Brian48

Something must of have been off at DC. The letters page in 222 references issue 219. Issue 217 is referenced in 221.

By the way, you are correct about the practice of aping Adams's style. It was Giordano who did this and actually encouraged other artists to do the same. Forgot which issue it was, but in the Detective Comics story that introduced Leslie Thompson, Giordano practically mimic'd Adams. Everything he inked had that Adams feel to it too.

Let's put it this way, Irv Novick is no Mike Kaluta. I can't remember which issue I was reading last night, but I could've sworn it was Adams art: Batman's particular gesture and the familiar swoosh of the cape were dead-on. I flipped back to the title page and sure enough it was your homey Irv. I can't for the life of me remember which book 'cause I seriously thought to take a picture of that one panel and post it (after you beat him down so ruthlessly in the "artist you don't like but have a bunch of issues of" thread), but it seems like it would've been mid-70's. Did Novick perhaps try to cop a bit of that Adams style in the wake of the Neal-volution? Again, I feel Irv was a solid artist, but this particular panel was real Neal. You misunderstood my answer in the other thread. I was giving a direct answer to that poster's particular question. Of all my books, Irv is my least favorite artist when it comes to volume of presence in my collection. I primarily collect BA Bat books so his work shows up a lot. I really couldn't have answered Frank Robbins, whose work is just horrible to me, but is only in a handful of books. You will note I also applauded Novick as being a real workhorse for DC. He is serviceable, but I would definitely put him below either Adams or Aparo. I would lump Jim Mooney in the same category as well, but his volume of work is not as great as Novick's.

Let's put it this way, Irv Novick is no Mike Kaluta.

I thought it was a bit on the m eh side. The second meeting a few issues later wasn't all that much better either. Too much like the Phantom Stranger to me.

From the '90s? No. As far as I know, they're still printing them considering how many unopened boxes keep showing up for sale as cut prices.

I think Tec 405 getting about the right amount of attention. It's a key, but certainly not because of the cover. Some might even argue it's a minor key. I'd rank it far below those related books that drive the popularity to begin with. Let's face it, if you had to pursue the Al Ghul keys of the era, you'd want Bats 232 first (if not Tec 411) and Tec 405 would be the last one to get just to complete the trinity of Bats 232 > Tec 411 > 405. It would make the top 10 certainly, but never the top 5 in my opinion. When was the last time anyone got excited by the first appearance of an organization versus that of a real character?

The Haney/Adams BBs don't hold up as well on the whole, but then again I suppose that's understandable since they were written for a slightly less mature audience of that era. The only exception to this is the award winning #79, which is actually not a bad story even by today's standards. I view this issue as a key personnally and one of my favorites. Art wise, BB #93 is Adam's best of the run. Doing both the pencils/inks, you can see how much more mature he'd gotten since BB #79. In an interview, Adams said he insisted that Batman followed two simple rules when he took over the penciling/inking job on this title. They were 1) Batman only appear at the night and 2) only come/go through a window instead of door. I re-flipped through these books after I heard that and indeed it does make difference in furthering Bats away from the campiness of the time. In that same interview, it's what eventually got Adams the gig to work on the other Bat titles when the fans starting writing in.

Yeah. Tec 397 is another book that was discreetly ahead of it's time. Most of the comics of the era didn't deal with what was essentially a demented stalker who had a sick (obviously sexual) attraction to a celebrity and lived in an equally sick fantasy world (I can imagine Garth Ennis's take on this story if he wrote it today). Might not have made it passed the code if it was any more obvious. Great color scheme on the cover too. Besides a decent raw one (about 7.5), I have this slabbed 8.5 that I picked up a while ago as a place holder. As it turned out, the book is so nice in hand compared to the scan, I've decided to keep it. It's also really hard to find books from this era with such good page quality. Bats 243 brings up some special memories for me. My parents bought a copy of this book for me when I was in the 1st grade or so. Being Asian, it was quite a good experience for me to see an Asian character in a comic book that wasn't a bad guy. Seeing this character fighting side by side with Bats and handled in such a respectful way was something I had never seen before. You gotta understand this was still a couple of years before Bruce Lee took the world by storm. Also, Talia never looked hotter. A very tough book to find in high grade due the black cover. At least I haven't seen too many. I've got a nice raw 8.0-8.5 as well as this slabbed 9.0.

