Just Being Realistic

If you're coming to this blog, you want to read something about comics, not my current messed-up work situation, so I won't bore you with all of the details. But I imagine it is also pretty obvious to most of you who stop by here on a regular or even semi-regular basis, that new posts have become quite scarce indeed.

I'm very sorry about the lack of new material, but honestly, I don't foresee that changing in the immediate future.

This note isn't all doom-and-gloom, though. While I haven't had time of late to put up posts here, I still manage to read a comic whenever I can, and have posted some much more brief thoughts on my Steve's Comics for Sale Facebook page. Some of the recent posts there have made mention of the books pictured to the left and right. Follow the link and like the page if you want to keep up with me there. I'll also post information on that page if/when I am able to resume posting lengthier reviews and thoughts here.

And for those of you interested, I just updated the main Steve's Comics for Sale site for the month. Confidentially, I just completed a big sale of stuff from the site this past month, and I have another big purchase in the very early stages, so there has been some turnover. Check it out here.

What Do You Think You're Doing?

In case the absence of a comic title, issue number and list of creators didn't already clue you in, we aren't talking about a specific book today. I am hopeful that my "new normal" at work becomes just a little more normal soon because I haven't just had trouble finding time to write posts for the ol' Comics Blog, I haven't had a lot of time to READ either! I have some comics and trades than were released and delivered back in July that I haven't read yet.

Of course, just because I haven't had a lot of time to actually read any of my comics, doesn't mean I don't still have some time to think about comics. I mean, c'mon, I can't be expected to think about work ALL the time I'm at work, can I? (None of my bosses from work read this, right?)

Anyway, in the absence of being able to actually read my comics, I've still been doing some thinking about my comics habit, and I've come to a bit of a realization coinciding with my efforts to winnow down what I buy each month, which also coincides with my efforts to drastically reduce the size of my comics collection by selling off a bunch of what I have amassed.

If you had asked me any time over, let's say the past 25 to 30 years, I would have readily told you that I collected comics. That was my mentality at the time, and I stand by that statement on the surface of it. I was buying what I was reading, and for the most part, I was reading what I was enjoying. I was a comics reader and collector.

And I still see myself as a collector, even though I am trying to sell off a bunch of my comics. I've just refined my focus a bit. I have three main characters — Aquaman, Nightwing and Green Arrow — I have followed for a long time, continue to follow now, and plan to continue to follow into the future. Then there are characters from other media I like whose occasional forays into comics I will likely continue to have an interest in — the original Star Trek crew, the Lone Ranger, Zorro, to name just a few. And there are more titles that I like to read and enjoy, holding onto certain issues, runs and titles that for whatever reason seem to resonate just a little bit more with me.

But thinking about the differences in my buying habits between then and now, I've noticed that the main difference is in that refined focus now. Then, I was mostly focused on amassing a huge collection of a variety of titles and genres of comics. I was much less discriminating in what I bought, following a larger number of characters and titles and creators, amassing a huge collection of books that made me feel good in the immediate moment. And they did make me feel good, because again, I was buying what I was reading and reading what I was enjoying. But it was more about a goal of having the books as there were so many of them, there wasn't a lot of time to go back and re-read favorites. In fact, there were several titles I bought that I certainly planned to read as soon as possible, but set aside in favor of reading more immediate story lines. That pile of things to read "sometime" just kept getting bigger and bigger.

It was mostly about amassing the collection, although I don't think I ever thought of it in those terms then. Trying to decide what to keep and what to sell hasn't been about getting rid of comics I don't like; I always did that along the way. If I tried a book and didn't care for it, I stopped buying it and got rid of what I had, hopefully to someone who could better appreciate it. This culling process I've been going through — and continue to go through — is more about winnowing down the collection to the most prized books and stories, keeping the size managable and allowing myself time to re-read and re-enjoy favorite arcs and stories.

I'm not trying to belittle or denigrate anyone else's buying or collecting habits. Even amassing lots of comics is a type of collecting. For me personally, I feel that I am better appreciating what I am keeping by narrowing the focus of my collection so I am amassing a smaller number of specific things. It's certainly a more practical collection.

Let's hear from some of you: What is comic collecting to you and what do you collect — characters, titles, creators or anything and everything?

**********

Switching gears for a moment, I have some auctions running on eBay this week for anyone interested in the stuff I'm selling off. Depending on what you enjoy, you might find some good deals among the auctions. And of course, the most complete, up-to-date list of what I have available for sale or trade can be found at the main Steve's Comics For Sale site.

If Nothing Ever Changed, There'd Be No Butterflies

I enjoy writing this blog, and I don't plan to quit posting as long as I'm enjoying it. That having been said, I am planning to make some changes going into the new year.

