IF THIS IS THE COPPER AGE??

[Illiterati-migration]

Friggin' awesome, Mat!

[matewan1990]

I should be getting some nice DC 1980s covers this weekend. I traded off my first appearance of Spider-Woman splash page from Marvel Spotlight 32 and my Super Friends 11 cover for two really sweet 1980s covers ... when I have them in hand, I'll post scans. One is a Crisis crossover cover ...

I've had some really nice covers in my possession, including the George Perez Crisis On Infinite Earths 6 cover art, a Steve Ditko Charlton cover, a Gil Kane Ghost Rider cover, the Jim Starlin cover art to Miracleman 4 and many, many others ... but, I keep trading them until I find a cover I really want, one that has some kind of nostalgic meaning to me.

Son of Ambush Bug was the first series I searched for as a child. Sure, there were others I read regularly, but newsstand distribution here in West Virginia was spotty at that time (it still is today, but we don't have that many places that sell comics from a magazine rack and there are no spinner racks left here), so I had to make sure I went to my local bookstore around the same time each month to find Son of Ambush Bug.

When issue 6 came out, I was walking down the streets of Gatlinburg, Tenn., and I went into my favorite drug store (we own a couple of homes near Gatlinburg and I've vacationed there since 1976, so I knew where all the spots were that sold comics) that had comics I couldn't get at home. I found a copy of Son of Ambush Bug 6 and I turned to the letters page to see if a letter I'd written had made it in and found my small missive on the last page of the comic. It read something like this: "More! More! More! Make Ambush Bug monthly! 'Nuff Said.' Mike Browning, somewhere down between the hills of ol' West Virginia." It was one of the defining moments in my life. I'd been published.

I continued to write letters to DC and Marvel Comics from that point on, because now I knew that comics editors were really reading them.

Now, I'm published every single day as a newspaper editor and have had letters published in comics from DC and Marvel. I've written articles for Comics Buyer's Guide, Charlton Spotlight and Comic Book Marketplace and have had photographs published in Rolling Stone, American Cheerleader and Hootersports Magazine. And, in September, 2004, my wife and I were drawn by artist/writer Dan Parent into Veronica 155 from Archie Comics.

So, needless to say, Son of Ambush Bug changed my life.

Sort of.

[matewan1990]

Here's the Son of Ambush Bug 3 cover I just received yesterday from Will Gabri-El. This is a great Keith Giffen/Bob Oksner cover from 1986.

 

Nice, Mike!

 

Awesome cover swipe!!!!

 

Giffen is the king of swipes. His art in the 1980s was so much like artist Jose Munoz that Giffen drew the ire of Comics Journal writer Mark Burbey and he did research and showed a lot of Giffen's swipes. Giffen originally drew like Jack Kirby before developing a stype all his own, then he tried it the Munoz way and after a while, started drawing in a darker, muddier style. I'm not too fond of Giffen's current work, but, isn't it that way with a lot of artists? I loved Starlin's 1970s and 1980s work, but his current stuff doesn't impress me. Jack Kirby's art got worse over the years.

I guess we all change as we get older and there's no way to change that. I still enjoy Giffen, Starlin and Kirby, but I look back on their older stuff and love it that much more.

[matewan1990]

Here's another copper age cover: Jack Kirby and Mike Royer cover art to Super Powers Vol. 1 No. 2. This is Kirby pencils AND Royer inks. Kirby generally did his pencils and his inkers inked the work from photocopies or lightboxing the art. That's why there are so many 1980s Kirby covers out there that are pencils only and so many of his inkers' finished art covers and interiors out there. Be careful when you buy a Kirby page or cover from the 1980s that it's not just the inker's work over a photocopy or lightboxed pencils and inks.

[blutobc]

Gatlinburg!!! .....resort capital of East Tennessee.

 

Do you ever go to that overpriced LCS in Pigeon Forge...can't think of the name.

[matewan1990]

Gatlinburg!!! .....resort capital of East Tennessee.

 

Do you ever go to that overpriced LCS in Pigeon Forge...can't think of the name.

