Amazing Adventures with Marvel Unlimited

I really do think the best way to enjoy reading comics is in the original form, the monthly comic book issue. To me that outweighs the fanciest hardcovers, even the Marvel Omnibus editions, for many reasons: easy to hold in your hands, easier to lift by far (some of them are over 5-6 pounds), and much easier to see double page spreads. However, that being said, at this point in my life continuing to buy hard copies of comics is almost impossible, running out of storage space in the garage. Even worse, lacking the morale to go out to the garage and find the comics I want to re-read!  With my bookshelves full inside the house and the long boxes out of rack space outside the house, I promised my wife I would go digital and try to save some space and money, too.

I've been using Marvel Unlimited for the past few months and fallen in love with it. One reason I was drawn to this was certainly the price: $69 for an annual membership, that is less than $6 a month. Read 2 comics priced $3.99 and it is worth it, but I read quite a lot on it.

There is one big drawback to MU, which is the comics released on it are six months old. Star Wars #7 by Jason Aaron and Simone Bianchi came out in summer/fall 2015, but just appeared recently. New batches of comics appear on Mondays, but they are not only comics from 6 months ago, they could also be comics just getting digitized for the first time. For example, last week Marvel digitized the first half dozen issues of Captain Britain magazine from the 1980s, by Jamie Delano and Alan Davis. I had those and foolishly got rid of them, it was nice to re-read that again.

I am receiving my final box of real comics next week, probably the last I will have for a while, which will contain Secret Wars #9 plus the latest issues of Star Wars and Darth Vader. So it will take me a while to catch up on this six month delay thing for the Star Wars universe titles. But I truly don't mind as using the MU app has allowed me to discover a lot of things I had skipped over the past few years.

Silver Surfer by Dan Slott and Michale Allred. I totally let this one go, as it wasn't anything like a traditional Silver Surfer comic. After reading all the available issues on MU, I know that was a huge mistake, this is a delightful series, perhaps even more enhanced because I see the connections between this style of story and Doctor Who. It has a lot of humor / heart in addition to space adventure.

Wolverine and the X-Men by Jason Aaron, Chris Bachalo, Nick Bradshaw and others. I ignored this completely when it was published. I have no idea why, it's a terrific young adult type of series, with Wolverine trying to run Professor Xavier's school for mutants. Disaster follows him at every turn, it's more of an X-Men comedy of errors than a traditional hated-and-feared mutants book. I still have a lot to catch up on here.

Old Man Logan (Secret Wars mini-series) by Brian Bendis. It's like a travelogue thru Battleworld with great artwork.

Captain Britain and the Mighty Defenders  (Secret Wars mini-series) by Al Ewing and Alan Davis. I think Al Ewing is a terrific writer who seems to be getting a real chance to take off now. I love this concept, with draws elements from both Ewing's Might Defenders and Paul Cornell's Captain Britain series. I wish this could even go past the Secret Wars.

Now this is just some of the more recent material on MU. What is truly addicting is the old material from the 1960s onward. I saw an issue of Tomb of Dracula highlighted and started reading that plus other back issues. Suddenly struck by a desire to read Fantastic Four #15 where the Mad Thinker's android first appeared? Desires instantly fulfilled. How about Jack Kirby's return to Captain America with the MadBomb story? Ditto. There's no shortage of stuff to read. A Marvel Zombie can spend hours upon hours here. Also, if you are a Star Wars Expanded Universe fan, all of the old Dark Horse Star Wars comics can be found on MU, that is quite a bit of material! More obscure older material is being added. Vampire Tales #1 featuring Morbius was there recently, and I think last week they added Classic X-Men issues (new stories made by Chris Claremont and John Bolton that accompanied the reprints).

I find reading the MU comics on a regular iPad to be about the right size and format. In fact I upgraded to a full size tablet just to read comics; my previous 7 inch tablet was way too small. I don't quite like reading on the computer, I want it to be on a tablet where I guess it simulates the feel of reading a magazine.

