Beloved Comic Books--The Uncanny X-Men

[Edward]

I must mention this thread to Rufus, though he's mostly too busy these days drawing comic books to talk about 'em online...

I at one time much preferred Marvel, though in my experience (I suppose later on, into the 90s) DC was much darker. Never cared for Superman much - too fluffy, as some have said, no inner conflict.... the X Men were my favourites for that reason. Well, moreso Logan out on his own. Always preferred him that way than in the X uniform. About 1990, I think, I collected a Punisher series that was printed for the UK market. Good stuff - all bar the first issue, which I missed, are probably still in my parents' place. At one time when I was about 15, I had every Judge Dredd title available on the market on hold in our local newsagents. Still love Dredd. What really killed buying comics for me, though, is how damned expensive they got. 2000AD, last I looked, was a couple of quid a week for something I'd read in half an hour.... I prefer now to go with graphic novels. The Judge Dredd Casebook series is excellent, collating all Dredd from the very beginning missing out only the Burger Wars story uring the Cursed Earth epic, that due to legal reasons (McDonalds and Burger King both sued for TM infringement over a story based on an outlaw town dominated by rival gangs led by Donald McRonald [sic] and The Burger King). I'm also a big fan of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead series. These are set in a post-Zombie apocalypse world, the basic concept being 'what happens after the credits roll in a Romero film?'. The stories centre on the living individuals, how they relate to each other in such a changed world - the zombies are almost incidental in that sense; several times it is put that it is the survivors, shorn of their comfortable, consumerist existence, who are truly the walking dead.

Watchmen is, of course, fabulous - though I'm enough of a heretic to prefer the ending in the film, which replaces the squid with Dr Manhattan. Oh... and on the theme of Moore, The Killing joke is outstanding, truly the way I picture the Joker.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I just got the Neil Gaiman/Andy Kubert Marvel 1602 graphic novel out of the library. I highly recommend it to anybody with a fair knowledge of early sixties Marvel characters and an interest in Elizabethan era history.

I wasn't especially impressed with the artwork, but Gaiman's reimagining of the classic Marvel characters in this period is very interesting. (E.g., In this modified timeline, Elizabeth I's spymaster is not Sir Francis Walshingham, but Sir Nicholas Fury; and her court physician and astrologer is Sir Stephen Strange. And there's a group of mysterious adventurers, the only survivors of the wreck of the HMS Fantastick, referred to - of course! - as "Four from the Fantastick".)

Anyway, versions of nearly all of the significant early sixties Marvel characters appear in one guise or another (well, Iron Man and Ant-Man are conspicuously absent, unless I missed their cameos), and there are some very cool unpredictible turns to the story. Gaiman's writing is, of course, excellent.

Highly recommended for old-school Marvel fans with a taste for history!

 

[Mahagonny Bill]

A few weeks ago I picked up The Rocketeer: The Complete Deluxe Edition. The over-sized hardback really makes Dave's artwork jump out of the page at you. I highly recommend it for anyone who loves comics and the Golden Era.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

Dug up some PHANTOM comic strips from the mid-1980s last night that I had clipped from the paper as a kid. I looked for Phantom websites and found some really in-depth ones, The Phantom Classic Index in particular has a wealth of information. THE PHANTOM was a strip I enjoyed but never obsessed over; now's the time to obsess over it!

Also found three stories from the Russ Manning Star Wars strips from 1979-80. I read these as a child and ate up whatever I could find on Star Wars back then. One of the stories, "Bring Me the Children", ended before its resolution because my paper cancelled Star Wars and replaced it with a joke-a-day strip called Goosemeyer, which IIRC was a comic geared towards "office drones", much like Dilbert.

 

[Mahagonny Bill]

Also found three stories from the Russ Manning Star Wars strips from 1979-80. I read these as a child and ate up whatever I could find on Star Wars back then. One of the stories, "Bring Me the Children", ended before its resolution because my paper cancelled Star Wars and replaced it with a joke-a-day strip called Goosemeyer, which IIRC was a comic geared towards "office drones", much like Dilbert.

