First Comics 0

[Electricmastro]

An appreciation thread for First Comics, which started off with Warp in 1983 and originally went defunct in 1991, their longest-running series having been Grimjack, Nexus, and The Badger.

Their comics include:

Grimjack (1984)

Nexus (1985)

The Badger (1985)

Jon Sable, Freelance (1983)

American Flagg! (1983)

Lone Wolf and Cub (1987)

Dreadstar (1986)

Whisper (1986)

Starslayer (1983)

Classics Illustrated (1990)

Sable (1988)

E-Man (1983)

Nexus Legends (1989)

Warp (1983)

Dynamo Joe (1986)

Shatter (1985)

The Chronicles of Corum (1987)

Evangeline (1987)

Howard Chaykin's American Flagg (1988)

Mars (1984)

Mike Grell's Sable (1990)

Psychoblast (1987)

Elric: Sailor on the Seas of Fate (1985)

The Original E-Man and Michael Mauser (1985)

Elric: The Bane of the Black Sword (1988)

Elric: The Vanishing Tower (1987)

Team Yankee (1989)

Crossroads (1988)

Elric: The Weird of the White Wolf (1986)

First Adventures (1985)

Grimjack Casefiles (1990)

Edited June 16, 2020 by Electricmastro

[APDallas]

I love DYNAMO JOE!

[Sargon]

Jon Sable was a great action series. Mike Grell did a fantastic job with it. There are parts which don't hold up as well 30+ years later but it's interesting to note the gay dancer in it who is a bit stereotypical but well written for the 1980s. Plus there was Maggie the Cat!

[Brock]

I was a big First fan, collecting American Flagg, Dreadstar, Lone Wolf and Cub, and Mars.

I haven’t read any of them in years, though... do any of the titles still hold up?

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

add Munden's Bar (1988)

I need to see if the Sable television series is available to stream. I loved it at the time. Not sure if it holds up. I remember thinking the theme was awesome.

[mec3437]

First Comics would have fallen just outside of when I started reading comics (1990) as a kid.  I was 7 and I wasn't riding my bike to the comic shop so my knowledge then was only of Spider-Man, Batman and Daredevil.  I wouldn't have appreciated them as a kid growing up at that time due to the themes and layers going on.  However, I did read both volumes of American Flagg and Time Beavers this year, as well as currently working my way through Jon Sable.  I also ordered a set of Team Yankee.  Super late to the party on all this but I've found most of what I've read from First Comics to be enjoyable.  

American Flagg has its quirks but I found it to hold up thematically since it came out.  The hypersexualization of the media, the political themes of freedom vs security vs authoritarianism, and the excess commercialism of society still ring true.  The initial dozen issues are very good.  It gets a little thin at times but it was a solid 62 issues (vol 1 and 2).  

I'm about 40 issues into Jon Sable and I have to say that it pulled me in after issue 2 or 3.  I found the first issue kind of generic but then worked my way through the origin story and I have to say that I'm impressed with it. The stories are fairly concise with most issues being contained within 1-3 issues.  It can feel dated at times due to the parallels that Grell draws from the real world but there are some themes that still hold up and are relevant.  Grell's exploration into Sable's trauma is fairly well done.  As someone who has dealt with my own PTSD, it seems refreshing to see this looked at in a serious way in the 1980s.  

As for Time Beavers, I just remember seeing an ad for it while reading through American Flagg, so I bought a copy on ebay and found that I enjoyed it.  I don't know much on the history of First Comics, but it appears the company is back in some capacity.  Going to the comic shops, I don't see a lot of the old titles in the stores.  Dreadstar may be the only title I've seen in the regular back issue boxes, and I don't see any of the titles in the cheap bins.  

[Sal]

Huge fan.  Dropped the title after Vosburg picked up the art duties although he did a good job with it

[shadroch]

Nexus and Badger were initially published by Capital before they were first picked up, and Dreadstar was part of Marvel's Epic line.  They had a good core but expanded too quickly and got stuck when several distributors closed down, owing them several hundred thousand dollars. 

My favorites were Dreadstar and Nexus, but I appreciated the line of Oz graphic novels by Eric Shownower that they published. They were unique ,at the time.