Downsides to Marvel Unlimited - besides the six month new issues gap, there are a few. One, the Apple MU app has some bad bugs.  I have not been able to search for creators or titles at all; instead I have to use the browser-based MU to find specific things and add them to my library. I believe the people behind MU know this - I saw an update message that stated we had to delete the app and reinstall it to clear out our caches or something. Seems a bit crazy to me.  Searching for titles in a specific year works better, so if you a great memory and know that the Falcon first appeared in 1969, you can search for all comics published in that year and you will find it. (Aside: it is fun to look at the titles published year by year in the 60s / 70s, astonishing really how few comics Marvel was allowed to release during the old distribution system).

The other bugs that bite me are navigational. You can select certain teams / characters to browse, but due to endless reboots it becomes frustrating. I looked at the Fantastic Four, hoping to find Jonathan Hickman's series, but instead it came up with the Heroes Reborn / Jim Lee issues from the late 1990s. What is equally frustrating is that these bugs have been in the app for a long time, and the engineers working on this are not very capable in fixing them. As someone who worked on the mobile app team at Evernote, I find this shocking.  Putting these bugs to the side, I still find Marvel Unlimited to be an incredible value for $69 / year (and during the last New York ComicCon they had an even cheaper deal). The bugs in the Apple app can be worked around by logging into web based version and searching stuff.

Marvel Unlimited is just, well, marvelous, and the only negative thing really is that it can eat up hours upon hours of time as you explore comics both new and old. Nuff Said!

A Happy Halloween with Morbius and the Marvel Collector Corps

Happy Halloween to all Marvel Monster fans! If you've visited here before, you will know of my love for the Man called Morbius the Living Vampire! One of the first vampires created for Marvel's super-hero line, he started in Spider-Man.

I've already done articles on his origin, but the above cover is a good one (not a great one) from Dave Cockrum and Al Milgrom. At first I believed this was a Gil Kane cover as the Morbius head in the background looks like his style! Thankfully a reader named Abney corrected me.

Now a few days ago I received the latest box from the Marvel Collector Corps, which had this little guy in the box...

How cute is that? A Marvel Funko Pop figure of Morbius! If you're not familiar with the Collector Corps, it's one of these box services - they ship you a box every 2 months, it comes with 1-3 Funko Pop figures, a comic book variant (this month it was Invincible Iron Man #1), and a t-shirt. The theme this month was villains. In addition to Morbius, they had a cute Loki figure and a small Venom key chain.

The box containing the figure is nifty, too. Now you have to realize how great it is that they selected Morbius for this box. The theme was villains; I kept wracking my brain on who would be included. Dr Doom? Magneto? Morbius fits perfectly with the Halloween theme. I wonder how many people even know Morbius now?  He had a limited series years ago, made a few Spider-Man appearances in recent years, but that's it. Someone I know who gets this box without much Marvel history had no idea!

I think it's pretty cool they chose Morbius, makes a long time fan happy. The cuteness has grown on me, too. Nuff Said!

Santa Cruz Screaming Hand meets Marvel!

Hey True Believers! Here are two of the strangest Marvel related merchandise items I have ever seen!

I came across these while strolling down Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz, the name of the store was Pacific Wave Surf Shop.  Three skateboards with the classic mastheads for Amazing Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Thor.

The "screaming hand" is a Santa Cruz skateboard icon symbolizing the fear you might feel going down a steep hill on a skateboard! The hand was morphed into the forms of Spidey, Wolvy, and Thor. No, I didn't buy the skateboard, but I have to admit, I wanted to.

After doing some googling I see these are sold online everywhere, and for the truly radical, there is a Venom skateboard! Whoa. Nuff Said!

1970s Marvel Universe by John Byrne

I remember seeing this in the 1970s, but not where it appeared: the Marvel Universe stars from that era by John Byrne.

Hard to place the year as Omega the Unknown is there--he debuted in 1976 along with Nova.  Yet the original X-Men are there and not the new X-Men.  Was it a poster?  A Marvel Age thing or a house ad?  Perhaps you know!  Nuff Said.

Barry Smith Conan the Barbarian in Marvel Slurpee Cup

I'm going to give this Slurpee cup parade a bit of a rest, but before I do, here's one of the grandest cups, featuring Marvel's version of Conan the Barbarian!