There is part of me that hates to pull back at this time because my audience seems to be growing right now. The growth isn't huge, but it is significant. I don't get a lot of comments posted, but the number of you silently reading out there has multiplied by quite a bit in the last six months or so. Anyone is free to join in the conversation, as always, and I can't complain about a lack of comments as there are many blogs and sites which I frequent without leaving comments of my own. But getting back to that growth, I don't want to lose whatever momentum I might have built up by posting multiple times a week.

Still, I have other demands upon my time that I need to focus more energy on going forward. For instance, I've mentioned here in the past that I am trying to go through my sizable comics collection and figure out what space will allow me to keep and what must be gotten rid of -- not because I didn't or don't like it, but simply because there isn't enough room in our house now that we've added another person. Based on the number of views different posts get, some of the more popular posts are my looks at older books, particularly complete runs of short-lived series or a specific creator's run on a longer-lived title. Most of those stem from my time spent going back through some of the comics in my collection. But when I decide to sell something, I have to price the books, make scans of the covers, and list them in various places so potential buyers can see them. All of that takes time away from blogging and even reading.

That project has been put on the back burner a lot of late, but I need to concentrate on getting through this stuff. I don't have an exact count, but my collection at its largest probably ran somewhere around 12,000 comics, not counting trades, hardcovers and other collections. I'm trying to cut that down to 30 Drawer Boxes storage boxes I bought and placed along one wall in my new office. Maybe I'll post a picture of that sometime in the future, but the image accompanying today's post is 39 boxes and other loose comics that still need to be sifted through and even that represents just a portion of the total that needs to be gone through. These no longer fit in my office, so they are stacked in a corner of my wife's and my bedroom, a fact she is less than pleased by. She tolerates them there because she knows I'm trying to cut the collection down, but she hasn't seen much progress in the last few months. That project needs to get moving again.

I've also mentioned recently that I have cut back considerably on what I have been buying, both for financial and space reasons. The less I buy means less variety in the new comics I'm reading and discussing on the blog. That's probably fine for those readers whose tastes line up with mine and enjoy reading what I think about the comics they also enjoy. But some blog readers might be put off if every fifth post is about an issue of Aquaman or Nightwing or Lone Ranger because I am buying and reading fewer new titles right now. Maybe by posting a little less often, I can be a little more choosy about topics and not cover the same book as often.

Probably like most of you, the biggest demands on my time remain my paying job and my family, and that's as it should be. My wife and I used to have the house to ourselves and work at the same place on the same schedule. Since shortly after our daughter was born, that has all changed. We both still work at the same place, but on different schedules now. That helps cut down on the cost of day care, but I don't get to see my wife except in passing most days that way. I do see my daughter quite a bit, which is very nice, but also time consuming. When she was smaller, she took frequent naps, which made ideal times to get little projects done. She's 28 months old now, however, much more mobile and commands much more of my attention. Don't get me wrong; I love spending time with her, reading to her, playing with her, potty-training her, etc., but that leaves little time for anything else right now.

So bottom line is this: I am going to continue to post new blog entries here every Tuesday that I have something ready to go. There might be a week or two here and there where a Tuesday goes by without a new post, but I hope those will be very few and far between. And hey, things could go the other way; posting only once a week might result in a backlog of stuff waiting to be posted, thus resulting in some extra posts from time to time.

I hope everyone keeps stopping by and reading despite there being new content a tad less often in 2014 than you were used to in 2013. And as always, happy collecting!!

eBay Rant

There are two kinds of comics I'm selling when I'm on eBay or iOffer or even through my own Steve's Comics For Sale site: Books I bought recently, read and for whatever reason, didn't care for or older books I've decided to weed out of my collection, either for the above reason or just for space reasons. In either of these cases, I'm not looking to gouge anyone or get rich off of another comics enthusiast; I'm just looking to get rid of some books I no longer care to own, hopefully giving them to a good home where someone WILL appreciate them, and maybe get a buck or two for my trouble with which to turn around and buy more comics for myself.
Pretty simple concept, right?

Now there are three kinds of people who annoy the crap out of me when I'm trying to accomplish the above goals. I've encountered the first type of person in all three of the above online marketplaces. This is the person who bids on an item or even outright expresses an intent to buy it, then never delivers the payment. What is the point of this? Do these faux buyers really think a seller is going to ship the merchandise without receiving payment first? That seems rather naive. But if that's not their goal, what is?

The next two types of infuriating people are actually other sellers, and so far, I've only encountered them on eBay, likely because that site is much more popular and well known than iOffer or my personal site. These are the people who I guess think they're being sneaky. And maybe they are, because I suppose it is possible someone is buying their wares. But whenever I see these two practices, I immediately seek the item I was looking at somewhere else.

