Still Only 25¢: Daredevil #131

Disclaimer: Part of an on-going series of blog posts about comic-books, the mid-70's and a wee boy named Earl. Or not really. You know my name isn't really Earl, right? - Earl

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via Cover Browser

Daredevil was such an interesting hero to me when I was a young boy.  Besides his utterly ridiculous costume, of course.  But seeing as he is one of Marvel's versions of Batman (there are others), I guess it kinda makes sense that he would dress as a red devil, horns and all.  To scare the criminals of Hell's Kitchen, ya see.  Just like Batman strikes primordial fear in the heart of Gotham City's underworld by dressing like a bat.  Eh...I still think it's a pretty stupid costume.

But, as I said, he was still an interesting hero to me.  As a child, Matt Murdock was blinded by radioactive gunk that fell from a truck.  It's always something radioactive, isn't it?  Anyway, his remaining senses are heightened to a point where they are beyond the normal limits of we humans.  Hearing, touch and a type of radar echolocation.  And with these powers comes preternatural strength, agility and accuracy.  A little martial training and...BAM!  He's a superhero.  But those strengths also have their inherent weaknesses as he has become extra sensitive to loud noises, odors and other physical experiences.  So a dark hero with flaws.  Yeah, that was pretty cool to a young Earl.

Daredevil #131 in March of 1976 introduced audiences to what would become one of Daredevil's greatest arch-enemies in Bullseye.  Bullseye was a psychotic killer who's main "talent" was his extraordinary aim.  Combined with peak physical training, it allowed him to use virtually any item as an instrument of death.  Even an ordinary playing card.  He became the Omega to Daredevil's Alpha.  A complete moral opposite.  Someone that Matt Murdock could have become with his heightened abilities if he had no scruples or ethical need to help the helpless.  Several years after his introduction, he would become one of the central figures in one of the best-written comic-book storylines of all time.  A storyline that was bastardized in that awful Ben Affleck movie from a few years back.  Ugh.

I didn't keep any of the comic-books I had when I was a kid.  They were either thrown out or given away as Middle School turned into High School.  But when I started reading and collecting again in my mid-20's, Daredevil #131 was one of the first back issues I hunted down.  I went through a "first appearance" phase soon afterward, even finding the first (and only) appearance of another Marvel assassin named Bullseye in Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #15, originally published in November of 1969.  But that wasn't the same character.  He was just a guy with a gun in a silly suit.

And he didn't offer the flip-side perspective to Daredevil that the real (hehe) Bullseye offered.  And Marvel, especially during the Silver Age and into the 1970's, loved their little morality plays.  So did their fans. 

I certainly did.

Still Only 25¢: Interlude

Disclaimer: Part of an on-going series of blog posts about comic-books, the mid-70's and a wee boy named Earl. Or not really. You know my name isn't really Earl, right? - Earl

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A big part of this series of blog posts, of course, has been the the idea of looking back and re-living a simpler time in our lives.  We've all thought about it. We all miss it.  That wonderful feeling of having everything in your life taken care of you by someone.  No responsibilities besides doing a half-ass job at your school work or doing a half-ass job at whatever chores your folks might have assigned to you.  What were they gonna do?  Fire you?  That concept didn't exist in our 8-year-old minds.

Certainly comic-books belong to that child mind we all have.  Reading one or thinking about one brings us right back to...well, if they weren't happier times they were certainly, um, easier.  Comic-books, board games, hide and seek, riding your bike, having a catch...all of these things bring us back to our childhood years.  Well, for those of us who had happy and non-traumatic experiences as children.

And I think that's important for us to do every once in a while.  It's probably unhealthy to spend all of our days and nights dreaming about a time that didn't involve paying bills or supporting a family, but I don't see the harm in doing it every once in a while.  Especially if you can find a way to use those memories to make your current situation more acceptable.

So looking back is fine.  As long as it only briefly interrupts you from looking ahead and moving forward. 

Still Only 25¢: The Invaders #6

Disclaimer: Part of an on-going series of blog posts about comic-books, the mid-70's and a wee boy named Earl. Or not really. You know my name isn't really Earl, right? - Earl

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Right around the time I started reading comic-books as a child, Marvel realized that they could double-up or triple-up on the titles they were producing starring some of their more popular characters.  That was the idea behind Marvel Two-In-One or Marvel Team-Ups.  Another idea they had was to take some of their popular characters that were introduced in the Golden Age of Comic-Books and create new stories for them set during the WWII era.  That was the idea behind The Invaders, the greatest superheroes of World War Two!