 

I know this is completely off topic ... But, yes, before I discovered Knoxville's comic shops, I set up an account at that shop (I lived there for about six months until I got homesick and ran back to West Virginia) and bought comics from them.

When I first went to Tennessee, they had a lot of nice back issues and I bought a bunch of old fanzines from the owner, who claims he has nearly everything published from the late 1940s to today. But, when you ask him about back issues he might have from that time, he doesn't even know what you're talking about.

I made them angry at me and they don't like it when I come into their shop. I was buying Miracleman back issues everywhere in Tennessee for $2 and $3 each and the guy there had a couple of issues I needed to fill in holes in my collection. He wanted $6 each for them when they were on his wall, but after I called and asked him to hold them for me, they suddenly shot up to $20+ each. There were several other problems I had with the shop, including missing books, and eventually I moved back home. So, a week before I moved back, I wanted to close out my account with them. I made the 30-minute drive to the comic shop from my home and the girl who was working at the shop was locking the door and leaving something like two hours early.

I came back another day before I returned to West Virginia and there was a sign on the door that the shop was closed due to a death in the family. So, it was about a year before I got to go back in. I called several times and never got an answer. I eventually gave up and figured they'd know to drop my folder when I didn't show up for a few months.

Then, when I did go back to Tennessee, nearly a year later, I stopped by to say hello and was immediately greeted with scowls and mad faces and the wife of the owner said to me "You never did come back to get your books. We continued saving them for you until recently. Why didn't you call us or come by so we wouldn't keep getting your books in?" When I explained what had happened, she called me a liar and said the shop was never closed early and never closed for any period of time. So, I brought up the sign on the door about being closed due to a death in the family. She was very mean to me and now I go in there just to make them mad -- but I never buy anything. I was extremely nice to them and they burned me on several books, including a Miracleman Book 3 trade paperback that the owner told me he'd sell me cheap. Then, when I made the drive out, he told me he'd take $150 for it. I wanted it badly and agreed to pay that for it. He said $150 flat and his wife said "We have to charge tax on that." So, I ended up paying $162 for the book, plus a lot of hassle and the trip out there. I was burned out with the store after that. It was my fault for buying it, but I still felt like the owner and his wife took advantage of me.

But, they did have a lot of back issues, although they were extremely expensive.

[blutobc]

sorry to hear your story.

 

Yep, that LCS has always had bad customer service.

Also, they price their modern & copper as if they were mint bronze. Their bronze as if they were mint silver & their silver like......well they have little if any silver & gold but what they do have is usually in vg condition and priced like it was mint.

 

I mentioned copper just so this won't be totally off topic.

[matewan1990]

Here's my latest acquisition, the Eduardo Barretto DC Comics Presents 87 cover, a Crisis On Infinite Earths crossover featuring Superman and Superboy.

Thanks, Mike Burkey!

Mike Browning

[Aman619]

reading this thread makes wanna go move my 80s comics from bags to mylars!! exciting stuff. Th e80s comica days in the sun are right around the corner. A few years more baby!

[The Brain]

reading this thread makes wanna go move my 80s comics from bags to mylars!! exciting stuff. Th e80s comica days in the sun are right around the corner. A few years more baby!

 

 

 

 

 

"Twenty Pluse Years...........that would seem to be right." ...... ...........

[Bosco685]

Here's the Son of Ambush Bug 3 cover I just received yesterday from Will Gabri-El. This is a great Keith Giffen/Bob Oksner cover from 1986.

 

Nice, Mike!

 

Awesome cover swipe!!!!

 

Giffen is the king of swipes. His art in the 1980s was so much like artist Jose Munoz that Giffen drew the ire of Comics Journal writer Mark Burbey and he did research and showed a lot of Giffen's swipes. Giffen originally drew like Jack Kirby before developing a stype all his own, then he tried it the Munoz way and after a while, started drawing in a darker, muddier style. I'm not too fond of Giffen's current work, but, isn't it that way with a lot of artists? I loved Starlin's 1970s and 1980s work, but his current stuff doesn't impress me. Jack Kirby's art got worse over the years.

I guess we all change as we get older and there's no way to change that. I still enjoy Giffen, Starlin and Kirby, but I look back on their older stuff and love it that much more.