I loved those strips! Dark Horse republished them as a colored comic series in the '90s and as a TPB under the name "Classic Star Wars: The Early Adventures". The TBP is still widely available, so you can finally read the end of the story. It's also worth looking up the work Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson did on the newspaper strip after Manning left the series. Great stuff all around.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

It's also worth looking up the work Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson did on the newspaper strip after Manning left the series. Great stuff all around.

I love Al Williamson's art and Archie Goodwin (talk about a vintage name!) was one of my favorite writers. I have assorted clipped-out strips from their run on the strip, including one called "The Return of Ben Kenobi", which was an imposter surgically altered by the Empire to resemble Ben who was used to trap Luke. I've been looking online for it but may have to go the Dark Horse route you mentioned.

Incidentally, the newspaper my family subscribed to did not carry the Goodwin strip but the other major paper did, so I spent the Summer of 1983 riding my bike to the convenience store every day just so I could buy that other paper (The Miami Herald), read, and clip out the Star Wars comic! I still have 'em, too. lol

I do have one issue of that Classic Star Wars book but it's not one of Goodwin/Williamson's best. I also remember a $100.00 hardcover book that collected the entire Goodwin/Williamson run but this was around 1989 and I was an impoverished high school student then. I wonder what that book would go for now?

 

[HosManHatter]

I collected as a hobby(a serious hobby)for about 12 yrs.I was nostalgic for those great comics of the 60s/70s.Man!

Collecting to read the ongoing stories and adventures of our favorite characters should always be what it`s about,right?
Once I got exposed to Kirby,Ditko,Adams,Romita,Miller,Gil Kane,Carmine Infantino,Kelley Jones...my days were numbered. My passion was for the Silver and Bronze Age books.Most expensive comic I had was an FF#48 in F+. Oldest ASM was #29 NM- I`ve pretty much sold off my entire collection over this last year and a half to pay for medical bills.

At least they are making realistic and cool movie versions of most of the Marvel/D.C. franchises.

HMH
(read Kuirt Busiek`s ASTRO CITY series.You`ll DIG it!)

 

[Doctor Strange]

"Lost" King Kirby ideas!

Interesting NYT article on unproduced characters/concepts that Jack Kirby created for animation use back in the 80s that - given the amazing, ongoing success of so many characters/storylines he was involved with - are now being considered for production, in one form or other:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/movies/13kirby.html

Not surprisingly, many of the character designs are beautifully Kirbyesque. I'd love to see them do his female Indiana Jones-ish character, "Roxie's Raiders," maybe as old-school drawn animation...

 

[Nathan Dodge]

Interesting NYT article on unproduced characters/concepts that Jack Kirby created for animation use back in the 80s that - given the amazing, ongoing success of so many characters/storylines he was involved with - are now being considered for production, in one form or other:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/movies/13kirby.html

Not surprisingly, many of the character designs are beautifully Kirbyesque. I'd love to see them do his female Indiana Jones-ish character, "Roxie's Raiders," maybe as old-school drawn animation...

It's a rare treat indeed when someone besides me bumps a Nathan Dodge thread! lol

Speaking of Kirbyesque characters, I always thought that Rene Russo looked like she had been rendered by Jack Kirby...

 

[Nathan Dodge]

Remember Master of Kung Fu?

Boy, it's been awhile since I thought about this book! It ran forom 1974-84. I re-read issue #108 last night--another good spy story--and was reminded again how evocative and beautifully rendered the dialogue and art were. The scene in spymaster Denis Wayland-Smith's penthouse with the "Freelance Restorations" team congregated around a fireplace, the chill of London just outside. The theme of chameleons, with spies embodying that concept. Master of Kung Fu (MoKF) was so much better than I initially thought it would be, and it blasted my expectations out of the water! It was more spy adventure than super-hero comic, existing in its own world rather than mingling with Marvel's other heroes.

Doug Moench is among my favorite comics writers, and the late-great Gene Day (1951-1982) had a beautiful art style that I loved even as a ten-year-old kid. His death was the first comic book creator death that I can recall. It affected me deeply.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

Some of this weekend's reading:

What If? #16 (1979)

Master of Kung Fu #125 (1983)

As good as MoKF was, it can't be said that it's a "feel good" book. There's a lot of intensity and dark feeling there. Quite rare for the time period.