This grand image of Conan by Barry Smith adorns this Slurpee cup.  God, I love the logo too, the classic one used on Conan's regular color comic.  From the Back Issue #34 article about the making of the Slurpee cups, I think it was Paty Cockrum who said they avoided using Barry Smith's artwork because it was too detailed.  I think it looks smashing, but when you compare it to the source of the artwork below, you will see what Paty meant.

Where did the image come from?  One of my favorite all-time Conan covers, from King Size Annual #1, see this article for more about this fantastic King-Size extravaganza!  It is one of Smith's highly detailed pen and ink drawings that blew me away when I first saw it and made me get into the world of Conan.

The back of the cup is very interesting.  Rather recapping an origin tale, Conan instead uses this avenue to spout his unique outlook on life:

Men call me a Barbarian, but I saw that Barbarism is the natural state of mankind!  I've been everything from a slave to a king, but I've always been a man...always Conan!

Pretty cool, eh, that Conan, besides fighting, drinking and bedding wenches he is a philosopher to boot!  The headshot of Conan there, I am sure I could place that too if I had time.  Makes me think Conan #24 with Red Sonja or perhaps the Tower of the Elephant.  What do you think?  Nuff Said!

Thing Tuesday: Marvel Slurpee Cups Featuring Benjamin J Grimm

This article should be subtitled "Everything Ya Ever Wanted To Know About Ever-Lovin Thing's Slurpee Cups"!  Because there were not one but three cups produced in 1975.  That's how big a star The Thing was in the 70s!

The first cup featured this great Jack Kirby drawing of the Thing in a tense stance, ready to fight.  I cannot place the issue of the FF where this came from.  Lex Carson, who wrote a great article about the Marvel Slurpee cups in Back Issue #34 (2009) has an index that states it came from FF #67.  After looking at my copy I can't find it.  Maybe that's because I've been drinking slurpees all day.

The back of the cup shows the human Ben Grimm explaining he was a hero even before he grew into his rocky hide!

The second cup featured the Thing in a classic pose with his arms above his head, no doubt yelling It's Clobberin Time!  Obviously this cup has taken a trip through the dishwasher and the ink has smeared, something buyers need to beware when shopping on eBay.  This was also by Jack Kirby.  Which comic did it come from?

This classic image of the Thing, which we've all seen somewhere, didn't appear in any FF comic.  It was done by Kirby for merchandising in the Merry Marvel Marching Society.  If you were a kid like me, you saw this tantalizing ad for Marvel Sweat Shirts featuring both The Thing and The Hulk!  Only $3.15...too expensive for my money, I was lucky to have $5 a month to spend on comics.

Later this same drawing was used in the corner box of the Fantastic Four...they rotated characters as the primary standout so each of the FF had a spotlight.  This is probably where most of us have seen this particular illustration.

The back of this slurpee cup has the Thing proclaiming what a lucky lug of a guy he is to have been loved by Alicia Masters.  Yet somehow despite what this says, I think Alicia prefers the Thing to Ben Grimm.

The third cup I don't actually own...yet.  But it has another image of the Thing in a classic clobberin' time pose.  You can probably guess that this wasn't drawn by Kirby.

This image was taken from FF #116, the special 25 cent double size issue which featured the team (minus Reed Richards) begging Doctor Doom to join them in the fight against Over-Mind.  A good drawing by Buscema.

How about that, three cups featuring Ben Grimm as the Thing, who woulda thunk it?  Nuff Said!

John Romita Sr Promotional Pieces: Marvel Superheroes, Wolverine, Spider-Man Birthday

Here's a trio of promotional pieces by the great John Romita Sr...

Marvel Super-Heroes Are Here!  Romita designed this for drugstores and mom and pop shops selling comics? The way the figures are depicted, and their choices (Namor, Black Bolt, Silver Surfer alongside the Avengers, Hulk, Spider-Man, etc) make me think this was done in the early 1970s.  Or perhaps the late 1960s--I see that Captain Marvel is wearing the original white and green costume designed by Gene Colan.

Wolverine in action! Circa 1985, this was a pinup or a poster piece.

