Newsstand: December 1981

Looking at the comics cover-dated December 1981, the month seems notable more for stuff I didn't buy at the time. I don't think I bought any of these comics when they were initially released, but I either got them as back issues or reprints. So, the list of comics I wish I had bought as new in December, 1981 includes:

All-Star Squadron #4 Once I started reading All-Star Squadron, I was hooked, and collected everything back to the first issue. At this point, however, I probably thought it was just another superhero comic. Or hadn't even noticed it yet.

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #15 Actually, I've never actually read this. And possibly Frank Miller's name wouldn't have meant anything to me when this was published (although it might have, since he was writing and drawing Daredevil by this point). But it just seems to me that if I knew more about comics at that point, I wouldn't have let a Frank Miller-illustrated Spider-Man comic pass me by.

Nexus #1 Nexus would become one of my favorite comics, but it wasn't really on my radar until issue #3 came out with its flexi-disk read-along soundtrack. And it would be quite some time before this first issue was reprinted in an affordable format. So I didn't become a fan of Nexus, Mike Baron, or Steve Rude as early as I might have.

In fact, if I did buy any of these comics when they were released, it probably would have been Condorman #2. Because I was fascinated by the idea of a Disney movie about a superhero, and was super-excited about that movie. (I have it on DVD, but haven't watched it. Will it hold up to my memories? I'm almost afraid to find out.)

Posted with Blogsy

Newsstand: November 1981

In addition to the second and third issues of Dragonslayer and Raiders of the Lost Ark, I see that November, 1981 saw the arrival of Jack Kirby's Captain Victory #1, the first comic from brand-new publisher Pacific Comics. I probably didn't buy this the moment it came out, but I'm pretty sure I bought it before issue two was published. So I'm counting it as a comic I bought when it was new.

This would probably have been my first real exposure to Jack Kirby's work, at least with me being aware of his name being connected to it. My recollection is that I found it exciting, but also kind of weird. I felt he drew his heads too square. I also remember thinking that he put quotation marks around words for no apparent reason, and his dialogue overall was kind of silly compared to what I was used to at that point.

Today, when I read some of his other almost-contemporary writing (in the pages of Losers or Kamandi) I can see that, while idiosyncratic, it has a great deal of urgency and energy to it. His art also has a certain bold, in-your-face quality that, while not as nuanced as his work from the 60s, moves across the page like nothing else.

Ultimately, the Jack Kirby from this period onwards is my Jack Kirby. When I think of his work, I appreciate what he did in the pages of Marvel comics in the 60s, and I still adore his work from the 70s. But the first stuff that pops to mind is the stuff that was brand new when I was just becoming a fan. My Jack Kirby is the man who created Captain Victory and Silver Star. My Jack Kirby is the artist of the soon-to-be-reprinted Super Powers comics based on the toys.

While these characters and others have been revived recently, I wish someone would reprint Captain Victory. I don't have those issues any more, and would love to reread them.

In a number of ways, I think finding Captain Victory #1 on the counter of Comics and Comix on Telegraph Avenue may have been the real starting point for my comics collecting days. Not only was it the first issue of a new series, but it was the first issue published by a new publisher. Knowing that gave this issue a certain sense of moment and weight when I bought it. It would have been the first time I bought a comic for reasons other than it featured a familiar character.

So, yeah, this was probably it. This was probably where it all began.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Newsstand: October 1981

If I bought Krypton Chronicles #1 last month, then I probably bought the second issue this month. Even if I didn't, there were at least a couple of other comics I remember buying in October, 1981.

Dragonslayer #1 would be another movie adaptation that I purchased. I remember reading it before the movie, and that I was pretty excited. I had already been excited about the movie, probably based on articles in Starlog Magazine. The idea of a movie featuring a big dragon seemed pretty cool. I haven't seen the movie in years, so I don't know if it holds up at all, but as a kid, I thought it was great.

The New Adventures of Superboy #22 would be the first issue of Superboy I ever read. I know I picked it up because of the promise of a Krypto the Superdog story on the cover. I don't remember much about this issue specifically, but when I think about this series, I fondly remember the innocent charm it had. When Geoff Johns and Francis Manapul created a modern-day Superboy series in Adventure Comics a few years ago, I felt like they captured an updated version of that tone. But their run on the series ran less than a year, and while Jeff Lemire did an okay job of continuing that tone, it wasn't quite the same.