Bats 255 is one of my all time favorite issues of the O'Neil/Adams run. Holds up even today in my opinion. Really odd that it was never reprinted until the Adams Collected trades.

Beautiful collection. The DC ones are even tougher to find in high grade from what I can tell.

Not sure if these were mentioned before. Detective Comics #359 (1st Batgirl) All Star Comics #58 (1st Powergirl) Werewolf by Night #32 (1st Moon Knight) New Gods #1 (1st Orion, Lightray, Kalibak, etc..) Also, just noticed you were accepting villians as well. Batman 232 (1st Ras Al Ghul) Detective Comics #411 (1st Talia Al Ghul) Detective Comics #400 (1st Man-bat) Jimmy Olsen #134 (1st Darkseid)

Like Dark Knight Strikes Again, I didn't like ASBAR when I first read it. It was easy to accept a dark and humorless Batman, but not a despicable one. Oddly, like DKSA, I found I liked ASBAR more with later re-readings. Miller said all 3 books (DKR, DKSA, and ASBAR) were all in the same continuity so that made it a little bit more interesting.

What about the magazine sized comics? Marvel Preview #4 (1st Star-Lord) Marvel Preview #7 (1st Rocky Raccoon) Savage Tales #1 (1st Man-Thing) Vampirella #1 (What a babe!) Cerebus #1 (Reminds me too much of uncle.)

No Sword and Sorcery love? I like Conan #1, Conan #23, and Creatures on the Loose #10. I suppose you can add Chamber of Darkness #4 if you're an extreme Conan fan.

Yes. Kull was second fiddle to Conan, but at this price, I couldn't help but pad my R.E. Howard collection even a bit more.

A rare LCS trip today. I already multiple copies of Kull #1 and Creatures on the Loose #10 so I figured what the heck.

Heh. Just got back from the LCS just now. Found this one in the $1 bin. Didn't even have a bag. Figured I play the game and asked the clerk "Hey, isn't this a key?". Basically the response I got back was "Nah, only if a customer was trying to sell to him" .

Great stuff. Adams' tenure on both X-Men and Avengers produced some of his best work ever. A lot of credit also goes to Tom Palmer, who seems a bit forgotten these days. I actually think he complemented Adams' pencils better than D-ck Giordano.

That's probably because it's the same continuity. I actually liked this title when I was in the second grade.

I can say that the 3 volume set is all digitally colored. Maybe not as consistently, but definitely digitally colored. Can't imagine why they wouldn't do the same for the omnibus since they already had the color plates from the first 3 volumes. I'd skim through the vol 1-3 TPB and see how much it bothers you. If it's not too bad to your eyes, the omnibus is really the way to go. Another thing that bothers me a bit is that Adams did a George Lucas and redrew a few panels here and there to correct what he thought were mistakes or renderings that didn't turn out the way he wanted originally. The only problem is that these look a little obvious and sort of sticks out when you see it. I have all the original issues so it was easy for me to catch these. The best reprinting of these stories in the original four color palette are the treasury editions. C25 is my favorite, but C51 and C59 are the best. C59 also reprints Wrightson's fantastic Swamp Thing 7 and Adams' HOS 93, one of the few books where Adams did both the pencils and inks. On top of that, Tec 410 and Bat 227 are included as well.

No. You need C25, C44, C51, and C59.

Tec 439.

Bronze Age Batman related books with Neal Adams covers still command a lot interest despite someone else doing the interior art. I think the really popular artists will also remain popular. May be difficult to say who, but after a few decades, I think it'll become very apparent.

Beautiful book. The wrap is not 100% even, but it's still much, much better than 95% of all the copies I've seen out there. Congrats.