T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1, Nov. 1965. Cover by Wally Wood. © Respective Copyright Holders. Click on the images in this post to see them larger on your screen! I can’t tell you exactly when I learned to read, but I know that comic books hastened that skill very early on. By the age of six I... Continue Reading →
Tales from My Spinner Rack LIVE! at WonderCon Sunday, March 26 at 1:00 PM in Room 213CD Join me at WonderCon 2023 for my first-ever solo panel devoted to my weekly blog feature, “Tales from My Spinner Rack!” Badges for WonderCon 2023 at the Anaheim Convention Center are still available, but hurry ... this con... Continue Reading →
The Spirit #1. Art by Will Eisner. Harvey Comics, 1966. TM & © Will Eisner Studios, Inc. Click on the images in this post to see them larger on your screen! The superhero revival of the 1960s—also known as the Silver Age of Comics—had its not-so-secret origin in the late 1950s when DC Comics brought... Continue Reading →
Tales from My Spinner Rack LIVE! at WonderCon Sunday, March 26 at 1:00 PM in Room 213CD Join me at WonderCon 2023 for my first-ever solo panel devoted to my weekly blog feature, “Tales from My Spinner Rack!” Yep … I’m taking my blog and hitting the road, at least to Anaheim and WonderCon, my... Continue Reading →
Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1, June 1968. Cover by Steranko. TM & © MARVEL. Click on the images in this post to see them larger on your screen! One of my fondest memories of buying comics as a kid was walking into Moser’s newsstand in downtown Tamaqua in 1968 and finding Nick Fury, Agent... Continue Reading →
No, I won’t just be loitering outside in Balboa Park … I will actually be talking and running a PowerPoint presentation on Comic-Con’s Souvenir Book covers from 1970 through 2022. I’ll be joining moderator Jackie Estrada and artists Bill Morrison and William Stout (both are tied with Jim Lee for illustrating the most covers, with... Continue Reading →
WHEW! February blew by with a series of storms and not as much reading as I'd like, but at least one of the book-books (as opposed to graphic novels I read) was a really dense 500-pager. Here's what I read in this stormy, wintery month ... Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz I watched the Masterpiece... Continue Reading →
Batman #147, May 1962. Cover by “Bob Kane” (Sheldon Moldoff) TM & © DC. Click on the images in this post to see them larger on your screen! Batman was in a scary place in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Both his books, Batman and Detective Comics, had reduced the Dark Knight from a... Continue Reading →
Fantastic Four Annual #1, July 1963. Cover by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers. TM & © MARVEL. Click on the images in this post to see them larger on your screen! I cannot begin to tell you how excited 8-year-old me was to find out there was a Fantastic Four Annual coming out in the... Continue Reading →
For episode 007 of Tales from My Spinner Rack, there’s only one comic book to fit the bill … featuring Bond, James Bond. Showcase #43, March 1963. James Bond TM & © EON Productions Limited and Danjaq LLC Click on the images in this post to see them larger on your screen! Who would have... Continue Reading →
Flash Gordon #1, September 1966, first King Comics issue. Art by Al Williamson. TM & © King Features Syndicate. Click on the images in this post to see them larger on your screen! That cover of Flash Gordon #1 heralded a couple of firsts when it premiered in the summer of 1966 (cover-dated September). It... Continue Reading →
Remember when 2023 sounded so far in the future we’d all be flying around in jetpacks and reading would be automatically inserted in your brain, no page-turning necessary? Well, here we are and I’m still buying books. I’ve upped my GoodReads Challenge to 75 books this year, after reading 76 in 2022 (with an original... Continue Reading →
Superman #146, July 1961. Art by Curt Swan and Stan Kaye. TM & © DC. Click on the images in this post to see them larger on your screen! You know the drill: Strange visitor from another planet, baby Kal-El is launched in an experimental rocket to Earth by his parents Jor-El and Lara (no-El)... Continue Reading →
“And lo, there shall come a time, when the old order shall changeth …” as Stan Lee might have put it in an issue of Thor or The Avengers … Under Comic-Con’s management, WonderCon lasted from 2003 through 2011 at Moscone Center in San Francisco. During that time, attendance rose steadily, with 2005—to me at... Continue Reading →
Captain Atom #84, January 1967. Cover by Steve Ditko. TM & © DC. Click on the images in this post to see them larger on your screen! “Way back when … in ’67 …” as Steely Dan once sang … if I had returned home from one of my twice-weekly trips to the newsstand in... Continue Reading →
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