These people lure you with a "false" deal, either by "padding" the shipping costs or setting a reserve price below which they will not sell an item.

Now the reserve price option on eBay can be a good thing. I try to never list an item for a starting amount unless I'd be comfortable selling it for that amount. Of course, I hope multiple bidders will drive the price higher, but if only one person bids and the item goes for the starting price, I'm OK with letting the item go for that. For something like original art, however, I person might not want to let a piece go for less than his or her original purchase price. What I dislike with a passion are people who will create an auction with a reserve price of something like $500 or more, but start the bidding out at 99 cents. I realize a lot of people like to start auctions out under $1 to draw attention, but if you WON'T sell something for less than $500, why start so low? It seems mildly dishonest to me.

Far worse are the shipping padders. People who will list an item to start at a bid of 99 cents, often even calling attention to that fact, but the shipping costs, not always immediately visible, are clearly exaggerated. For instance, someone starts the bidding on a single loose action figure at 99 cents, but if you look closely, the shipping charge is $20 to $30. I've sold some figures, both MOC (mint on card) and loose and there is absolutely no way the shipping cost is that high unless the item is traveling overseas. These people are being dishonest in offering the item for such a low cost when they know they will more than make up for the cost of the item in the shipping overage. I don't know why anyone would bid on such an item with such an obviously dishonest gimmick employed. Yet I see these items listed all the time, sometimes with bids having been made.

I just don't get it. Anyone out there have any insights?

Excuses. Excuses,

Short (and late) post today as I've been out of town part of this last week. I'm already waaaaay behind on my comics reading of late, and this most recent trip away did not offer any reading time at all.

The stack of out-of-continuity trades and back issues I buy (really a series of stacks (and in further reality, there are so many stacks, they almost make a wall)) has grown so large it appears quite menacing in its threat to tip and bury me. Not to be outdone, the stack of more current books has also grown of late to a rivaling size, at least in part because I've started adding new purchases to that stack regardless of whether or not they are in current continuity because I was running out of places to stack up those out-of-continuity books separately.

Why do I have so many? Because the hobby is addictive. We've talked in the past about how podcasts have led me to try some new things. Well, most new books I've tried have led me to other discoveries.

For example, I've long been aware of Mark Evanier's DNAgents comic from Eclipse. This title debuted in 1983 and was often compared favorably to the uber-popular New Teen Titans, which we all know I love. Well, a while back, I found a large lot of DNAgents comics for a decent price and bought them. This being several months ago, they got dropped onto the bottom of the current buys stack, and I recently came to them again in said stack as I slowly whittle it down.

Before my recent trip, I managed to read the first four issues of the DNAgents title. I was also VERY vaguely aware of another Mark Evanier title, also by Eclipse, called Crossfire. Well, after reading those first four issues of DNAgents, I discovered that they had several crossovers with the Crossfire title. So many, in fact, that I've decided to look for some of these Crossfire issues and hold off reading the rest of the DNAgents books until I find and have the Crossfire ones available, too.

With buying habits like those, you can see how my collection grows so quickly, and why my wife "loves" my hobby so much. See ya next time, kiddie cops!

Reviewing 'Em Old School

One of the duties I have at the newspaper for which I work out in the real world is to generate the opinion pages, a portion of which is devoted to various columnists. In my capacity as a page designer/copy editor, I absolutely hate columns that have no central theme, but are instead just a collection of random thoughts and musings on a variety of topics. For one thing, such columns make it very hard to write a concise, all-inclusive headline. But as a writer, I have to concede that not only do they serve an occasional purpose, such columns can be downright useful sometimes.

As I've stated previously, I don't intend to discuss absolutely every comic I've read in this forum — let's face it, with the amount of comics I buy, just one comic each week would be way too slow a reading pace; I'd be buried under unread books in no time — waitaminnit! I already AM buried under unread books!!

Anyway, I have no intention of discussing every single comic I read. There are also some books I might wish to comment on, but for which I really don't have enough to say to fill up an entire post. So today, we have a collection of short thoughts on several recent reads, kind of like some of the older posts where I just did a collection of bullet-style reviews.

But enough intro, let's get to the comics; after all, that's why we're all here, right?

The Brave and the Bold No. 28 (DC Comics) — I really liked the relaunch of this book by Mark Waid and George Perez. After their initial run, the book became a bit more hit-and-miss, as anthologies often are. But J. Michael Straczynski has breathed new life into this book once again. This issue uses a Flash-Facts-type science experiment to drop Barry Allen with a broken leg into the past, specifically, a battle between Nazi soldiers and the Blackhawks. The World War II fighter pilots and contemporary speedster are far from an obvious pairing, but Straczynski manages to make the tale both done-in-one and great fun. The book combines all of the fun of a shared universe and a shared continuity, but without getting bogged down in all of the minutia that can often entail. I hope his run is long and prosperous on this book.