 

[Wesley Milton Dagwell III]

As a boy growing up in 90s Australia it was not usually the comics we got to follow, but the cartoon adaptations. I think, for most of us, hero-books were a rare and expensive thing in which our parents did not indulge us. I only knew one boy that collected them and he was rather spoilt.

But my parents did let me get the occasional Mad Magazine and I was known among my peers for having a great pile of the things. (It seems rather modest today) Seeing Mad #300 is probably one of my earliest memories.

Today I do follow some comics here and there, mostly short-run books that are easy to enjoy with smaller time and investment. My favourite is probably Hellboy. I think it has a lot to do with Mignola’s art and use of folklore appealing to my nerdery.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I grew up with the DC comics in the early Sixties, and thought I'd left comics behind once I began to read Ian Fleming and Rex Stout. Then, years later, a friend pressed some of the Chris Claremont-era 1980s X-Men comics on me. Wow, what a revelation! Dialogue actually rang true and revealed character, heroes doubted themselves, and artwork carried the story like a superb action-adventure film.

Most of all, they had covers without those vainglorious, annoying speech or thought balloons -- covers like film shots that grabbed you with the situation and the body language of the characters, and didn't need "explanations" to make you want to read it.

Don't tell anybody, but I have a copy of the Phoenix Saga, the climactic Jean Grey story arc, on my shelf at home.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Since all superhero comics essentially go back to Superman... and Superman essentially goes back to Siegel and Shuster... all comics fans (and by extension, fans of comics-derived movies, TV, etc.) should note the passing of Mrs. Jerry Siegel - the original model for Lois Lane:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/arts/16siegel.html

 

[davidraphael]

I was a big Amazing Spiderman fan and own a couple of hundred issues. The oldest I have is number 11, but most span the 80s and I'm happy that I have all the Todd MacFarlane issues, which skyrocketed in price for some reason.

I also have a complete run of the Marvel Indiana Jones series.

I was also a big Mad reader in the 70s and 80s and have many issues.

I've been meaning to read the early X-Men issues for years. Maybe now is the time! any recommendations?

 

[Nathan Dodge]

I grew up reading those Further Adventures of Indiana Jones comics pictured above, but stopped after issue #24, seeing as the art and writing team changed and the comics in general began to lose my interest. I recently got the first two volumes of Dark Horse's Omnibus versions of those Indy comics, and have enjoyed them all over again. They try and often succeed in capturing the fun of the first film.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

After a seven-year hiatus, DC will finally continue publishing its Sgt. Rock series of its DC Archives series. Volume four's not due out until late September, so in the meantime I'm catching up with my admittedly massive DC "Battle Book" collection, as well as the existing three volumes of the Archives. It's strange knowing I bought so many of those war comics for cheap in the '80s and '90s and I'm a bit...shaken...seeing how the prices for back issues have skyrocketed. Do a search for the vol 3 pictured below and see the astronomical prices it's going for on the collector's market.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

In my opinion the '70s were the apotheosis for Mad Magazine -- at least those are the ones I remember -- when it showcased the work of illustrators and cartoonists such as Don Martin (my favorite), Antonio Prohias (Spy vs. Spy), Sergio Aragones, Dave Berg and Jack Davis who did many of the movie and TV parodies.

 

[Touchofevil]

In my opinion the '70s were the apotheosis for Mad Magazine -- at least those are the ones I remember -- when it showcased the work of illustrators and cartoonists such as Don Martin (my favorite), Antonio Prohias (Spy vs. Spy), Sergio Aragones, Dave Berg and Jack Davis who did many of the movie and TV parodies.

It was a magnificent time for Mad Magazine. I still have a collection of magazines from that time tucked away somewhere amongst the thousands of Avengers, Uncanny X-Men, Invincible Iron Man, MOKF, JLA, The Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and too many others to name.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

I was mostly a Cracked reader in the late '70s, primarily due to the John Severin (who died back in February) artwork, but I later came to prefer Mad in a big way. Dave Berg was criminally underrated; I love his stuff. I have a few beat-up issues of both mags lying around.