The core team, Captain America, Namor the Sub-Mariner and The Human Torch, were all characters introduced back in the 1940's.  And they had plenty of experience fighting against Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.  All the Axis, in fact.  Some of the greatest propaganda that was produced during the war came from some of those comic-books.  The very fist issue of Captain America, published almost a year before the United States joined the war effort, depicted Cap punching Hitler right in the kisser.  And it was a trend that continued with the Marvel/Timely publications for the next half-decade.  Readers loved to see their heroes kick some Nazi or Japanese ass on full-color magazine pulp.

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The Invaders #6, and pretty much the entire run through the mid-to-late-70's, are absolutely burned into my memory.  When I was browsing through Cover Browser (the reference site I use for the images for this post series) the other day and saw some of these covers, well...it brought me right back to a place and time when things were simpler.  Especially me.  That was probably the non-monetary idea behind the title anyway.  Although most folks consider comic-books to be an outlet for children or young teens, the publishers often targeted older readers and collectors.  And putting some of the more popular current characters into a setting that some older readers remembered from their own early years was one way to do that.  It was also a way for Marvel to either bring back and ret-con characters that hadn't seen the light of day for decades, or to create new heroes or villains that wouldn't make sense in the Nixon/Ford/Carter era, but would fit right in fighting against the Nazis.

The Liberty Legion, actually introduced in The Invaders #5, were one of the examples of the former.  Timely Comics characters from the 1940's that were re-introduced, ret-conned and assembled into a new super-group.  With characters like Whizzer (not for peeing), Miss America, The Patriot and Jack Frost.  All characters with back-stories and abilities that mirrored other heroes that were being published at the time, or they were predecessor for characters that Marvel would develop during the Silver Age in the 1960's.  Captain America's sidekick, Bucky, was also a a member of this super-team.  Actually the leader of the team, as he was the one to assemble the squad.

But the reason why this particular book stays with me is a character called Blue Diamond who had, er, diamond-hard impenetrable skin and superhuman strength.  Thanks to a, er. blue diamond that he found on an expedition to Antarctica whose shards were embedded into his skin when his ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat.  Back around 1990, when I began to read and collect comic-books once again, I had the hardest time trying to remember which book featured this character that I remembered so vividly.  I knew his back-story.  I knew his powers.  I knew that it somehow involved World War II.  But I just couldn't find those old issues that I remembered and loved so much.

And it was all because I had somehow combined his back-story and abilities with another character from the Liberty Legion...Jack Frost.  Not that he would turn to solid ice, but I thought he turned into a solid diamond at will.  And whenever I tried to explain it to my fellow comic-book geeks, I started with "this WWII hero who was made of diamonds!".  Some even pointed me toward The Invaders and the Liberty Legion, but when they showed me what Blue Diamond looked like I was positive that they were wrong and I was thinking of someone else.

Turns out that I wasn't.  It's just that my pre-teen memory combined different characters from the same book into one mish-mash of the two.  Or so it would seem.  But here's the thing...I'm not 100% sure that I did combine the two characters.  A part of my brain STILL thinks that there was a character like the one I remember.  And I even think that I finally found that character back when the Internet came around.  And it wasn't a recurring character.  Just someone who appeared in one or two issues of something.  Maybe as a "comic-within-a-comic" or something.  Or in an ad that appeared in the 70's in a comic-book.  THAT sounds about right.  (UPDATE: Something like this)

But now I can't find it again.

And it's killing me.

Still Only 25¢: Captain America #193

Disclaimer: Part of an on-going series of blog posts about comic-books, the mid-70's and a wee boy named Earl. Or not really. You know my name isn't really Earl, right? - Earl

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The 70's were are weird time for Captain America. He had to deal with the supposed death of his sidekick, Bucky. He fought against our own government in Marvel's version of Watergate. He took on another young man as a sidekick (Rick Jones), but hesitated to let him don the Bucky uniform. He rejected the Captain America persona for a little while...becoming Nomad before ultimately deciding that America was worth fighting for. And he spent most of the decade in a partnership with a man whose only apparent super-power was a psychic link with a bird.