Warren Ellis: Wolfskin (Avatar) — This hardcover collection is not actually numbered, but it is the first collection of the first three/four issues of this gritty lone warrior tale. I believe there are very few actual bad comics; just because I don't care for a story or character doesn't mean that no one does. Some of what I like might not be your exact cup of tea, and just because I didn't care for this collection doesn't mean it will have no audience. It's not so much that this warrior's tale is so gritty or that the art is so graphic and bloody. That also describes Kick-Ass, which I did like. Rather, I just didn't care much for the central character or the dilemma he is faced with after wandering upon a village and slaying several armed attackers. Seems they attacked because they are at war with their neighbors and mistook the wanderer for one of their enemy's agents. By slaying so many warriors, our hero has now left this village at a severe disadvantage in their war, so he must decide if he will ignore their pleas or fight for them. Ellis is a good enough writer, I'm sure there is much more character development to come, but there's just not enough early on to make me care for this guy or wonder about him much. Without that initial interest, I don't care to continue buying to read more.

Gotham City Sirens No. 5 (DC Comics) — No surprises here. This title is just good comics, as I expected it would be. Paul Dini first proved his Batman chops on Batman: The Animated Series in the mid-90s. He not only GOT the Dark Knight Detective, but he seemed to have an affinity for some of the related-female characters. (He's much of the reason I'm looking forward to DC's upcoming Zatanna series.) This book features Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Dini's creation from BTAS, Harley Quinn, as the three femme fatales get an apartment together and enjoy Gotham City living. The book, like many of Dini's works, mixes drama, action and humor in just the right quantities to make a truly fun read.

Wonder Woman (third series) No. 37 (DC Comics) — I was really looking forward to Gail Simone taking over this book, but I've been kinda underwhelmed since I got that wish fulfilled. I like Simone as a writer. She was just as excellent as series creator Chuck Dixon on Birds of Prey when she took over writing that book. Her work on the Secret Six ongoing series is disturbingly brilliant, surpassing the excellent first mini and the somewhat lackluster second mini. Something just seems to be off with her portrayal of Princess Diana for me, though, and I can't put my finger on what it is. I haven't hated any of the story arcs, but I haven't been anxious for each new issue, either. Here's hoping Diana is returned to prominence in my collection when J. Michael Straczynski takes over with issue No. 600.

Heroes tpbs 1 and 2 (DC Comics) — These collections suffered in spite of themselves for me. I bought the first trade when it came out, sometime around the middle of Season 2 of the television show which inspired these web comics, but it went on the stack of trades that needed to be read sometime. A few months ago, the second collection was released, and I decided to go ahead and read both even though the third season of the TV show has lost me completely. There are some truly solid stories here, some featuring characters from the show, but many of the best tales in these collections have little to do with the actual characters seen on-screen each week. They exist in the same shared universe, but operate independently from the show, having little or nothing to do with actual episodes. But overall, these collections fell a little flat for me as the TV show has done.

That's it for this week, kiddie cops; more next time.

I'm Back!

Hey, Kiddie Cops! I'm back!

Did you miss me?

Probably not. If I had any regular readers before, they've probably long since given up waiting for updates, and since my previous round of posts never generated any comments (at least none about the actual content of the posts), I doubt too many people were reading my musings back then anyway.

Not that I don't welcome readers; far from it. If you've stumbled across this blog, then welcome. Feel free to just browse, or to comment or whatever. Maybe some of my thoughts on the titles I'm reading or have read may spark an interest in someone else, or give them incentive to try something new. That would be fantastic!

But in all honesty, the first round of posts ended up helping me in unintended ways, and I'm back in an effort to recapture a bit of that "magic" I experienced the first time around.

Like most folks out there, I'm not made of money despite my collecting hobby — or maybe because of it. (I'm not made of unlimited time, either, which also proves to often be a hinderance, but that's another post.) Anyway, every so often, I find myself for economic reasons needing to trim the number of comics I buy each month. I know which books I'm still enjoying and which are maybe dropping on the interest-scale, at least in a basic sense. But it can get very easy each month when it comes time to order, to fall back on the habits of previous months without really thinking. Or to give a slacking book "one more month" to get good again for five months without realizing you've been disappointed for that long.

Writing this blog and these little reviews forced me to spend more time thinking about what I liked and why, as well as what I didn't care for anymore and how far some titles had fallen. That, in turn, made it a little easier to make cuts when it came time to order each month. Often I'd remember my reactions better after posting them, but even if my memory was somewhat vague, I could quickly revisit my thoughts in the blog.

