Category: Independent
Reviews of Old Comics: Starstream #3
STARSTREAM #3 1976 No Spoilers this week, as this is an anthology published by Whitman in 1976. I seem to recall that my original copies were purchased at a discount store (think K-Mart-ish) when I was five or six in a pack of 3. That means to get all four issues of this series, I must've ended up with multiples of something. The premise of the anthology is that there are comic adaptations of science fiction short stories, with an occassional original thrown in. The caliber of artists is quite good for the most part, with only few exceptions. At another time, I may cover the other issues, but I have a reason for getting to this one first. Also, I used the synopsis for the April Fool's entry, What If #34. Again, no spoilers, since for the summary, I'm just going to copy from the contents page.
Reviews of Old Comics: Minimum Wage #2
Minimum Wage #2 1995 A little while ago, I wrote a review for Bob Fingerman's sequel to Minimum Wage, currently being published by Image. At the time, I meant to post my old review from my old Blogger site for an issue of the first Minimum Wage. Well, here it is, and changed a little bit for the time passage to today. This is a "Mature Readers" title, so any of you that are younger shouldn't be able to buy this. Sometimes, you'll find this titled listed as "adult," but this particular issue is labeled as "Mature Readers." In the case of this issue, that means profanity, nudity and adult situations. I keep my copies of Minimum Wage on a spinner rack I traded a drawing for about ten years ago. As always, at least until I can get around to making a banner that says it, spoilers abound. SYNOPSIS: Rob is moving out of his apartment into a new place that he'll share with his girlfriend, Sylvia. His roommate Jack isn't helping, possibly out of some passive-aggressive resentment of Rob's leaving. Rob's annoying friend Matt shows up to pick through Rob's collection of comics and videos and be generally loud and annoying.
Reviews of Old Comics: Samuree #1
SAMUREE #1 May 1987 Writer: Neal Adams Pencils: Mark Beachum Inks: Ian Akin & Brian Garvey Colors: Liz Berube Letters: Ken Bruzenak Lately I've been on a run of reviewing DC Comics. So I went through my comics looking for something to review that wasn't by DC. My last comic was one of the best comics ever published, so I decided to go with something a little more underrated. Enter the world of Neal Adams's Continuity Comics. In 1987 I was getting back into comics after a brief period of abandoning them in an attempt to get girls to like me. Yeah, if I could go back in time, I probably would tell that kid to get over it, life gets better after High School. Nevertheless, my only outlet at first was a convenience store with a spinner rack that let me get reacquainted with the X-Men, and discover a few new titles, including Samuree. SYNOPSIS: Daryl Sheppard, a sixteen year old girl, alias Samuree is training exceptionally hard, but not being noticed by Lieutenant Pierce, with whom apparently she is in love and practically throwing herself at him. He reads in a newspaper about a hijacking that led into a hostage situation in a natural history museum. Meanwhile, three young superheroes working out also notice the same newspaper article and recognize a name among one of the hostages.
Reviews of Old Comics: Elementals #22
ELEMENTALS #22 February,1988 I’ve been a fan of his Bill Willingham’s work since I graduated from High School. See, on graduation night, I had gotten my diploma and was on my way to the county graduation party to have one last blast with friends, and so I stopped by the Mall to pick up a tee-shirt with the
Reviews of Old Comics: Elementals Vol.2 #2
Elementals #2 April 1989 It was 1989, and I was graduating from High School. In my home town, there were only two places to buy comics, a Convenience store with a spinner rack and just down the road from there at the town's only shopping mall, a B. Dalton booksellers that also had a spinner rack, but featured better comics. The plan was just after graduating and just prior to a party, to stop by the mall and get a t-shirt for the college I would be attending (and subsequently dropping out of) in the fall. Being the comics fan that I am, I decided to stop by the bookstore and pick up a comic or two. For some reason on that afternoon, I decided to pick up something new, and that was where I was introduced to Elementals.
Reviews of Old Comics: Hansi, The Girl Who Loved The Swastika
Hansi, the Girl Who Loved The Swastika February 1994 The trick in talking about Religiously-themed comics is doing so without inserting my own feelings about said religion into the commentary. Hansi was published in 1976 by Spire Christian Comics, who also produced a series of Christian-themed comics featuring Archie. It is the biographical story of
Reviews of Old Comics: John Byrne’s Next Men #6
I've been reading comics for a long time, so I remember when comics were something you waited for and every week you were surprised. I remember when you trekked to the convenience store, or drug store, or grocery store, where ever you bought comics because there was no store that conveniently pulled your comics for you every week. I remember the one time a year you went to the closest comic book convention to you to get the issues that you missed because the other kids in town got there before you. This is the ongoing story of recapturing that feeling by reading some comics that haven't been cracked in some time. Perhaps they live in some long-neglected long box in your spare room. Perhaps they are discovered at the bottom of that last box you haven't unpacked since your last move two years ago, and perhaps they're just waiting in some comic shops back stock waiting for you to discover them the next time they drag them to some mini-convention in a hotel ballroom looking to score some quick cash with cheap back issues. Sometimes they'll be gems, sometimes the memory is fonder than the reality, but my goal is to share with you my spoiler-ridden reviews of old comics. JOHN BYRNE'S NEXT MEN #6 July 1992 John Byrne was one of my earliest influences. In the 1990s, after bouncing between Marvel and DC over a decade, he turned a proposal for Marvel's 2099 line into 2112, a graphic novel that became the basis for Next Men. This was the issue that tied those two together, because after reading 2112 and the first six issues (there was a Next Men #0) of John Byrne's Next Men, it was not apparent that they were linked in any way except that both had a character named Sathanas, which could or could not be the same character. They certainly didn't look alike. Enter this issue. SYNOPSIS: In an Antarctic research station, an earthquake rocks four scientists who quickly deduce it came from an explosion 30 miles away. They go to investigate to discover at the site, around a hundred mangled, mutilated and not quite human bodies. One of them is alive and it quickly attacks the group draining their life-force to save itself. Recognizing one of the scientists as Fleming Jorgenson, the creature, horribly injured relishes in that the year is 1955. Cut to the States and the home of Congressman Aldus Hilltop who his hosting Dr. Jorgenson who's returned from an apparent explosion of the research station that killed all other scientists there. Jorgenson is bringing Aldus Hilltop who places his political career above all else. Jorgenson has Hilltop help retrieve a case from Antarctica in the most confusing and complicated way possible. Inside the case, is the creature he discovered in Antarctica, named Sathanas, an energy vampire that awakes and brings Hilltop into his grand plan with the promise of power.
Reviews of Old Comics: Unity #0
In the early 1990s, the speculation boom brought lots of new customers into comic shops. Some professionals in the industry though it might be a good time to create new universes to draw these new readers in, and some used purchased licenses to build those universes around. Valiant was one of those companies. Structured around purchased Silver Age Gold Key characters Solar, Man of the Atom and Magnus, Robot Fighter, Jim Shooter directed the construction of a universe complete with new characters, brought in creators like Barry Windsor-Smith and Dave Lapham, and engage readers on a level not seen in years. Valiant seemed like it might survive the eventual bursting of the speculation bubble, but alas, it was not to be.