jools&jim

GA/SA/BA...High Grade, Low Grade, Keys, Cr@p...who cares? These days damn near everything is almost instantly available to everyone in the know who has the dough and an iPhone. What I really want to know is the ONLY thing that might have got me out of my basement this year, but didn't: did anyone interact with Frank Miller, and, if so, does he still look like he's on death's door?

So...it was originally $6000?

One of the biggest differences between comic book covers of the '40s - '70s and modern covers is the general lack of bold, eye-catching, primary colors on the newer stuff...

On the plus side, the new stories appear to be one-off, stand-alone adventures, which should be applauded...

Agreed. Unfortunately, it is my sad duty to report that I found these copies in a small DC point-of-sale cardboard bin at the far end of the trading card aisle at the front of the store, on the top shelf about 2-3 feet taller than the average kid, roughly 10 feet or so from the nearest checkout lane, and about half-a-mile away from the toys and video games at the back of the store, which is where, y'know, you might reasonably expect to find actual...kids. So...great idea...poorly executed, at least in my local WM...

I remember hearing about these several months ago, but haven't been near a Wal-Mart until earlier this afternoon, so it looks like I missed the first two issues of each. They're pretty cool -- mostly modern reprints, but there is new material in all of them, including a really nice-looking new Superman story by Tom King and Andy Kubert in the Supes Giant. The trade dress is colorful and dynamic, and the matte interior paper stock is instantly likeable. Not bad at all for 5 bucks each, and NOT available at your LCS as far as I know. So, here they are...

The Indiana Jones movies were inspired by all sorts of cool old things: classic movie serials of the '30s and '40s, pulp fiction, Carl Barks's Uncle Scrooge stories, H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain, etc., etc. If Spielberg "borrowed" anything from this particular comic book, it was probably just the title for the 2nd film...

Spielberg would have been 10 or so when that was published, and is a well-known fan of the series. Very cool...

There are peaks and valleys, of course, but as far as I can tell the "movie key" speculation phenomenon is still going strong. The trick, as always, is having the right (heretofore relatively worthless) SA, BA, or CA book at the right time, and cashing it out to the right buyer...

Let's not forget "Theakstonizing" or "Theakstonization"...basically destroying old comics by taking them apart and bleaching the color out of the pages in an attempt to approximate the original line art, which can then be manipulated, re-colored, and reprinted...

Here's another character inspired by Ann Margret who actually WAS Ann Margret...

Weren't some of these reprinted (and colored) later in the '70s by Marvel as part of their "Marvel Classic Comics" line?

The title of the poll should be something closer to "What is your minimum acceptable standard for the first appearance of a character in comic books". In that case, I vote for:

How does one measure such an exact percentage of shed body fat? I guess I need to get out of the house more often. Here's another question: is there such a thing as a fully-Westernized comic book store in China, with new American comics/back issues/trades/tchotchkes/etc.?

I wish! No, very sorry...nicked it from here: http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1085834 Bad form, maybe...but I hope the owner won't mind, given that it's in sincere and heartfelt tribute to a fallen great...

Sadly, I fear it's more like they did what they had to do to get paid and survive. Remember that Wally Wood (an all-time great if there ever was one) once said that if he had to do it all over again, he'd cut off his hands! It's VERY important to understand (or to be reminded) that comic book artists--even the best of the best--haven't always been venerated the way they are today, and that for many of the old timers, any accolades or (better) financial rewards were late in coming (at best), if at all...

And, let's not forget (as if we could!), that war comics were only part of his vast and genre-spanning portfolio...

Oh my. The fact of the matter is that the man was simply incapable of drawing anything badly. A true Olympian. And with this story (and these two pages, below, among many, many others), he was also the artist, who, for a glorious period of time in the 1970s, presided over the aesthetic apotheosis of DC war comics. So much has been lost; so much has been forgotten. There will never be another. Ave atque vale...

There is nothing logical, sensible, or scientific about paying a premium (= more than the original cover price) for antiquated, deteriorating children's pamphlets from 40-80+ years ago which ~ 99.9% of the people on this planet do not, and will not ever, need, want, or give a damn about. But we still do it anyway, for a variety of silly reasons, many of them gloriously irrational. So what? It's fun.

My kid, who leaves for her first year of college in a few weeks, was a huge Archie fan growing up, and was more-or-less in the target demographic when the show debuted. She watched a few episodes...and that was it. None of her many pop-culture obsessed friends cared for it, either...

Note sure if I've told this story before, but what the hell. One afternoon a few summers ago, a friend of mine who owns his own business and works from a shop in his house noticed that his kid and a bunch of his goofy middle-school buddies were all lounging around in the basement, staring at their phones or at the ceiling, doing nothing at all, and basically wasting that most precious of all commodities: free time. So my friend, paying no attention to them whatsoever, started to putter around on the other side of basement from them...digging boxes out of a closet, clearing out some space near the back wall, rummaging around and pulling stuff out of a large storage tub, etc. Slowly, very slowly, the boys (who, frankly, are all pretty slow at that age when it comes to "situational awareness"!) began to wonder what the hell the old man was up to. "Nothing," my friend said. "Just digging out some old toys of mine that I'm planning to sell at the church flea market this weekend". The "old toys" were vintage Hot Wheels cars, sets, and track from the '70s...yards and yards and yards of track w/connectors, loops, jumps...the works. Within the hour, my friend was back in his workshop, and, a few hours later, the boys had transformed the basement into one of the largest Hot Wheels layouts in family room history -- a web of tracks and accessories that started at the top of the steps leading to the kitchen, and spread out like the tentacles of some ginormous orange octopus when it hit the basement floor...running over stacks of books, under the couch, across the coffee table and even through the sliding door and out onto the patio. Kids don't really change. Sometimes, they just need to be shown the way...

The difference between this modern, homogeneous post-animé rubbish and Kirby and Ditko's work is that Kirby and Ditko were, among many other things, highly individual stylists...idiosyncratic visionaries who had something to say artistically. Most contemporary mainstream hero stuff looks the same to me, and is boring as hell -- I can't tell one artist from another. It's almost as if the publishers are afraid of giving a book to someone who might have a unique point of view. It may be "modern" and pass muster with the teenie-bopper crowd, but that sure as hell doesn't make it any good. And so we get what we get...insipidity disguised as "the latest thing". But I guess people are buying this cr@p, so who cares what I think...

Right down the tubes...?

Okay, so it's not a comic book, and not a flea market find, but I got this as a gift from a friend today while we were out and about digging for old comics and toys. Easily one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...MEGO JIMI HENDRIX!!! (Full-size and very real Marshall amp not included...)