Well, I find myself in need of that assistance once again. I'm trying to trim some dead weight from my "pull list." So why not resume putting my thoughts down here? I had no good answer for that question, so here I am, giving the blog another whirl.

Don't think that means this will be all comic-bashing. Far from it. Trying new things means once in a while having to spit something back out. A person can get tired of a steady diet of even something great that has become somewhat stale. But by and large, I love comics as an entertainment medium. I guarantee there'll be loads of good here to counter the bad.

Next time we'll dive right in to some recent reads, but until then, Happy Collecting!!

Make Mine Marvel ... Once In A While

Most of the people I know in and around this part of Oklahoma and Arkansas seem to have grown up with Marvel Comics and much prefer that stable of heroes out of the Big Two comics publishers. A lot of that affinity seems to stem from the time those folks got interested in comics and a number of Marvel characters on television when they were young. I suppose my preferences come from much the same sources, but took the opposite turn.

Somehow, I managed to miss the first, somewhat crude by today’s standards, launch of Marvel superhero cartoons in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But I did watch the Batman and Wonder Woman and Superman live-action shows when they were on in first-run or syndication. And I never missed the Superfriends among my Saturday-morning TV viewing. Sure, there was also the live-action Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man shows and Spider-man and His Amazing Friends later on. I’m not ignorant of the Marvel characters, but DC’s group was always the ones I knew and loved just a bit more.

That preference is reflected in my collection, especially during the mid-1980s when I discovered my first-ever Comics Specialty Shop. I had a number of single issues of DC Comics from the grocery store as a small child, things like Superman Family or Batman Family, maybe some World’s Finest and Justice League of America. Even an occasional issue of Spider-man, some based on his appearances on The Electric Company, that PBS series for kids too old for Sesame Street. Sadly, many of those silver-age comics are no longer in my possession because smaller children don’t always take care of things like their parents might wish they would. At this time, besides TV, my only other contact with the world of superheroes were some copies of Superman, Action and Adventure (staring the Legion of Super-Heroes) comics while awaiting my turn at the barber shop. Once in a while, they’d also have some Turok, Son of Stone, too. But it was rare that I owned or read any two issues in consecutive order of any title.

The yearning for that to change came about in the early 1980s when I discovered The New Teen Titans annual #2, a story I’ve related here before and won’t bore you with again. But the desire was not matched immediately with access. That wouldn’t come until a few years later when a friend of mine at school introduced me to that all-important comic shop. I was just in time to snatch up every new issue of DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. Of course, I also followed the Teen Titans titles at the time. I tried some other books which I no longer own like DC Challenge and a Rip Hunter, Time Master re-vamp. From Marvel, I tried some Spider-man and Captain America issues, but my favorite title from them was Squadron Supreme, an alternate version of DC’s Justice League. And forget other titles like Jon Sable or Warlord from the time; I knew nothing about them and didn’t try that much new back then. My passion for those titles is somewhat more recent (Thank God for back-issue sales, right?).

Anyway, this lengthy introduction is not meant to bash Marvel, but rather to explain why there aren’t that many Marvel titles in these retro-reviews posts. That just wasn’t my preference then, and while I really like some of their characters, Marvel is still second in my own personal rankings. So, there really aren’t going to be many Marvel titles this far back in my collection. In an effort to make some small amends for that, here are a few Marvel comics I DO have.

The Amazing Spider-Man: The Death of Jean DeWolff tpb (Marvel Comics, 1990) — This collection written by Peter David and illustrated by Rich Buckler was originally published as Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-man #107-110 from 1985-86. I’ve never seen or read any of the other stories featuring Jean DeWolff, but this story makes me think of her as an early precursor to Maggie Sawyer over at DC (there I go again, relating it all to DC). DeWolff is a police captain appearing in a number of previous issues of Spider titles apparently. She was created by Peter David according to the forward in this collection, and though she hadn’t been around long, she was gaining fans. This story, obviously, kills her off. Apparently, that caused some furor at the time because of DeWolff’s popularity. Further angering her shocked fans, she doesn’t die at the end of the story in heroic battle or sacrificing herself to save another like so many characters in comics. She dies off-panel at the very beginning of the story. And it takes not just Spidey, but also Daredevil, to help unearth the true identity of her killer, at first only known as the enigmatic Sin-Eater. The story is a compelling one even if you’re not familiar with DeWolff, and features some nods to classic Spider-man history.

The Thing 33-36 (Marvel Comics, 1986) — These are the last four issues of Thing’s solo series, and in all honesty, I was a little disappointed in them, mostly because there is no final resolution. Obviously, Ben continues to be a character in the Marvel Universe. I didn’t expect them to kill him off, or even necessarily reunite him with the Fantastic Four, but this tale just leaves the reader hanging unless you want to go buy other books.