The Falcon was the first African-American superhero in mainstream comics. As a black superhero, he was preceded by the Black Panther by a few years, but the man behind the mask for that character was actually from a fictional country in Africa. Sam "Snap" Wilson was the very first black superhero from the United States. And his (controversially ret-conned) origins were straight out of that particular period's depiction of African-Americans. He was born in Harlem (of course), the son of a minister (naturally), a former social worker (solid!) and a former criminal, gang member and...pimp (there it is!). His "super-power", if you could call it that, is an extremely close and paranormal bond with his bird friend; a falcon named Redwing. He wasn't super-strong nor could he fly. He just was really good friends with a bird. Sure, his abilities later grew so that he could establish psychic links with any bird or any number of birds at the same time, but in the 1970's all he could do was be really good friends with this one bird. And wear a snazzy outfit.

OK, so Cap trained him in martial arts and gymnastics (hehe), but really...this is about the lamest super-power ever invented. Another clear case of the Man keeping a proud black man down.

I don't have any lasting particular memories about this issue of Captain America. I know that it was the first time that Jack Kirby returned to the series as the main artist since his Silver Age work on the character in the 1960's. It was a nice throwback touch, and Kirby tried to get Cap into his iconic fist/shield pose as often as he could. With the Falcon lurking somewhere in the background, of course. But as for what's inside? Nah..I don't really recall.

I do have one distinct memory of Cap and the Falcon from this time period though. Like the geeky kid that I was, I had several cheesy comic-book related t-shirts. One of them was a crusty yellow thing with a terrible silk screening of the good Captain and his buddy. And it clearly said "Captain America and the Falcon" right above the picture of the two heroes. But, for some reason, there was a family friend of ours who couldn't wrap her brain around which one was which. Even though the Falcon was dressed in a bird costume and Captain America looked...well, like Captain America!

So every time she saw me for around a year or so after I first wore the shirt, she would tuck her hands into her armpits, mimicking a flying bird and she would yell "Captain America....CAW, CAW!!!" I never quite understood why she did that, and it took me a long time to finally ask her exactly why she did. She told me that it was because of that dumb shirt I wore where Captain America wore an even dumber bird costume. So she saw the words "Captain America" and the guy dressed like the bird, and somehow that's all that got processed in her teen-aged brain. I told her she was confusing the Falcon's costume with the star-spangled hero's name, yet she insisted that it was just one guy on the shirt...and he was dressed like a fucking bird.

The butt of a misinformed joke from a family friend. Probably serves me right for wearing a truly awful t-shirt like that.

Still Only 25¢: The Incredible Hulk #197

Disclaimer: Part of an on-going series of blog posts about comic-books, the mid-70's and a wee boy named Earl. Or not really. You know my name isn't really Earl, right? - Earl

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click here

I was a big fan of the cover of this particular issue of The Incredible Hulk when I was a kid, and I really didn't know exactly why at the time. I just liked it a lot. It looked different than the rest of the Hulk comic-books that I had been reading at the time. He looked darker, more savage (if you can believe that!) than he normally looked. Maybe it was because he wasn't day-glo green. Maybe it was that flat-top look he's rocking with the bangs. The mid-70's hulk generally had a wilder, shaggy-haired image. As drawn by Gil Kane or Sal Buscema or whomever was drawing him at the time. This Hulk looked more primal. More like how he originally looked when he was introduced in the 1960's. Not that I was aware of that. I was 10, people. All I knew of the '60's could have fit on the head of a pin. But I must have seen some reprints or something. Marvel in the 1970's was filled with reprints from the previous decade.

But the real reason why I liked this cover so much is the artist. Bernie Wrightson. And I happen to think that Bernie Wrightson is one of the most talented artists to ever work in the comic-book industry. Just my humble opinion. Of course, I didn't know that it was Bernie Wrightson back then. All I knew, like I said, is that I dug it. It was years later when looking through a book of Wrightson's art that I realized it was he who had drawn this particular cover.

