MyNameIsLegion

again- Signatures are not the same as autographs. For most comics in the last 40-50 years there's little question who the artist is- so having it "signed" like a Picasso is unnecessary. There's no question as to whether that individual is the artist. There's actually more question of whether or not the signature is real. Or, and this does affect our little corner of the hobby quite a bit. The infamous John Romita signature. The D Bros have peddled more art with his signature for things he isn't credited for than anyone, and if Romita so much as farted in the same zip-code as that piece of art, it's given a significant price bump soley for the signature when there is very little evidence or documentation that Romita ever touched THAT PARTICULAR PAGE at all. Unless a learned artist opines that something look like it was Romita's hand, (and more often than not, you need an inker's opinion) theres' really no way to say for sure. But boy howdy if Romita signed it, $$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

there's a difference between a signature and an autograph....

I've thought it over for bit, and trying to decide from the official list what the single most important book on this list was. I argued against TMNT #1. But after going through the list, I settled on one that I don't think at first would have been my expected choice: Sandman #1. It kicked off Gaiman's career, Vertigo, a multitude of characters, some of the most acclaimed comics ever written, and literary recognition outside of comics with the World Fantasy Award. Endless (see what I did there?) reprints in HC, SC, Absolute, etc. It affected the comics industry, and DC in particular in more significant ways that many other books, even Watchmen.

Alex Raymond Al Williamson Neal Adams Alex Ross

this is Burkey's fault....him and his ubiquitous blue sharpie....

Good god

I would agree with you, but then both of us would be wrong.

well, what I mean is- chronologically, one era informs the others, and while there is overlap, broadly the illustrators of the early 20th century inspired Raymond and Foster, which is very different than the more cartoony aspect of the rise of comic strips, which in turn morph into the comics medium, and evolve into the graphic novel format. Chris Ware doesn't have a career without those stages of evolution of the medium. which is why this list is (stupid CGC censoring this list is poop) . without Eisner there is no Ware.

this list is utterly devoid of context. I don't think any list will suffice without context. At a minimum it should be broken down by era. having a list that contains both the artist and the students inspired by them is just weird. And if you include more contemporary guys that were inspired by the guys that were inspired by the older guys it's hopelessly jumbled. You need to differentiate Illustrators from Cartoonists from Comic artists. There's over-lap and some cross-over, but mostly they stay in their lane, even if they inspired someone in a different lane. Raymond to Williamson for example. And any list that excludes Raymond and Foster is utterly without merit and deserves the harshest of criticism for the oversight. This is a complete circle-jerk of a list.

Speaking of Roger Dean and BWS- I remember SDCC about 1998, running into Roger Dean, and he had 2 of the BWS Conan covers in his portfolio with him. They were about issue 7-12 if I recall. He was looking to sell them at the time.

Boomers are retiring, time to exit now while the money's still good, because the BWS comic art market has peaked. I'd hate to have been sitting on his Astonishing Tales Ka-zar art, or even X-Men #53 thinking I was gonna buy that boat or time-share....