When last we checked in with Ben Grimm, he was wrestling in the newly formed Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation, and was only beginning to wonder where all of the extremely powerful brawlers in the UCWF had been coming from. Before this, all of the other wrestlers shown have been male. Issue #33 shows readers that there is, in fact, a female division, and the champion female UCWF wrestler wants to challenge her male counterpart, Thing. Along the way, we learn that Sharon, the woman Ben is currently interested in, is interested in joining the female UCWF and we again hear the mysterious name, the Power Broker, the individual responsible for powering up many of the competitors. Ben is concerned about Sharon’s plans and tries to stop her. Further complicating things is the fact that Sharon does not share Ben’s feelings.

Ben vows to finally check out this Power Broker person, but is side-tracked in Issue #34 by the appearance of the Sphinx, a villain from Marvel Two-In-One, and the re-appearance of the Puppet Master. Ben manages to make peace with the latter and defeats the former, but along the way, the dizzy spells he has been suffering from grow worse. These spells were first introduced a few issues before.

Issue #35 has Sharon going to the Power Broker, now revealed to be Dr. Malus, a villain I’m not familiar with. He augments volunteers for a price, but then manipulates them into doing his bidding. Unless of course, the aumentation process fails. Those poor, mutated souls are locked away in a dungeon. Sharon is successfully augmented, despite a change of heart on her part, and becomes the all-new Ms. Marvel, or at least a version of the character that I don’t remember seeing anywhere else, so I’m assuming hers was short-lived. She also meets a new friend, Army Lt. Michael Lynch, whose rank changes a couple times in the story, and the two instantly have chemistry. That added to the fact that Sharon has already gone to the Power Broker angers Ben, who storms the Power Broker’s lair only to find it abandoned. First, all of the other augmented wrestlers are against Ben and Sharon. But then, they all join forces to hunt Malus down. That is, until Ben starts to change.

The final issue has Sharon take Ben to the hospital, but of course, normal physicians have no clue what to do for the Thing. Ben continues to mutate painfully, a condition reported on in the news and attracting the attention of She-Hulk, Ben’s replacement in the FF. Shulkie travels to California to see what is up only to clash with the new Ms. Marvel, who thinks Ben wouldn’t want to see She-Hulk. Ben, who doesn’t want to see anybody, breaks out of the hospital and disappears. The end. A teaser on the last page says to check out West Coast Avengers #10 for more. Don’t have that book. If anybody knows for sure what happens after this to Thing, feel free to let me know. Most of the illustrations of Ben in this issue are vague, but a few seem to show some points, so I’m thinking maybe this is how he adopts the pointed rocky appearance he had for a while, but it seems like that happened in the 90s. A hint on the letters page also says he will soon be joining a team but doesn’t reveal what team. I wonder if this is when he does, ultimately, rejoin the FF, but again, I don’t know for sure. Little help?

Enter The Hunter

Mike Grell has done a lot of comic books work over the years. I haven’t researched him enough to provide a detailed listing of all his credits, but several people’s first exposure to him as an artist seems to be his early work illustrating the adventures of DC Comics’ Legion of Super-Heroes, the teenage titans from the far-flung future.

I never much got into the Legion back then, so its no surprise that my first exposure to Grell’s talents came much later during his work on the ground-breaking miniseries The Longbow Hunters, which updated Green Arrow for DC and served as the launch point for the emerald archer’s first self-titled ongoing series. Before that time, however, “Iron Mike” gained a following not only for illustrating, but also creating and writing the adventures of The Warlord, a series we discussed last time. In that earlier discussion, I also mentioned Grell leaving Warlord after a time.

At that time, he also left DC to join editor Mike Gold in creating First Comics. American Flagg and E-Man are some of the more popular titles released monthly by First Comics when they started. The character and title Grell created, wrote and illustrated was Jon Sable, Freelance, an adventurer-for-hire grounded in the real world, without any superpowers of any kind, who relied on his wits and skills to survive political intrigue “ripped from the headlines.” The main character was a combination of James Bond and Indiana Jones, a real-life “Batman” operating without a Halloween costume. And he was a hit in 1984.

My first exposure to this character was in a later relaunch of the title simply called Sable and written by Marv Wolfman. I enjoyed that incarnation for several months, occasionally picking up back issues of the re-launched series. I learned that Mike Grell had created the character when I happened across a trade paperback collecting the first six issues of the original series.

For a long time, that was all my collection included of Jon Sable. This is one of the titles for which I have recently filled in the holes, having purchased a copy of all issues of the original series, as well as the missing issues of the relaunch, initially title Sable, Return of the Hunter, and finally dropping to just Sable.