The fact that Wrightson had done this issue is interesting for another reason entirely. One of Wrightson's most famous works from the early 1970's was over at DC in House of Secrets #92. The first appearance of Swamp Thing. He also did the covers and interiors to the first volume of Swamp Thing stand-alone comic-books that were published soon afterward. Well, the first ten issues of that set anyway. And they were all fantastic works of art.

What's interesting here is that Wrightson is drawing Marvel's version of another swamp creature, Man-Thing. Man-Thing actually pre-dates Swamp Thing by a couple of months. And Len Wein was involved in both characters, either directly (in the case of Swampy) or indirectly (in the case of Man-Thing). Wein's roommate around that time was Gerry Conway, and he was one of the original creators of Man'Thing. Wein would be directly involved in Man-Thing later on in between issues of Swamp-Thing. Weird stuff. There was talk of lawsuits over the similarities of the characters, but it was never really pursued. They probably weren't popular enough at the time to justify the legal action. I dunno.

But it is pretty cool to see Wrightson's work on Man-Thing up there. His use of muted colors, shadows and extraordinary detail was a gift to fans of the horror genre. He did a lot of work around this time with Warren Publishing who had a line of horror specific comic-books. He later began a series of collaborations with Stephen King that included Creepshow, Cycle of the Werewolf, the reprint of The Stand and some of the stuff in the Dark Tower series.

I don't exactly remember where and when it was that I first came across this issue. And, honestly, I don't remember much from the inside of the book at all.


But that cover...WOW!

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Note: Remember to play the Badgerdaddy Trivia Challenge every day. Whoever knows FEAR burns at the touch of...the Man-Thingc.

Still Only 25¢: Marvel Team Up #46

Disclaimer: Part of an on-going series of blog posts about comic-books, the mid-70's and a wee boy named Earl. Or not really. You know my name isn't really Earl, right? - Earl

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If I had to pick a favorite comic-book title from my youth, well...I probably wouldn't be able to do it.  There were just so many that I enjoyed every month.  But I would have to include Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-In-One in the conversation.  The original run of Marvel Team-Up started in 1972 and ran for 150 issues until 1985.  It generally featured Spider-Man as the lead character teamed up (get it?) with another Marvel character or several of them.  There were a handful of issues that had The Human Torch and/or The Hulk as the lead character, but it was mostly Spidey and a friend or three.  Marvel Two-In-One was essentially the same book, but with the The Thing as the lead character, often pairing with more obscure characters as the series progressed.  It was published for 100 issues (such great round numbers, right?) between 1974 and 1983.  They even had at least one crossover during their runs, a couple of issues that I will most likely write about in a future installment of this series.  Exciting, huh?

I loved crossovers between books when I was a kid.  When Man-Thing would appear in an issue of The Incredible Hulk or when Luke Cage would fill in as a member of The Fantastic Four.  And these two titles had a crossover like that in every single issue!  I loved that.  And the two titles also presented an opportunity to discover characters I had previously known nothing about.  Like Deathlok, the Demolisher. 

Deathlok was a fairly new hero or anti-hero in 1976 when Marvel Team-Up #46 hit the stands.  He had his own run in Astonishing Tales starting in 1974, but it was canceled shortly after his team up with Spidey in this issue.  I guess Marvel used Spider-Man's popularity to try to boost sales in some of their other titles. A bit of cross-promotion if you will.  They even used the word "Astonishing" on the cover, in case you chose to connect the dots.  It didn't work in this case.

The thing that was interesting about this original incarnation of the character (there would be others) is that most of his stories took place in a post-apocalyptic dystopian future.  Luther Manning was an American soldier living in the Marvel Universe "present" time, but he is killed in action and he wakes up in the future reanimated as a cyborg.  Freaky, right?

I don't exactly remember why or how Spider-Man got transported to this future time-line, but that was the crux of this issue.  And, as the cover shows, he initially sees Deathlok as an enemy (or Deathlok sees him as an enemy) before teaming up with him to defeat a band of future mutant/things.  And then Spidey goes back to his own timeline somehow, leaving Deathlok behind to his own fate.  I'm SURE it was completely plausible, though. /sarcasm

What I do remember, however, was where and when I read this issue.  OK, it probably wasn't the first time that I read it.  I often re-read many of the comic-books I had as a kid.  Often many, many, many times over.  But one of the times I read this was when I went with my father to a nursery/garden center.  Dad was working on some project in the yard.  I don't remember what he needed, but it was nearing closing time and he asked if I wanted to take a ride with him.