Spider-Man Birthday card!  No coincidence, today is also my birthday. This was an illustration Romita made for Diamond Distributors on their 10th anniversary. Pretty good to get a hand drawn card from the master, eh? Nuff Said!

Here Comes the Hulk by Dave Stevens

Dave Stevens drew the Hulk for Marvel!  A big surprise but this is what I found on Heritage Comics...

Stevens drew this illustration for a T-Shirt Design, in the same style as the original "Here Comes the Hulk" shirt from 1970.  Nuff Said!

March 2013 Mighty Marvel Calendar Retro Style by Dusty Abell

I've been remiss in keeping up with Dusty Abell's Mighty Marvel 2013 retro calendar!  He did indeed cover the merry month of March.

The bad guys dominate the top part, while the birthdays featured include Our Pal Al Milgrom (tomorrow), Mark Waid (same day as Al Williamson, who knew) and Todd McFarlane.  Print it out and stick it on your wall!  Check out Dusty's Facebook and DeviantArt pages for more good stuff, Nuff Said!

Feb 2013 Mighty Marvel Calendar Retro Style by Dusty Abell

Dusty Abell's 1970s retro inspired calendar take on January 2013 knocked my socks off!  He delivered February 2013 a while ago, but since it starts tomorrow, why not share it here?

A terrific pin-up of Ben Grimm adorns the top half by Mike McKone.  The bottom calendar features an array of art by Neal Adams, John Byrne, Michael Golden, Art Adams, and many more.  The birthdays are also cool, with celebrations for Rich Buckler, Ron Wilson, Curt Swan (even though he worked for the Direct Competition) and Doug Moench.  Print it out and stick it on your wall!  Check out Dusty's Facebook and DeviantArt pages for more good stuff, Nuff Said!

Ring in 2013 with a Retro Mighty Marvel Calendar by Dusty Abell!

Who doesn't love the calendars that Marvel started producing back in 1975? Chock full of great art, trivia, and humor on each day of the year.  Dusty Abell, who many of you know as an artist of many comics, also missed them--and decided to make a calendar of his own!

The month of January 2013 features an awesome commission by John Byrne, featuring the Avengers versus Count Nefaria, a reference to the classic story in Avengers volume 1 #164-166.  You can get a super giant-sized version of this piece on DeviantArt, by the way.  Dusty writes on there about his inspiration to produce this piece:

Man, have I waited a LONG time to finally put this incredibly nostalgic memory from childhood together! This is my take on updating the CLASSIC Marvel Comics Calendars from the the mid 1970's that I grew up loving as a kid, particularly the 75', 76' (Bicentenial Year inspired artwork in that one was crazy fun) and 77' releases. Unfortunately the format was abandoned in the early 80's which has given way to 25 years worth of pretty uninspired calendar releases if you ask me. Well, this is what i'd want to see up on my wall and I hope you might enjoy it a bit as well.

A closer look at the bottom portion calendar reveals that it is just like the 1975-77 calendars, filled with trivia about birthdays and corny lines.  The birthdays of Don Heck, Chic Stone, Bob Wiacek, Ann Nocienti, Steve Leialoha, Frank Miller and many more are noted.  Who knew Paty Cockrum and Grant Morrison were born on the same day?  In addition there is classic art aplenty by Jack Kirby, Art Adams, Michael Golden, etc.  

Check out Dusty's Facebook and DeviantArt pages for more good stuff, including February 2013!  Nuff Said.
 

Strange Sunday: Dr Strange Black Light posters

Back in the late 60s / early 70s, Marvel licensed their characters for a series of Black Light posters.  These vibrant posters sprang to life when illuminated in the glow of black light bulbs.  Many characters received the treatment, but the one hero who was featured on more posters than anyone else was Doctor Strange!

The best poster IMHO was the one above, featuring Doc facing off with Eternity.  Dr Strange is in his masked superhero costume, which I loved more than many of you.  This costume, the swirling madness of Eternity, and the color scheme make this image a perfect choice for a black light poster.  You have to place yourself back in that context: sitting in a Berkeley apartment, taking a little hit of whatever to expand your cosmic consciousness, playing Pink Floyd and looking at Doc under the light.  None of which I did, btw, but that was the target audience of these posters!