Through 1984, readers have been treated to an epic-length “origin” tale telling of Jon’s life and family in Africa, how he came to be a writer of children’s books in his alter ego of B.B. Flemm, how he came to know each of the small circle of people who know him, and followed him from the jungles of Vietnam in search of MIA/POWs to the Olympic games, opposing petty criminals, beautiful jewel thieves and corrupt officials in foreign countries.

Jon Sable, Freelance also gets a “thumbs up” recommendation as a series worth checking out.

And as a side note, through the house ads in the early First Comics, I learned about yet another Grell creator-owned series, Starslayer, a sci-fi tale originally launched for another company, but picked up by First Comics. I haven’t read any of this series yet, but I like The Warlord and Sable enough to purchase all of the issues from a mail-order back issue company a few months ago. That’s the “drawback” of this hobby -- each new discovery often leads to finding and wanting other new titles.

Happy collecting.

1984 Was More Than Just Big Brother

Ain’t technology wonderful? I’m not going to lie and blame the length of my most recent absence entirely on the computer not being available, but that is a valid excuse for a least a portion of the time. But I believe we are back in business now. Keep your fingers crossed.

In previous posts, I’ve talked about how I file my comic books as opposed to the more typical alpha-numeric system. I’ve also mentioned my Web site previously, which lists a number of comic books I’ve cut from my personal collection because of taste and/or duplication. Both of those topics came up in a recent discussion with a friend about what I do with my spare time.

A large portion of my spare time is devoted to my comic book collection. Currently I purchase the bulk of my new comics from a mail-order company which ships me my stash once a month. But, because of money and interest limitations, the new comics I get each month only take me a couple weeks to read and file away. Once that’s done each month, I move back to the beginnings of my collection.

I am currently using that time to go back through my collection from the beginning for a number of reasons. It’s a good way to doublecheck that there are no errors in the way I have the books ordered. I’m also pulling some additional books out for placement on the Web site. And over the last several months, I have purchased a number of back issues which complete runs of some titles or give me a chance to sample series I missed the first time around. So far, I’ve made it to fall 1984. At this point, not counting miscellaneous issues of titles I collected sporadically, there are four main titles I own complete runs of from that time. We’ve already covered my enjoyment of Marv Wolfman’s and George Perez’s revival of the New Teen Titans. Another of those titles is DC’s The Warlord.

The Warlord was created, written and illustrated by Mike Grell beginning with First Issue Special #8 in November 1975. The story centers on Air Force pilot Travis Morgan and the hidden world of Skartaris he accidentally finds inside Earth. The one-shot was popular enough that The Warlord was given his own book almost immediately -- February 1976. Grell stayed with the book until the early 1980s. Cary Burkett took over the writing and the art chores were handled by Dan Jurgens and Rich Buckler.

The title is basically a sword and sorcery tale with elements from science fiction and fantasy thrown in. I first heard of Mike Grell during his work in the 1990s on DC’s revival of Green Arrow. From there, I also followed his work in the late 90s for Image Comics with his creator-owned titles Shaman’s Tears and Bar Sinister, both short-lived but popular series, from my understanding.

The gritty-realism in these later titles -- stories that could almost happen in the real-world, not just ultra-violent as that term has come to mean today -- impressed me enough to seek out other Grell titles. While The Warlord is conciderably more fantastical than realistic, I still enjoyed the story presented in a trade paperback I picked up which collected the first year’s worth of Warlord tales. Other commentators I have read online dismiss Grell as doing work, especially on The Warlord, that others did first and better, most notably Edgar Rice Burroughs in his Martian tales. I will agree that the title isn’t exactly ground-breaking in its use of a man taken out of his usual environment and forced to excell in alien surroundings, but Grell does weave a riveting tale as Morgan explores the hidden world, battles wizrds and monsters, uncovers lost secrets and more.

When Grell left the title and new creators came onboard, the tone of the series changed, emphasizing the science fiction aspects more than others, but the stories were still quite good. The Warlord is a series I highly recommend, at least through 1984. Next time, we’ll look at another title I am discovering from that timeframe.

Meanwhile, back in the Comics Den ...

I said I wasn't going to talk about comic books all of the time, but it's been a while now, so here we go returning to geek-heaven:

The vast majority of collectors I have talked to store their collections (books bagged and boarded, of course) in boxes or on shelves alpha-numerically, i.e. Batman comes before Superman and Spider-Man and even Batman: Gotham Knights and Batman #100 comes about 100 issues before Batman #200 (if you're lucky enough to have comics from that far back). My system, while not unique, is a little bit different.

I look at the comic book characters I love and their adventures as if they were real people living real lives. No, I don't mean I have trouble distinguishing reality from make believe, but previous writers and philosophers have posited that if someone can imagine something, then somewhere in all of reality, that imagined thing can be real. Following this logic, I try to store my comics in "chronological order."