I was always down to hang with my dad for a little while.  I come from a big family, so we didn't get to hang out on a one-on-one situation very often.  I wasn't going to go into the store with him (wandering around a garden center wasn't appealing to me as a 9 year-old...it still isn't), so I grabbed this issue from my stash and away we went.  I think we got there about 15 minutes before they closed for the day, and we parked out back in an almost completely empty lot.

Can you imagine leaving your 9 year-old in the car in an empty parking lot at night while you went shopping?  Probably not, but this was 1976 and it was a fairly common practice in those less-complicated times.  For my family, at least.  And, like I said, I come from a big family, so even 10 minutes of alone time while one of the folks ran an errand was a precious commodity.

The setting was perfect for reading this particular issue.  The back lot of the garden center looked like something out of post-apocalyptic future.  Pallets of fertilizer bags by the back door, a large garbage bin that had been spray-painted with graffiti, an old delivery truck parked way in the corner that looked like it may have been abandoned.  Plus it was dark out so I had to read the issue from the dim light of the one overhead flickering lamp post in the parking lot.  Added a lot of nuance to the issue, if you will. 

They say that the sense of smell is a powerful trigger for one's memory.  It also works the other way around.  Sometimes a certain memory will bring a certain scent to mind.  When I see this cover, I can almost smell those bags of fertilizer piled by the back door of the garden center.  It's a palpable thing.  And it brings me right back.

I also think of my father and the times we had together.  Even it was just keeping him company on a ride to the store for a little while.

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Note: Remember to play the Badgerdaddy Trivia Challenge every day. Deathlok also had a laser gun.  Cool.

Still Only 25¢: Iron Man #85

Disclaimer: Part of an on-going (okay this is the first one) series of blog posts about comic-books, the mid-70's and a wee boy named Earl. Or not really. You know my name isn't really Earl, right? - Earl

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Iron Man #85 hit the stores in early 1976. The cover said April 1976, but I think they usually were published a month or two early. So it was probably February or so. It was during that first six months of 1976 that Marvel prepared us all for the price hike that was coming later in the year. Hence the "Still Only 25¢" price you see there on the upper left. Hard to believe that there was a time in my life that I could walk into the candy store (that's where I bought my comic-books) and walk away with four comic-books for a dollar. There may be someone reading this who remembers when they were even cheaper. 10 cents or 12 cents through most of the 1960's. Nowadays comic-books are printed on glossy premium paper and usually carry a price-tag of $2.99 or more. That's a shame. I guess that the price is fair, but it still seems like kids should be able to walk into a candy store with a few quarters and walk out with a handful of fantasy.

Anyway, I had read and enjoyed comic-books for a few years before Iron Man #85. I probably in late 1973 or early 1974. Somewhere around there. But until this particular issue, I had never heard of anyone "collecting" comic-books. That is, until I made a new friend at school who happened to spy this issue peeking out from inside a notebook or binder I was carrying.

He hadn't picked it up yet, and it was the second part and conclusion of a story that had started in the previous issue. Tony Stark's good buddy, Happy Hogan, had mutated into The Freak after trying an experimental cobalt ray machine to cure his illness. Whatever that was. He would revert to his normal self after a while, but any contact with cobalt would set him off again. Like a walking bomb. No...I don't remember if he was actually going to explode, but that's what they called him. A walking bomb.

So my new friend asked if he could read it quickly and asked me if I had read the previous issue. At the time, I was buying comic-books in a willy-nilly fashion. I didn't really follow any title religiously, so it was common for me to pick up an Iron Man when I hadn't read it in a few months because I was busy reading The Hulk or The X-Men or Thor or Daredevil or Luke Cage, Power Man. I hadn't read the previous issue. So he invited me over to his house after school to check it out. Cool. I didn't really know anyone else who liked comic-books at that time, and he seemed harmless.

I couldn't believe the boxes and boxes of comic-books this kid had when I got there. Holy crap! I can't really recall now, but I know he had some stuff going all the way back to the 40's, 50's and 60's. Stuff his father had "collected" and handed down to him. Thinking about it now, that's some trusting man right there. Giving your valued comic-book collection to a nine-year-old. Then again, comic-books weren't anywhere near as valuable back then as they have become since.