a coupe of things: 1. Black Suit/Venom/Carnage/McFarlane/image/90's comic crash: As these events unfold, and how they were perceived at the time, how they were perceived and recollected by fans and creators as they were unfolding, and what REALLY happened when looking back 25 years later in the fullness of time, and not subjective re-interpretation is a tricky thing to un-tangle. It's not dissimilar to the criticisms of Stan's recollection of the creation of the Marvel Universe, who was credited with what, and how conscious and deliberate those actions and intentions were at the time versus how they were consolidated and almost rewritten in the telling each time Stan was interviewed over the course of 40 years. Human's have a pesky habit of retconning their own past and recall and feelings about the past mostly unconsciously, and sometime deliberately when presenting them to others in the present. Citing data, sales, appearances, merchandizing, etc is a much better attempt at objectivity, that is still subject to interpretation, but we should ever at least try to establish some agreement on the basic facts and argue from there. It is from that perspective that I am most in agreement with RMA and FD and Smeagol, Geeks-Peeps and and CC. My take: Black Suit/Venom/Carnage/McFarlane/image/90's comic crash: all these factors inform how Venom came to be, came to be modestly popular, only later overly collectible, and later over-saturated. Secret Wars 8 started out as moderately collectible only for the change in costume, Venom as a distinct character only later in Amazing Spider-man, and that initially was more driven by McFarlane's appearance more than Venom's origin. All this makes for a somewhat convoluted determination of Venom's true "first" appearance. Not unlike Cable, and Uncanny #201 and maybe Gambit and the X-Men annual. My feeling is that Venom was the result, not the intent of the writers to resolve the Alien Costume story, and they did what is exceedingly rare these days: created a somewhat new character for the purpose of telling a story, and it just happened to catch on with fans, and later, much later, and even decades later exceed all expectations and become a break-out character. With that they have retconned all sorts of aspects of the Venom character, made him a cardboard villain, an anti-hero, a hero, a virus, and well I really don't WTF he's supposed to be but he's sure stuck around. If McFarlane hadn't lent a hand with the visuals, maybe he never would have caught on, who knows, but venom outlived his stumbling origins as a character. That's what some characters do, despite the best, and worst intentions of the writers and artists and editors that steer them along the way. Contrast that with say, Cable and Gambit. Both had some initial gravity, cool visuals, mysterious origins, lots of attitude, lots of appearances, toys, some cartoons, BUT, they kinda petered out. Venom and Deadpool have both far exceed them, for having all been created around the same time. They peaked early, Deadpool and Venom peaked 20 years after the fact. I would posit that fans started to get Mutant cross-over fatigue in the late 90's and early 2000's and once Marvel kick-started the MCU and were acquired by Disney, they deliberately started sandbagging the Mutant books since Fox had the movie rights. Now that Disney has the Mutants back, who knows where the emphasis will be now on the comics side. The Avengers have been the top tier of the comics and movies- as the 1st iteration of the Avengers team in the MCU cycle through due to age and contracts, will they introduce new "Avengers" or pivot to one of the other properties like FF or Mutants? Will the comic side dust off some of the characters that have lain fallow? TMNT: this is where I do part ways with RMA: I would not consider TMNT the most important Copper age book. It's important only for the fact that it was licensed out for toys, cartoons and movies, Most people have no idea it was ever a comic to start with, they didn't grow up reading it, drawing it on their school folders, no, they watched the cartoon after school and got the toys for xmas. That's exactly how it played out for my 40 year old brother, and he collected comics, but never owned a single TMNT comic. His kids went through their Turtles phase, and it was 100% media and merchandizing driven. People outside the hobby know who Stan and Jack are. Eastman? Didn't he have something to do with Kodak? By that logic shouldn't Aircel's MIB one of the most important comics of the Copper age? Not in my estimation, but it made a gazillion dollar movie franchise. I'm not sure what the single most important book of the Copper age is: single most important book in the Copper age TODAY? or what was the single post important book during the copper age? Those are 2 different questions to me. I'll have to think about that.

NM 93 was really the first time anyone took notice- because: Wolverine. I hadn’t bought a NM issue off the stands since the Bill S. Issues. Then the X-tinction Agenda Mutant Crossover and some gawdawful Jon Bogdanove art in X-Factor mixed in with Jim Lee on X-men which makes for a really jarring viewing experience, especially if reading a trade.

It’s interesting to look back 25 years at that era of the hobby when you were a young adult at the time. Some things make sense and others seem just ridiculous in hindsight. The Image artists pretty much staged a rebellion on the premise that their talent was driving sales more than the characters or stories they were working on. It seemed true at first, but in the end it wasn’t really the case. Most of the new characters created by Image fell flat. Spawn, Savage Dragon, the Maxx were a modest exception but the rest were forgettable clones of the big 2 properties that made them famous. The Big 2 survived with the B talent, just barely and all we learned was that if the best talent is paired with the best characters it’s a win for the consumer. Otherwise everyone loses.

I know this list excludes variants, but it has some reprint editions - aren’t re-prints just really a kind of variant edition when you really think about it?

can we argue about something else for awhile? This was white hot when it came out:

they really missed an opportunity here: there should have been a follow up of Wolverine, Punisher, Ghost Rider: The Dark Heart Strikes back Punisher, Wolverine Ghost Rider: Through a Heart Darkly Ghost Rider, Punisher, Wolverine: Dark Heart Afternoon Wolverine, Ghost Rider, Punisher: Return of the Dark Heart Punisher, Ghost Rider, Wolverine: Fellowship of the Dark Hearts.... and then the Deluxe, gold foil Scratch and Sniff: Wolverine, Punisher, Ghost Rider: The Horror, The Horror, The Horror But seriously, it was out of control- Venom was NOT a thing. not yet, there simply wasn't any room- any evidence to the contrary can be explained by either the Pre-image comic artist rock star driven sales (i.e. Mcfarlane) followed by Marvel's attempt to saturate the market at the beginning of Image by pumping out more titles and gimmicks to fill up the shelves and new stands. Look at Marvel's output by month in 1991-1993. It was insane. 2 Barbie titles and other licensed properties as well, anything to fill up the shelf. Slapping Wolvie, Punisher or Ghost Rider on the cover meant a 20-30% bump in orders. Everyone was selling comics, everyone was starting to offer competing retail discounts to support the large orders, and people were scooping up multiple copies. I was buying multiple copies of multiple titles every week at 20-30% off cover. Eventually everyone sobered up and stopped and we spent 10 years with everyone and their mother trying to unload long boxes of (mostly) junk that was speculated on for $25-50 a long box. Now here we are.

In 1991-1992, Venom was no where near the top of the heap when it came to oversaturated characters- it was all Punisher, Wolverine, and Ghost Rider. When the 1st Carnage issues cane out they were immediately flippable, but a fraction of the 2 things everyone had to get their paws on: Death of Superman and Shadowhawk #1. I got $25 and $70 for each in store credit immediately. Ridiculous- I bought silver and Bronze Age instead.

The NM Graphics Novel was a typo from a list I copied and pasted from- so in my head I thought the X-Men MGN was on the list, but NM wasn't - I never really keep those straight in my head, and shame on me since i even own a page of MGN #5 (X-Men) so I have no excuse! X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills pg.57 (Marvel GN #5,1982) that 1982-1992 definition is kinda squishy, but eh ok. Avengers annual 10 was late 1981, but you're right. I think Wolverine v2 #1 is legit, it's not a first appearance, but neither is the LS #1. Neither is Punisher LS #1. X-Men Teen TItans- Dammit it just should be! But I will not back down on Evil Ernie, or any Image or Valiant book- I don't give a damn what year they came out. They are quintessentially 90's books. They are literally the DEATH of the copper age, and the Harbinger (see what I did there ) of the near death of comics period after the mid-90's crash.

I'm sorry, but I take issue with about 1/4 of this list. I guess I don't follow what defines these as "keys" That they are most oft books to be bought raw, slabbed, cracked, pressed, re-slabbed, bought, then flipped? just call it that then... what should be on the list: Avengers Annual #10 X-Men/Teen Titans The New Mutants Marvel Graphic Novel #5 Wolverine v2 #1 New Mutants Annual #2 (1986) Omega Men #3 (1983) Thor #411 what' doesn't belong: Evil Ernie Harbinger Uncanny X-Men #221

UHowdy, Been a quiet art year so far- until I added a Neal Adams Batman page (B&B#83, 1969), Perez New Teen Titan's (NTT 1983 annual) Starfire vs Cheshire, 1st appearance), Clyde Caldwell Savage Hearts portfolio pin-up (1993) and a cool Shadow page by Barreto! (1989) CAF LINK, CAF LINK, CAF LINK

I wish I had an Egg MacGuffin....

You’re basically asking for a synopsis of the movie in order to explain all this! Go see it 😉

A couple of discussion points about CM that probably will be explored in a sequel: 1. The Kree Blood transfusion. What effect did that have? Isn’t that what brought Coulson back to life in Agents of SHIELD? I’m curious what the implications of that are. 2. Top Gun: now this does play into the Green Lantern comparison- but the aspect of the Pilot mentality shouldn’t be overlooked. That was something my wife pointed out, having worked at a flight school that they made an effort to be accurate- pilots have a certain personality and that drives their character. Then of course there’s the obvious Goose reference (well, obvious enough to those of us that have seen the movie, unless you don’t care for the Action movies with Pilots sub genre ) CM and Rambeau are attempting to break that Glass Ceiling a few years before the DoD cleared female pilots in a combat theater. Pilots are generally a little cocky, but reserved and cool under pressure, but this was contrary to Carol’s anger and frustration in attempting to succeed in a “man’s world” which is perhaps similar to Maverick’s character arc in Top Gun.

....and that is about as sophomoric a response as could be expected. Bravo, you get a trophy 🏆. You can look forward to a rough time in your late 30s and 40s realizing just how little you really did know in your 20s. Unfortunately it happens to everyone to some degree. I wish you well.