The above and below posters were taken from splash pages inside Doctor Strange 180 (1969) with artwork by Gene Colan and Tom Palmer.  There is something interesting about this particular cover.  I wanted to confirm that Gene Colan drew the cover--I was pretty sure that he did as Doc looks to be in a typical Colan pose.  However, Marvel Wikia states that the cover is collaboration between Colan and Steve Ditko!  The figure of Eternity must have been lifted from an earlier Ditko drawn comic and pasted in here.

The opening splash page was also made into a poster. As someone else said, this looks like it was taken from a rather bad copy.  It should have been really groovy but it looks murky.

This landscape panel of Doc entering a typical Ditko landscape was also a poster.  Who was the artist?  Not Ditko or Colan, that is obvious if you are a Marvel fan.  My best guess was Dan Adkins, who drew the series in the 1960s before Colan came on board.



The real answer is that this is from Doctor Strange #171 (1968), a rarity in that Tom Palmer (most famously known as a superb inker/colorist for most of his career) actually penciled this issue, with Dan Adkins embellishing!  Pretty cool scene and worth of a poster, they must have chosen this one because it was a double page spread.

You have to wonder what a Steve Ditko splash page would have looked like as a black light poster.  If you want to see more Marvel black light posters, please visit artist Nick Derington's page on Flickr where he has a lot of them.  Nuff Said!

The Origin of Marvel Bullpen Bulletins

One of my favorite things about Marvel Comics were the Bullpen Bulletins pages.  They seemed to make the reader feel as if they were part of special club, led be a merry prankster by the name of Stan Lee.  The other day I got to wondering, when and how did the Bullpen Bulletins pages actually start appearing in Marvel Comics? 

Fantastic Four #1 was published in 1961, but the editorial content in Marvel Comics remained confined to the single page of letters which began in FF #3.  A few months later this was expanded to 2 pages.  Stan Lee must have realized he had a new opportunity to market to his fans, and began a section of yellow boxed "Special Announcements" and Mighty Marvel Checklists.  The one above is from Fantastic Four #44 in November 1965.  Notice that one of the letter writers was none other than Dave Cockrum, who would be working at Marvel on the Avengers and the X-Men in the 1970s.

In the same year, Marvel helped launch the Merry Marvel Marching Society (MMMS) fan club.  They started devoting a page to advertise this new club.  The ad above appeared in FF #40 from July 1965.  They started listing the names of the fans who had recently joined.  Notice in this particular ad, the name listed at the bottom: Bud Plant, from San Jose, California!  Bud Plant started selling comics and books in 1970 and became one of the largest distributors of comics, games and art books in the 70s and 80s.  He recently retired last year.

So there was an evolution of sorts: the letters page, special announcements, Mighty Marvel checklists, and then special pages for Marvel merchandise.  What could tie all of these things together and speak even more directly to the reader?  A Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page!  The first one appeared in December 1965, the one above was taken from FF #45.  With the classic Marvel saying, Face Front!  It combined all of the elements from the letters column with tabloid bite-size nuggets of Marvel news.  Joe Sinnott was back at Marvel, Adam Austin was the nom de plume of Gene Colan, and would we ever see King Kirby ink himself?  Our parents may have been reading really kinky Hollywood tabloid, but for comics geeks this was all the gossip we wanted to know.

A couple of months later in Feb 1966, the Bullpen Bulletins evolved into a more classic form.  A snazzy headline, more news items and an expanded checklist.  One of the biggest news items was that Roy Thomas had recently joined the House of Ideas, and he was probably one of the best people that Stan Lee had ever hired.  And looking at the Marvel Checklist, it was pretty easy to collect all 9 Marvel Comics that month--if you could find them at the drugstore.