He also had this book published by Marvel called Origins or something like that. It was a real book about comic-books. I had never seen anything like that before. Told the tale of every single character in the Marvel Universe from way back in the Golden Age up until that time. I had no idea that there was so much background involved. The Silver Surfer was considered a villain when he first appeared? The Hulk was originally gray? The Human Torch was an android? What the hell?

But I was hooked. I didn't actually become a "collector" until I was an adult. A couple of years after I graduated from college and I had some spending money in my pocket. But I did try to follow a few titles a little more closely back then. Iron Man was one of them. In the next year he would do battle with villains like The Blizzard (guess what his power was?), The Blood Brothers, The Controller, the mysterious Melter (he melted things...think about it), a peg-legged pirate named Kraken and Ultimo...just to name a few. The covers were always awesome, including a few by the King...Jack Kirby. Same theme over and over again, though. The villains always seemed to have the upper hand on him, but he usually came through unscathed.

And since he was just a guy in a metal suit there was something comforting and, um, realistic about it all. Yeah...I know. "Realistic" probably isn't the right word to use there. Especially when he was fighting against a guy who became super-strong and invulnerable by his use of a "cobalt ray machine", but you know what I mean...right?

Within a year my family moved to another town. One that was a lot safer than where we had been living, but it also had a lot less personality. Not a single candy store in town that sold comic-books. Sure, I could still get them at the deli or the the supermarket or that weird hobby shop in the mall, but it wasn't the same. The secret formula of candy and comic-books was lost forever. I held on for a little while, but I was pretty much done with the world of superheroes by the time I had turned 12.

For about a decade, at least.

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Note: Remember to play the Badgerdaddy Trivia Challenge every day. Tony Stark will make you feel, he's a cool exec with a heart of steel...

Cardboard Gods

I just finished reading the most interesting book. Well, it was interesting to me because it was one of those things that you read sometimes that feels like it was written by you. And by "you" I mean "me".

Cardboard Gods by Josh Wilker refers to the author's baseball heroes found on trading cards in plastic packs with a stick of gum, but it's really about growing up in the 1970's and beyond. The baseball cards themselves, although extremely important to the author, are a device. Something to pull the narrative along. And it's a fascinating tale, told by someone growing up around the same time as yours truly.

The book grew out of the Cardboard Gods website that Mr. Wilker has been running for a while now.  I believe most of the chapters were blog entries at some point and the book was arranged in chronological order afterward, but I can't be entirely sure.  There is definitely some new stuff in there.

I didn't collect baseball cards when I was a kid.  I was familiar with them through friends and some cousins, but I was more into comic-books.  But I didn't really collect those either.  I didn't bag them with cardboard backing, no sir.  I read them.  Sometimes I rolled them up and stuck them in my back pocket before riding my bike to a friend's house.  The comic-books from my childhood were dog-eared, tattered, wonderful things. 

I didn't keep any of them.  When I grew to an age when superheroes were no longer part of my life, I threw them away.  Or gave them away.  It wasn't until many years later that I regretted both the handling of those treasures and the eventual disposal of them.  I used to go to comic-book conventions or stores, looking through back issue bins and I would get so angry when I ran across something that I owned and mistreated as a child.   Maybe a Giant-Size X-Men #1 or the incredible Marvel/DC crossover Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man (the Battle of the Century!).

But now that I look back, I think I enjoyed them as a child should enjoy comic-books.  I remember nights when I would grab an old issue of The Fantastic Four or Iron Man or Marvel Team-Up, and I would fall asleep while re-living the heroic acts contained within.  Sometimes I fell asleep clutching the fragile issue in my hands, awaking the next day to see it a little worse for wear with no regrets.  To me, that's what comic-books were all about as a child.

Josh Wilker knew that same magic.  Instead of superheroes in comic-books, his gods were real.  Captured for a brief moment in a goofy pose on a trading card.

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Note: Remember to play the Badgerdaddy Trivia Challenge every day. Hey...I've got an idea.

The Boys

It's been a long time since I've turned in my comic-book geek street cred badge. I stopped reading/collecting close to 15 years ago now. It was an all-consuming passion for me back in the day. And I just gave it up, cold turkey. Much to the chagrin of my hetero life partner. But I've always been like that with my hobbies. Hot and cold.