I probably read Raiders of the Lost Ark #2, but I have nothing to add beyond what I wrote last week about issue #1.

And that's about it for this month. Next week: November!

Posted with Blogsy

Newstand: September 1981

After a slow month last month, it looks like I picked up a few more books in September of 1981.

Did I buy and read Krypton Chronicles #1? I suppose I must have, but unlike the World of Krypton miniseries that came out at the time of the first Superman movie, I have no real memory of this. (On the other hand, I do distinctly recall that I did not buy the Steve Gerber/Gene Colan Phantom Zone miniseries that came out around the same time. So maybe I didn't get this after all. Who knows?)

I'm more positive that I purchased Marvel Super Special #19, adapting then-new James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only, with art by Howard Chaykin and Vince Colletta. It's still one of my favorite James Bond movies, and I recall this as being an okay adaptation. But how cool would it be to see a James Bond comic with art by Chaykin on his own?

I also bought the first issue of Raiders of the Lost Ark, as a miniseries rather than the complete adaptation in Marvel Super Special #18. At the time, I thought there was something particularly cool about buying the serialized version of a story inspired by the old serials, complete with a cliffhanger ending. Today, I'm impressed that it was written by Walter Simonson, and drawn by John Buscema and Klaus Janson. Regardless, it's a good adaptation of another favorite movie. (In hindsight, I prefer the Chaykin cover on the Marvel Super Special.)

And I believe that would be about it for this month.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Newsstand: July 1981

After a short delay, we return to the comics I remember purchasing in my youth, this time cover-dated July, 1981:

DC Special Series 25, while not technically a comic book, was still a must-purchase for me when I saw it. A treasury-sized magazine about the making of Superman II, it was an essential companion to my beloved, read-to-pieces Superman the Movie magazine.

While the series went downhill in a hurry (to this day, I don't believe I've seen Superman III or IV in their entirety) the first movie remains one of my all-time favorites. I remember going to see it again and again in the theater with my then-best friend, Barbara Johnston. At the time, going to see Superman the Movie was like a weekly ritual for us. By the time Superman II came out, we had begun drifting apart, and I'm sorry to say I've completely lost touch with her.

Looking back, Superman II is a perfect example of how perceptions change. When it was released, critics proclaimed it as the rare example of a sequel that surpasses the original. Now, fans lament that it doesn't represent the vision of the original director, Richard Donner, who was replaced by Richard Lester partway through shooting.

For myself, I haven't seen the movie in at least 10 years, so I can't say how well it holds up. I remember really enjoying it when it came out, and I still remember how Christopher Reeve really seemed to transform from Clark Kent to Superman in the scene where he reveals his secret identity to Lois Lane. As I type this, I can't decide whether it's time to watch the movie again and re-experience that enjoyment, or stay away, in case the memory cheats.

Also tying in with Superman II came another treasury comic, DC Special Series 26, featuring a tour through Superman's Fortress of Solitude. A part of me has always been fascinated by the locations and props surrounding the heroic characters I've loved, whether it's the Batcave and Batmobile, Sherlock Holmes' deerstalker cap (back when I thought he wore it all the time), or Doctor Who's TARDIS. So a tabloid-sized comic featuring a tour and catalog of Superman's home away from home, in the guise of an adventure, was right up my alley. Now, so many years on, I don't remember too much of the story, but I do remember reading it again and again, and loving it.

The only other comic I can remember actually buying this month is Tales of the Green Lantern Corps 3. I've spoken at length about this miniseries elsewhere, and I can't think of anything to add here. (The whole series is available to order in one book here, among other places.)

Why didn't my enjoyment of this series lead me to start buying Green Lantern on a regular basis? For one thing, I hadn't gotten in the habit of buying comics regularly at this point. (Oh, how times would change.) For another, the story is a perfectly well-told, self-contained story that doesn't immediately force the reader to follow unresolved plot threads into another book. Try imagining that in today's market.

Ironically, had I started reading Green Lantern at this time, I would have picked up the first appearances of the Omega Men. In fact, had I been more seriously into comics at this point, this month, I could have also picked up John Byrne's first issue of Fantastic Four, and the Madame Xanadu one-shot by Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers. But, you know, everyone discovers comics at their own pace. I was still just on the fringes of my flirtation with the hobby that would be come a full-blown, life-long (so far) love affair.