Even though Stan may have helped created and write these editorial pages, there was still something missing: a way for Stan to speak directly to his flock of geeks!  Just over a year later, the very first Stan Lee's Soapbox appeared in July 1967, this one taken from FF #63.  In this column, Stan is acting all humble and tossing aside any comments seeking deeper meaning in his comics in a column titled The Marvel Philosophy.  Nay, Stan's first and foremost priority was to entertain, and sell more comics than his Direct Competition.  I love the hip 60s lingo that ran from his word balloons and into his Soapbox: That's it, pussycat!  Thanks to Tom Jones and a Woody Allen movie, every cat in the know used words like pussycat.  I think if I said that at work today I might be fired for harassment!

Bullpen Bulletins was Stan Lee's most powerful weapon when it was time to push a new series into the collective consciousness of Marvel zombies.  This one, taken from September 1970 (FF# 102) is memorable for two reasons.  As you can clearly see, Marvel was hyping up Conan the Barbarian and trying to get jaded superhero-only fans to read a Sword and Sorcery comic.  It took a while but it eventually worked in my case.  Stan Lee's Soapbox contained a startling announcement: Jack Kirby was leaving Marvel!  Well, you kind of knew it was happening by that time if you had seen the ads from DC Comics.  But in this column, Stan takes an event that would seemingly bring his House of Ideas down and tried to make lemonade.  With a new influx of talent, such as Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, Steve Englehart, Steve Gerber, Barry Smith, Rich Buckler, etc., Marvel was in a position to grow.  Interestingly enough there is a long column about John Romita, who took over the FF artistic reins from the King.  The mention of Steve Ditko leaving Spider-Man years before was also a bit unexpected--these pages were promotional items, yet here an event was mentioned that was somewhat sad.

It's a shame the Bullpen pages have disappeared over the years; the comic book stories were only part of what made me Marvel great.  Message boards and blogs don't even come close to spreading the magic.

Thanks to the Bullpen Bulletins blog who covered all of this material in their article.  Nuff Said!

FOOM: Artwork by Steranko, Kirby, Buscema, Colan, Starlin and more!

The Bronze Age Babies blog has a great series every Friday where they cover F.O.O.M., Marvel’s fan club from the 1970s.  I thought I would share a few memories of my own.  I signed up for this club right after I saw the ad in Marvel’s Bullpen Bulletins page.  After a while, I had forgotten about joining—and then I received an giant envelope in the mail—with the Hulk’s green head staring at the viewer!  The mailing label was affixed in the white space of the Hulk’s mouth.

I was blown away just by the great design behind even the envelope!  I wonder if Steranko, who was behind the first year of the F.O.O.M. club, came up with it.  I managed to buy a F.O.O.M. kit a number of years ago and took this scan of it, in a near pristine state.



The FOOM membership kit also arrived with this stunning poster by Steranko.  With the Silver Surfer in the forefront, pointing the way for heroes of the Marvel Universe.  You have all the big heroes here: Spider-Man, Hulk, Thor, the Thing, etc.  But you also have representatives of some smaller teams: Black Bolt from the Inhumans and Angel from the X-Men.  Angel is wearing his costume designed by Neal Adams in the last few original issues.  If you are wondering why the Black Widow is here, this is probably due to the fact she was sharing space with Daredevil at the time.  It is a bit strange that she is the only female super-hero represented.  A great poster that I threw away or gave away at some foolish point, but I was lucky enough to get it a few years ago.

Classic Marvel: Stunning Posters by Adams, Golden, Finch, and Ross

Here are five posters featuring the Marvel Universe's greatest characters that no true believer can deny are superb!  Four of them I have featured previously, but the first one I believe is new to my site...



Arthur Adams produced the "Marvel Heroes and Villains" lithograph for Dynamic Forces.  We could easily peg these versions of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men, and their various villains in the mid 1960s era.  You've got Daredevil standing next to Black Widow, that edges you in the 1970 territory.  :-)



Golden drew this poster of the Marvel Universe in the 1970s.  It actually may have come out around 1980 or so--Moon Knight is featured, and he wasn't popular until the late 70s with his series starting in 1980.  But it's very 70s in spirit, with the All-New X-Men, Storm's classic costume, the Avengers (just love the Vision sinking into the ground), Black Bolt, Hulk, Doc Strange, Silver Surfer, and the Watcher on the left.  There's a few Marvel Monsters with Ghost Rider and Man-Thing.  Heck, even Ka-Zar, Luke Cage, and Captain Universe are in there.