I try to keep up with some of the comic-book storylines via the web. On the down low, ya know. Just because...just for scuz. But about a month ago, I made my very first comic-book related purchase in a long, long while. A collected edition of the first six issues of The Boys, by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson.

It's about a group of super-powered operatives working for the CIA who, urm, handle certain problems with a world in which sometimes superheroes need to be put down. And, as you would expect from Garth Ennis, it's super-violent and nasty in brilliant ways. The artwork by Robertson is pretty wonderful too. Even Gia loved it. I'm definitely going to do some catch-up work on the series, as most of it has been reprinted in collections as they do these days in the biz.

And now there is word that Adam McKay of Anchorman, Step-Brothers and Talladega Nights fame may be helming a film adaptation of the series. I'm down with that. As long as he doesn't recruit Will Ferrel to play Butcher. Yikes!

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Note: Remember to play the Badgerdaddy Trivia Challenge every day. Will Ferrell will ruin this film.

Slyde vs. Moriarty: prologue

Here it is. The beginning/prologue for the first of three tales about our good friend Slyde and his encounter with someone we only know as "Moriarty". First...some salient, if rather boring, details:

For those of you who don't know, Slyde and I are comic-book geeks. Well, I try to say that I was a comic-book geek as I stopped collecting about 12 years ago, but one can really never escape from one's true self - as the saying goes. So right after college (around 1989, Earl fans) I had my first real job and, for the first time in my life, excess cash flow. I was up in Boston visiting a college buddy. When we get to his house, I see that he has comic-books everywhere.

I find out he has been collecting since he was a kid, and now that he had some extra coin in his pocket, he has started again. And lo and behold, comic-books had grown up since I was a kid. Thanks, mostly, to the Brits in the genre...Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, etc...

I was hooked.

I started out small. Going to my local shop once a week to pick up a few titles and rifle through the back-issues bin. Then I started pre-ordering books from my shop. First a handful, then up to as many as 25 or 30 a month. It was addicting. I would pick up my books on Friday and spend my downtime during the next week reading and bagging my goodies. Good times!

Then I met Slyde, and we kinda took it to the next level. He was only buying a choice few books every month, but he had been collecting since he was a kid. I helped change all that by introducing him to some independent and DC titles (Slyde was mostly a Marvel guy). Soon his monthly pre-orders were rivaling mine.

We would also spend Saturday or Sunday afternoons going to different comic-book shops, going through their back issues, trying to fill out our wish-lists. And comic-book conventions, ahhh....comic-book conventions. We would pack up our favorite books in hopes that our favorite writers/artists could sign them. Total loser fan-boys! Well, we tried to tell ourselves that we weren't but please refer to the second paragraph above.

We certainly didn't look like fan-boys. We didn't dress in Spidey or Dark Knight t-shirts. Well, Slyde had a couple of Dead World shirts...but they were kinda cool. For that crowd, at least. Honestly, we spent just as much time making fun of the crowd as we did looking for back issues of Iron Fist. Really!

This went on for a few years. Then around 1994, I stopped collecting. Cold turkey. I don't really have a reason for it, I just decided that I had had enough. This pissed Slyde off to no end. I ramped up his comic-book buying by a shitload, then I left him out there on his own. Oh, I still stop in to the shop every year or two when something cool comes out. Frank Miller did a second Dark Knight story in prestige format a few years back...had to have that. Last year Joss Whedon wrote a Firefly/Serenity short series that I needed to own. But mostly, I stay away.

Slyde has cut way back too. I think he only gets 1 or 2 books a month, unless something special comes out (World War Hulk), but nowhere near what he used to buy.

But it was during those peak 4 or 5 years that our story takes place. Going to various shops, conventions and weekend shows at VFW halls. Pizza and beers for lunch, lunatic comic-book fans and a lot of money spent on pictures drawn on paper.


Next: Peter David, Port Jefferson and our introduction to Moriarty and his evil sidekick!

Still Only 25¢ - archive

Find your favorite "Still Only 25¢" blog posts here - Earl

Iron Man #85

Marvel Team-Up #46

Incredible Hulk #197

Captain America #193

Invaders #6 

Interlude