Chuyển đến nội dung chính

Bài đăng

Đang hiển thị bài đăng từ Tháng 11, 2014

... Does whatever a Spider can

AS A KID in the Sixties, I was first a reader of DC Comics, then discovered Marvel. My introduction to the work of Stan Lee and his collaborators was a bit of a slow burn ... I didn't really start reading the flagship Marvel title  The Amazing Spider-Man until mid-1965, by which time Lee and Ditko were in full swing. Okay, this kid is reading a comic in the 1940s, but his experience wouldn't have been much different from mine. The Superman behind him is the November 1947 issue, though the Ha Ha Comics he's reading is from mid-1943. See if you can identify any others ... In my last blog entry, I described how I had come to be a regular reader of the title and how Stan Lee's and Steve Ditko completely different approach to superhero stories captivated my imagination and made me feel they really understood my life. I didn't realise at the time they were telling stories that resonated with any number of teenagers and tweenagers, and it was this that started Marvel i...
Đăng nhận xét
Đọc thêm

Spider-Man, Spider-Man ...

I RECENTLY BROUGHT a copy of Amazing Spider-Man 6 on eBay for quite a reasonable price - I say reasonable, and it was under Guide, but I'm sure non-comics fans would look at me in astonishment if I told them how much I paid. For a comic. Granted it's not in the best of condition, but it's quite solid and I'm sure the low price was a reflection of the heavy T&P stamping on the cover, despite it being a UK variant. Overall I'm very pleased with it. As I got into the Spider-Man series during 1965 and 1966, the Marvel reprint 64-pagers were a useful source of earlier Marvel stories. I would have first read the story when it was reprinted in Marvel Tales 3 , back in 1966, having missed the original issue. And a dark and scary read it was, too. To today's comic readers, the tale probably seems a bit quaint, but to this then-twelve year-old, the alien and uncontrollable savagery of The Lizard was a bit disconcerting ... This was the third animal-oriented foe for...
Đăng nhận xét
Đọc thêm

Bài đăng phổ biến từ blog này

From Horrors to Heroes

AS THE DAYS of Marty Goodman's Atlas Comics drew to a close in the late 1950s, the publisher was casting around for the Next Big Thing. Locked in to a draconian distribution contract with arch rivals DC Comics, Goodman was limited to a tight eight titles per month and if he needed to launch a new title, he was forced to cancel an existing one. So, feeling that mystery and science fiction was the coming trend Goodman decided to launch three new comics to complement the existing Journey into Mystery, World of Fantasy and Strange Tales titles. The new books were Strange Worlds , beginning in December 1958 and replacing the cancelled Navy Combat , and Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish , both debuting in January 1959, replacing the cancelled Homer the Happy Ghost and Miss America . Journey into Mystery and Strange Tales had been around since the twilight of the Golden Age and changed in content according to Martin Goodman's take on his customers' tastes. So they bega...
Đăng nhận xét
Đọc thêm

Marvel Comics: Second-Hand Memories

BACK IN THE MID-1960s , when I first became interested in reading as many Marvel Comics as I could lay my hands on, there wasn't the perfect distribution network today's comic fans enjoy. I was reliant on the spotty delivery of American comics to the many independent newsagents in my local area and what I could salvage from the piles of second-hand comics in the various unlikely shops I'd stumble across. Once I realised that there were shops that would sell second-hand comics, I began to explore the area in earnest, ranging far and wide on my bicycle, stashing my new-found treasures in the saddlebag I'd acquired especially for that purpose. In general, these second-hand shops charged 6d (that's 2.5p in today's money - though adjusting for inflation it's actually about 30p). My pocket money was 2/6, so I could afford to buy five comics for that. Or three if I was buying them new from a newsagent. Caution was often called for. Of course, I didn't spend all...
Đăng nhận xét
Đọc thêm

Marvel Masterwork Pin-ups

AT THE DAWN OF MARVEL COMICS , back in 1961, Editor Stan Lee must have known he had a big hill to climb. He presided over a comic line that had once been the largest in the business, and was now one of the smallest. This wasn't due to Lee's poor handling of the comics, but a direct result of publisher Martin Goodman's unsound business decisions. In 1957, Goodman had decided to close down his own Atlas magazine distribution company and  strike a deal with the third party distributor American News to get his publications to the stands. Just months later, American News went out of business, leaving Goodman's magazines, including the comics, with no route to the newsstands. In the end, Goodman was able to do a deal with arch-rivals Independent News (distributors of DC Comics), but was forced to accept an eight titles per month cap on his comics line. At the beginning of 1959, the old Atlas Comics company was limping along, using the few artists who'd stuck with Stan thr...
Đăng nhận xét
Đọc thêm