Golden also drew this print that was featured in a 1980s Marvel Calendar.  You can immediately see the difference in this post-Secret Wars era, with Spidey's black costume, Beta Ray Bill, Grey Hulk Joe Fixit, New Mutants, Archangel, and Iron Man's armor that he donned in IM #200.  Note also the prominence of Daredevil and Elektra due to Frank Miller's work on the series.  The Punisher, another top seller, is also in the background.  Beyond the characters, the awesome sauce is the setting--the heroes in front of the Pan-Am building and crawling around the statue in front.



Alex Ross produced this cover for the Marvel Comics Encyclopedia.



This widescreen poster by David Finch, collecting all of his covers from X-Men Legacy, will be arriving in comic stores this June.  Didn't read the series, but this image is stunning.  Classic X-Men and New X-Men as bookends, with Sentinels, Hellfire Club, and Magneto sandwiched in-between.  Nuff Said!

Bruce Timm Women of Marvel

Here's a pinup from the Women of Marvel magazine, this time it's Bruce Timm giving us his favorite Marvel super-ladies.

No doubt you've seen this pinup before, but the size and clarity of this scan made it worth posting here.  What I like about this is the love he has for the supporting characters like Crystal, Clea, Hela, Sif, etc.  This makes me yearn for a Bruce Timm animated special featuring the Lady Liberators.  Nuff Said!

Alan Davis Women of Marvel Cover

A couple of months ago, Marvel published a special Women of Marvel magazine with over 100 pages of content devoted to super-heroines.  There were two Alan Davis covers, which are joined here (thanks to the scanner who gave this to me).



This cover has the classic Marvel gals, who I can all name, but one!  Let's go, from left to right:

1. Golden Age Black Widow
2. Miss America
3. Scarlet Witch
4. Ms. Marvel
5. Invisible Woman
6. Medusa
7. Phoenix
8. Black Cat
9. Mary Jane Watson
10. Gwen Stacy
11. Storm (in her 80s punk biker chick mohawk outfit, yowza!)
12. Black Widow
13. Spider-Woman
14. Wasp
15. Elektra
16. She-Hulk

Now in the very center you have:
17. Kitty Pryde
18. Who the heck is the girl next to Kitty? With the giant mouse hat and holding a phone?  Please leave a comment if you know.

It constantly blows my mind that Spider-Woman is now a major character.  There are two characters that I wish had been featured here: Clea and Valkyrie. 

I've been on an Alan Davis kick lately--I think this man's never lost his magic touch.  I've recently revisited JLA: The Nail, Fantastic Four: The End, and the first issue of Avengers Finale.  Nuff Said!

Update: Comments from my old MT blog...

5 Comments

By Bully on July 15, 2010 8:30 AM

#18 is Molly Hayes, aka Princess Powerful of Runaways.

By Zebtron A. Rama on July 15, 2010 10:05 AM

That wee gal is Molly from "the Runaways." The title was canceled last year but if you get the chance I highly recommend reading the trades. Very good stuff.

By Richard Guion on July 15, 2010 10:48 AM

Thanks to everyone who identified Molly! I read the entire run by Brian K Vaughan and it was indeed an excellent series. Since the Runaways haven't been around, I completely forgot about Molly.

By Dphunkt001 on July 20, 2010 12:23 PM

i was gonna say Molly too, without actually knowing her name was Molly..lulz. almost seems outta place among all the well established, or long running characters. what shes wearing doesnt even identify her well (except that its childish/cute). what tipped me off so easily, was her feature on the X-Mens Heroic Age one-shot cover. she had similar headwear there too.

By phoenix_force_98 on January 2, 2011 6:32 AM

I think it might be illyana rasputan ( hope i spelled it right) she was Magik is i remeber

Alex Ross Marvel Encyclopedia Cover

To close out 2009, Alex Ross’ wonderful painting for the Marvel Encyclopedia.

We’ll see all of you True Believers back here in 2010, when these heroes hopefully return to classic form.  Nuff Said!

