Spiderbite

I watched a cool short documentary the other day and learned a lot about ElfQuest and its creators. Wasn't my thing back then and still isn't but the documentary was great and made me appreciate it and the creators. I can remember going into comic book shops as a young teen and other fellow nerds talking about it, but it just held zero interest for me. It just made me think of The Smurfs meet D&D. Still haven't read an issue...yet.



Documentary (approx. 40 minutes):

Dimension X

I used to see Wendy and Richard Pini at Sci-Fi conventions a lot (for a while, it seemed like they, and Kelly Freas, were at every one I went to), but I never read the books either. At least with Kelly Freas, I had paperbacks that he did the covers of, for him to sign.

PhantomStranger

I knew when I posted that someone would probably ask for pics. Unfortunately they are stored away at the moment or I'd provide them. I picked up a few different cover printing proofs at an auction a few years ago, mostly Bronze Age DC issues. It was how comics were printed in those days.

Spiderbite

Don't tease.



John Byrne did Jack Kirby? I have zero memory or knowledge of this.

B5Erik

I absolutely love the DeFalco/Frenz and DeFalco/Oliffe runs on Spider-Girl. So much fun...

Spiderbite

I have zero idea what this is but the name and cover made me laugh.

Spiderbite

(1981)


(2022)

Lokimok

The only Dennis the Menace comic I had was this Takes a Poke at Poison freebie. No glossy cover. All newsprint. Not sure how I got it.

I also distinctly remember finding that Spidey/Goblin Aim toothpaste promo comic at a local drug store. I can picture the store's layout.

Spiderbite

This issue helped begin the demise of comic book collecting. I was big into DC stuff at the time and collecting all the Superman titles and Batman titles, crossovers between both and anything else that caught my eye or interested me, as well as being dumb and buying various #1 issues I had necessarily no interest in. I had been collecting all the Superman titles because I loved the John Byrne takeover, but my money was wearing quite thin at this point, being a mere 15-year-old and having only so much disposable income. I quit collecting Action Comics at this point and the dominos started to fall over the next two years. Even though I got a regular part time job before I turned 16 and stayed with it until high school graduation, a car, girls, and saving for college began to take precedent.

I really did hate to give up the hobby though. And I had ZERO friends doing it, so that probably assisted giving it up as well.

Spiderbite

Not exactly sure what is going on here but appears timely.

(1972)


(1984)

B5Erik

Here's one I bought in the 70's. Apparently, it was originally published in the 60's, but reprinted multiple times.

cultshock

I had that King Kong comic as well, it was huge (bigger than a Marvel Treasury Edition).

Spiderbite

Other than the adult-faced Franklin, I loved the John Byrne FF run as a kid. Bought every issue.

fujishig

Yeah when I was a kid I thought the same about Warlord, that it was a licensed comic. Shoot, Adam Warlock was so off the wall at the time, being completely separated from most of the Marvel Universe, that I also thought that was a licensed comic. Same with something like Amethyst. Credit to guys like Grell and Starlin who really brought them to life and made them different.

Also there's a recent Marvel Legends Crystar figure out, though it doesn't have the feature I liked the most about the toy as a kid, the removable helmet.

My mom collected comics and when I was little she would get these kinds of comics just for me. I remember having tons of Gold Key and Harvey comics, loving Hot Stuff (man the times were different) and Casper, and for a family trip I lugged around a suitcase just filled with comics... unbagged, unboarded, just comics to read.

When Valiant resurrected all the Gold Key superheroes it kind of blew my mind.

The thing I remember most about Elf Quest as a kid (again my mom collected them) is how... adult some of it was. Also it was one of the first comics I could remember that was regularly collected in trades and available at the bookstore.

The actual name of this manga is even odder: Cat Shit One. There was also an anime that debuted on Youtube that changed the setting from Vietnam to the Middle East but I'm not sure that was ever officially brought over (and I think only one episode came out)

Spiderbite

Totally forgot about Hot Stuff! I had a ton of him, Casper, Richie Rich, Baby Huey, etc. comics. They were silly and had childish humor, but they were great fun. And I was a child...so there's that. I haven't read or looked at any of those old comics since I was a kid. I guess you never see omnibuses of Hot Stuff and the others, so they get forgotten.

Now I am craving a Hostess snack for some reason.

fujishig

That advertising campaign they had in comics really worked. I always wanted Hostess Fruit Pies (and then I ate one and it... wasn't that great... but the comic ads made them seem so appealing).

Today, I'm not sure what's the oddest thing about that comic: the devil being the protagonist, the villain being a take on Sigmund Freud or his superpower being to turn things into fakes of themselves. Not to duplicate things and make fakes, to make real things fake for... reasons?

Brian T

I never really read Dennis, Richie Rich, Casper, and their kin as a child, but saw them on the racks all the time, and at friends’ houses. I think my tastes skewed a little older, even as a kid. That plus growing up in a relatively normal family free of violence probably afforded six-year-old (!) me in 1975 the luxury of finding Kaspar The Dead Baby (by Marv Wolfman and Marie Severin) in Marvel’s Crazy Magazine to be the kiddie-mind-expanding pinnacle of hilarious bad taste, and probably an early formative influence, along with other stuff in the mag (like the Obnoxio The Clown pages):

Kurt D

Crazy magazine was THE BEST. Kaspar, The Brownstones, Teen Hulk.

I wrote a letter to the editor once, then drifted away from such reading pursuits.

Years later in a fit of nostalgia I bought a Crazy back issue and discovered they printed my letter!

PhantomStranger

Ah yes, that period when DC went almost weekly for a while with Action Comics, making it an anthology book. What's funny is those Action Comics Weekly issues frequently ended up in quarter bins even in the 1990s. But they are much tougher to find now in great condition than other DC Comics of that particular era. I come across poor copies all the time, however.

I want to say the price jump was pretty big. Action issues before 600 went for 75 cents.

Spiderbite

Anyone has some Sad Sack? I know I had a few various issues and compilations.

cultshock

Holy shit, that Kaspar strip.

Bronkster

Do you recall which issue? I have a number of early ones.

And by the way, I truly detest your new avatar. I've been experiencing changes in vision (old age or diabetes) that makes everything a bit blurrier, so I hate you now.