Comics Newsstand: February 1981

Continuing on through the journey through the early years of my comics collecting habit, here are the comics I remember purchasing in February, 1981, as seen on Mike's Amazing World of Comics:

(I know last week I talked about December, 1980; I don't think I actually bought anything that was on sale in January, 1981, at least not when it came out.)

Marvel Premiere 58 featuring Doctor Who. If memory serves, I still wasn't able to watch Doctor Who on TV at home, so these comics felt even closer to watching the show than reading the novelizations of the TV series. The stories, by Pat Mills and John Wagner (whose work I'd later come to love in the pages of 2000AD did a great job of combining the weirdness and humor of the series with larger-scale adventures (in four page weekly installments), and the art, by Dave Gibbons, was gorgeous. And the cover was by Frank Miller and Terry Austin!

And again, if memory serves, my purchasing this comic was the result of my calling the store every week to find out if it was out yet. And when it did come out, I either convinced my mom to drive me down to Telegraph Avenue, or convinced my dad to pick it up at the store after work. So thanks again, mom and dad, for helping me find this thing that I love.

Comics Newsstand: December 1980

So I recently discovered a cool web site, Mike's Amazing World of Comics. It started as a database of all the DC Comics ever published, but once the creator completed that (he claims, and I'm certainly not going to check his work) he began adding other publishers.

One particularly cool feature is the "newsstand" feature, which allows users to sort the database by date of publication. Essentially, this shows all the comics which were on sale in any particular month. In my spare time, I started fiddling around with this, tracking back to when I remember first seriously collecting comics, and then going through month by month. The memories this has sparked have been interesting, reminding me of where I was at particular points in my life, watching my buying list grow and shrink and grow again as my tastes changed.

I thought it would be fun to write down those thoughts, so I'm going to try to cover a month's worth of comics each Wednesday (since Wednesday is new comics release day).

The first month I was able to find that I know I went into a comics store to buy a comic was December 1980. Before that, I had loved reading comics, but they weren't a regular habit. Whenever I went shopping with my parents, I would look at the comics in the grocery store or drug store or liquor store. I remember begging my parents to let me come along to Jay Vee Liquor in El Cerrito, not because they bought much liquor, but because that store had a bigger comics rack than any I had ever seen.

As a kid, my tastes ran to humor comics: Richie Rich and Casper and friends from Harvey Comics, Archie and his friends from Archie Comics, and a ton of Disney and other licensed cartoon comics from Gold Key. Also probably Super-Friends, which, along with the Adam West Batman TV series, was my introduction to the world of superheroes. At that age, though, actual superhero comics were too grown-up for me. I remember the first real Batman comic I ever read was Detective Comics 468, which I learned decades later, was Marshall Rogers' first time drawing a full-length Batman story. At the time, it was too adult and scary for me, though.

I also remember standing in line with my mother at the check-cashing window at Safeway one day, probably holding whatever comics I had chosen. An older kid offered me some comics he had already read and wanted to give away. I think one was a Conan comic, and another featured the Thing, from the Fantastic Four. One featured scantily-clad men and women with swords on the cover, the other featured monsters. Either way, they were too scary for me. I probably also checked out Marvel's Star Wars comics when I could find them, but, again, never made a concerted effort to try to get them with any regularity.

That changed, however, when one day in late 1980, I saw Marvel Premiere 57 displayed in the window of Comics & Comix on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California. We had recently returned from a year-long stay in New Zealand, where I had become a rabid Doctor Who fan. So this sighting of an American comic featuring Doctor Who was a must-have.

It was my first exposure to the Doctor Who comic strip, even though it was just a reprint of stuff from the British Doctor Who Weekly magazine. It was also my first exposure to Dave Gibbons' art. More importantly, it was the first comic to motivate me to return to the comic book store looking for the next issue.

I had no idea how frequently it came out, so I regularly phoned the store asking if it had come out yet. When it finally did, I can't remember if I had my mom drive me to the store, or asked my dad to pick it up after work (he worked nearby, at the university). Either way, I remember them being very supportive, helping me to get all four issues of Marvel Premiere featuring the Doctor. If only they knew what they were encouraging.

Looking through the rest of that month's releases, it doesn't look like I bought anything else at the time. I did end up buying some of that month's releases as back issues, like New Teen Titans 2. But that's a story I'll save for the month I discovered New Teen Titans, a little over a year later. Because even though I only bought the one comic back in December 1980, it was the start of a way of life for me.