Isotope Comics in San Francisco: James Sime, Toilet Seats, and Doctor Strange, What A Wonderful Store!

After years of reading about Isotope Comics in San Francisco and reading various interviews with the owner, James Sime, I finally indulged myself in a trip to his unique store.  James was sitting at the counter when I arrived, as friendly and enthusiastic about comics as I am.  It’s a good quality for an owner to have.  I had a brief feeling of Déjà Vu after meeting James, who is well known from CBR, Flickr, Twitter, and various podcast interviews.  Never before had I met a store owner who is well known on the Internet!



Within seconds of my arrival we started talking about Doctor Strange—after I spotted his costume hanging in the balcony.  We both agreed that the current Strange series is somewhat lacking.  In fact, James’ theory is that anything with the title “Strange” isn’t all that good.  There was the JMS series a few years ago where Marvel attempted to reboot the good doctor.  And if you remember the 1990s era comics where Doc split into two entities—one called Strange—this theory seems spot on!  We both agreed that Brian K Vaughan’s The Oath series was one of Doc’s finest tales.



Isotope’s interior design is equally friendly.  There are no long white boxes that you have to step over as you walk around.  It does not look like a refuge for seedy characters.  It is a store where you feel comfortable looking around at cool things  The store is brightly lit, there are comfortable seats where you can read stuff, and they have interesting graphic novels on display everywhere.  They have new comics as well as mini-comics.  There is also a selection of original art on display.



Isotope is famous for having unique events where creators come to do signings.  James can really think out of the box and tries to make these events special—by offering limited edition pint glasses for Darwyn Cooke or scotch tastings for Warren Ellis.  James started getting these creators to create a drawing on toilet seat covers; I’m sure it started off as a lark, but now Isotope’s upper wall is covered with dozens of them.  And James has so many, he can’t display the entire collection at once.  There’s a Warren Ellis piece featuring Spider Jerusalem right next to one by Darick Robertson, and Mark Millar drawing his rendition of Superman.



This toilet seat drawn by Darwyn Cooke makes me supremely envious.  It’s just perfect and captures everything great about Cooke’s style.  I showed this picture to my wife Teresa (who is not a comics fan) and she instantly recognized Catwoman.  That’s a testament to Cooke’s ability to draw the character in an iconic form.  Teresa wondered why no one has made a business out of selling toilet seat covers with images?  There probably is one, but not with comic characters.  I’d certainly buy this one if DC made this a licensed product.  But I wouldn’t use a backhoe to steal it.

I only spent an hour at Isotope before I had to return to work.  I bought a few great collections, Northlanders (vol 1 & 2, awesome stuff) and Criminal (2 volumes).  If you work in the financial district as I do, it’s really a convenient trip.  You can get on any outbound Muni at Embarcadero, travel to the Van Ness stop, walk up to Fell, make a left and walk 2-3 blocks to the store at 326 Fell Street. 

When I was in my 20s, I always had a fantasy vision of what my ideal comics store would be like.   I always imagined a place where collections were readily available, top-notch creators would come and socialize with fans.  And perhaps share a drink or two on special occasions.  James Sime is my idol—he not only dreamed about such a place, he made it into a reality!  Nuff said!

Links:  Isotope Comics, James Sime on Twitter

Update: Comments on my old MT blog...

3 Comments

By John Chihak on December 23, 2009 5:36 PM

Yeah. I stumbled upon Isotope while making my way back to my dad's after a super long walk to another comic shop. I partied there at the APE Mayhem parties both nights this year. And one of my personal goals in this business is to have my own toilet seat on the Gallery Wall. No awards, no huge accolades. Just a throne.
Isotope is easily one of the coolest if not THEE coolest comic book shops I have ever been in. In a city known for its distinction of culture and art, Isotope stands tall in the City by the Bay.

By keen on bar stools on December 1, 2010 5:50 AM

I wouldn't dare piss over the woman cat on my toilet seat. And those eyes fixed upon you all the time in moments of privacy...

By seated in dining chairs on December 14, 2010 6:08 AM

This guy awfully resembles ambassador Molari from the Babylon 5 series.This helps explain the alien design of the products.