In a simple equation of a collector following one title only, this would not be very different from storing the books numerically. The continuity of most modern comics is that issue "B" takes place after issue "A." Even if issue "C" includes a flashback to something that happened before issue "B," the bulk of the book would still occur after issue "B." But then, let's say, issue "D" comes out and tells the origin of the title character. Issue "D" includes no flashbacks, there is no "current" framing sequence with a character thinking back. Well then, chronologically, issue "D" would come first in my collection, making the order of the books D, A, B, C.

Of course, most collectors don't follow just one book or one character. And sometimes characters interact in each other's stories. Batman may appear in a stand-alone issue of Superman during the same month that his own title is on part 3 of a 4-part storyline. Does that appearance of Batman in the Superman title really "happen" between scenes in that month's issue of Batman or did it "occur" either before or after the storyline in the Batman magazine? Answering questions like that and placing the comics in order accordingly is part of the enjoyment for me. Sometimes there will be clues within the story to indicate which event came first. Sometimes it's a completely arbitrary decision.

Yet, even the above example isn't really complex enough to show the myriad plotlines and stories one has to keep straight to achieve this goal. To see just how convoluted it could get, let's look at one of my favorite characters: Nightwing. For those not in the know, Nightwing is Dick Grayson, the original Robin, the Boy Wonder, all grown up. Nightwing currently has his own self-titled comic book published monthly. Nightwing is also a member of a current group called the Outsiders and often appears in that book. He is also a founding member of the Teen Titans. There is a new group of Titans right now, and Nightwing is not a current member, but he guest-stars in the book quite often as he was a founding member of the original group and the current group includes the current Robin, Nightwing's "little brother" in the Batman family. Let's add Batman into the mix; that includes titles such as Batman, Detective, Robin, Batgirl, Batman: Gotham Nights and Batman: Legends of the Bat, all of which could feature a guest appearance by Nightwing. The character is also friends with the Flash, another founding Teen Titans member. He has been in titles like JLA and Birds of Prey before. That's a dozen books this one character could be in during any given month. Odds are he wouldn't be all of them in one month, but let's say he was in only three; there are still the other characters in those three books who could each be in multiple books each month. It can be a challenge sometimes.

What the hell are 'kiddie cops'?

OK, while it's not officially a comment, my wife did ask that question (or one along those lines) after reading my most recent post. So, you get the answer, too.

"Kiddie cops" is one of those terms or phrases I use occasionally in my speech which comes from something I read, in this case a comic book. Specifically, The New Teen Titans annual 2 (1983), the comic which is directly responsible for my adult interest in comics.

Both my brother and I had read comics when we were much younger, but we didn't "collect" them. We'd get random issues of Spider-Man or Justice League of America or World's Finest Comics when Mom let us buy them from the grocery store, but they'd never last long enough to be collected. But in 1983, while on a youth group trip with friends, I spotted this comic book in the spinner rack convenience stores all used to have. To be honest, I didn't recognize most of the characters on the cover, but I was pretty sure the "floating head" on the lower right was Robin, the Boy Wonder. I picked up the issue and fell in love with the storytelling and intrigue, not to mention those stunning George Perez illustrations.

The story in the comic picks up in the middle of an investigation by the New Teen Titans (Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Changeling, Starfire, Cyborg, Raven and Terra) and Manhattan district attorney Adrian Chase. The Titans believe that Chase and his family have just been killed by the organized crime family they are pursuing. In an audiotape left by Chase for the Titans, he refers to them as "kiddie cops." I thought it was clever at the time, and the phrase became part of my vocabulary.

This issue has much more to offer those interested in comics. Chase is, in fact, not dead and goes on to become the costuned vigilante ... Vigilante. Many others would use this moniker afterwards, but Adrian Chase was the first. This issue also features an appearance by a mysterious power broker for heroes and villains named the Monitor, a shadowy figure seen in various DC titles throughout the year. He would soon be revealed as an extra-terrestrial "monitoring" and testing various meta-humans for the upcoming blockbuster Crisis on Infinite Earths series. And at one point in the story, the Monitor is called upon to provide several assassins-for-hire to slay the Titans on behalf of that nasty organized crime family. Most of the villains make their one and only appearance in this issue, but one in particular, the Asian-American assassin Cheshire, would go on to be a major presence in the DC Universe.

Probably, I won't talk about comics every time I post, but this time I did, so it makes a nice transition into another quick topic. In a previous post, I had mentioned comics to sell which I had listed on a site called iOffer. That worked pretty well for a while, but I have so many comics to sell, I ended up creating my own site listing all of them. If you happened to find your way here and are interested, check out the site at http://www.angelfire.com/comics/tsgnightwing

And so long for now, kiddie cops.