions are "reprints", but the term which describes them adequately is, as I have always stated, "foreign editions". If you consider what "edition" etimologically means you’ll see that it’s the correct term to use. The Philippines books are a different matter: I see them as a similar phenomenon to when a US producer reprints a US comic book with some variation (for example as a giveaway, or to include it in a toy package). They are reprints, as they are in english, but they are altered reprints, so that is why I feel here the term "variant", although vague, can make more sense. I would call them "variant reprints for the Philippines". The UK and Canadians can be considered "variants", as they are almost equal editions for foreign markets, in the same language and form – when they came out simultaneously of course, not reprints done in a later date.

@rjrjr: I agree with you "foreign edition" is a better term for the UK and Canadian, but these are de facto "price variants", as they are in each and every aspect the same of US editions (not interested if they were printed simultaneously or at a slight later date), and thus the term "variants" is acceptable. With the Philippines books, they are clearly foreign edtions, but in English, so they are more close to the original, as they have not been edited in terms of dialogues, not translated, and I would call them "foreign reprints". All the others (translated and adapted) are foreign editions, IMO.

I entirely agree here. Tim knows his stuff, and in this case, I am inclined to call them "variants" as well, because they are later date reprints (no matter if random) in English language in the exact form of the original edition. So, as far as collecting goes, they are similar to a UK Pence copy or a Canadian Price variant, with the additional difference they have a later print date, and new cover ads. They are very fascinating.

I’d like to comment on the #300: I always loved the original cover, so maybe my opinion is biased, but I substantially agree with what Matt wrote, except: – the logo should have been White, maybe with a blue shadow, but white. This is reversed, and treats the shadow like it’s lighter than the logo.; – the corner box Spidey is very likely a backwards thing: Marvel started to use the corner box with the McFarlane Spidey in Red & Blue outfit after Spidey restarted using it. The original #300 still uses the old Ron Frenz one with the Black costume, and I consider it more fitting. – the word "Venom" should have been smaller indeed. And it’s hand drawn, not a typeface. The logo, inversely, uses a stiff typeface, but later on they’d have recovered with a hand-drawn logo catching up again with the original, which I think that as with many SA Marvel logos was drawn by Sol Brodsky (not sure about that, 'though). Not at all. Each term as a meaning, no matter how the context may alter it to some degree. You cannot simply manipulate a word and make it do whatever you want. This idea pervades today’s mindframe, and I consider it pretty aberrating.

So they supposedly reprinted random issues or is that Sub-Mariner implying they reprinted all the series? Is there an issue number in the insides?