Showcase Presents Retrospective - What should have been

So, 124 books is a lot, but what are the biggest gaps in DC's SHOWCASE PRESENTS line?

I'm going to restrict this comics DC published in colour from 1954 to 1975.  Which leaves DOC SAVAGE out in so many ways.  So basically what should we have seen rather than the DOC SAVAGE book that sticks out like a sore thumb?*

[*and yes, I know in my head that publishing reality is we probably would have gotten no book that month if they decided to not publish the SHOWCASE PRESENTS DOC SAVAGE book, or not brand it as a SHOWCASE.  But my heart tells me it replaced something I'd have preferred]

And yes, this list is essentially a wishlist for what the new DC FINEST line of colour reprints could feature, although the the 1954 to 1975 range is even less of a constraint for that line than it was for the SHOWCASE line.

I'll start with the two most obvious gaps.  In DC's colour hardcover ARCHIVES line (1989-2014), almost every line that would have qualified under the criteria above (so discard the many pre-1954 DC lines, the one post-1975 DC line (NEW TEEN TITANS) and the lines inherited/licensed from outside (SPIRIT, ELFQUEST, MAD, ACTION HEROES, THUNDER AGENTS)) got at least one SHOWCASE PRESENTS book*, some of them more than one extending far beyond what was reprinted in the ARCHIVES.

[*the relevant Archives lines were ADAM STRANGE, AQUAMAN, ATOM, BATMAN:THE DYNAMIC DUO, BLACKHAWK, BRAVE AND THE BOLD TEAM-UP, CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, DOOM PATROL, ENEMY ACE, FLASH, GREEN LANTERN, HAWKMAN, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, METAL MEN, SGT. ROCK, SILVER AGE TEEN TITANS, SUPERGIRL, SUPERMAN:THE MAN OF TOMORROW, SUPERMAN'S GIRL FRIEND LOIS LANE, WONDER WOMAN:THE AMAZON PRINCESS, WORLD'S FINEST COMICS]

The first and most important exclusion, to the surprise of no one looking at older posts here, is Sheldon Mayer's SUGAR & SPIKE.  98 issues, starting in 1956 and running to 1971.  Since the invention of the humour comic, there have been five comics that were rated the most funny, the most creative. This one left them all behind.  

Posts about Mayer's work, if you're interested.  

Anyway, tragic that we didn't get at least one SHOWCASE volume of this series.  There would have been enough material for at least four, only counting the main feature comics and covers from the original run.  You could stretch that to five by including the activity features and later Sugar & Spike comics by Mayer (most never published in English, and even most of those that were only published in small digest size).  We did get the one ARCHIVES volume, which reprinted the first ten issues, which is better than nothing, but far from the ideal format for the material.  The SHOWCASE format is also far from ideal, but not as far...

The next exclusion among the ARCHIVES opens up a whole other line of possibilities.  There were two volumes of Jack Kirby's KAMANDI series in 2005 and 2007, which had the first 20 of Kirby's 40 issues of the series. Those same 20 eventually were put in the 2011  hardcover book KAMANDI, THE LAST BOY ON EARTH BY JACK KIRBY Vol. 1 book, which was followed up by a Vol 2 the next year, finishing the essential part of the run (it continued for a while beyond Kirby). The run also got a later one-volume hardcover and two-volume softcover release. So don't cry for Kam, he got some reprint representation, just not in black&white.  Except the two Artist's Editions.  And some people consider that series a failure...

But while his 1950's DC work was well represented in the SHOWCASE line (Challengers and Green Arrow, plus some short mystery stories in either their original series or as reprints of reprints), Kirby's 1970-1976 stint at DC was very unrepresented, just one story of "Atlas" incongruously  stuck in the weird GREAT DISASTER book they published (which had some post-Kirby KAMANDI issues).  That's a five year run of almost 3500 pages of some of the best comics ever (The Fourth World, The Demon, the aforementioned Kamandi, OMAC, The Losers and more), a lot of it inked by Kirby's best inker, Mike Royer, which would look amazing in black and white.  Obviously almost all that stuff did get colour reprints in that era and beyond (and even some black&white&grey reprints in an earlier decade.  Post about those to come), in some fine formats (but with room for improvement), but not getting at least one 1970s Kirby book in the SHOWCASE PRESENTS format just seems like a wasted opportunity.  Personally I would have liked to see, though the SHOWCASE line didn't do this kind of curation, a "Best of 1970s Kirby" sampler, with one or two choice stand-alone issues of each series to fill a 500-page book.

And this is probably the best place to mention the unreleased announced SHOWCASE which would fit in here, SHOWCASE PRESENTS BEWARE THE CREEPER.  Read more about it here.  Steve Ditko is also under-represented in the SHOWCASE line, with just a few pages in the aforementioned GREAT DISASTER book, but his work for DC in the qualifying era is limited.  What would have been in the CREEPER book, three issues with THE HAWK AND THE DOVE, four issues of STALKER and some short stories.  Of course we did eventually see most of Ditko's work for DC in this era and after in some colour hardcovers, and will again (hopefully complete this time) next year in one big hardcover.

Two of those Ditko short stories do bring up another entry for this list.  In 1973 editor Joe Orlando launched PLOP, which was, as promised on the covers, DC's "new magazine of weird humor".  Sort of a spin-off of Orlando's mystery books of the era (using a lot of the same hosts (Cain & Abel, Eve) and creators), but a unique entry in DC's publishing, as seen by the weird gallery of covers by mostly Basil Wolverton (occasionally Wallace Wood) for the first few years. The series lasted until 1976, 24 issues, and has some great work by Bernie Wrightson, Sergio Aragones, Alfredo Alcala and many more.  Including, in #16, a Steve Ditko job inked by Wallace Wood.  Ditko and Wood also did another job for PLOP, unpublished until later.

Unlike some of the other entries above, there hasn't been a decent reprint of PLOP in any other format, making the lack of a SHOWCASE even worse.  This work would have looked amazing in that format (as the other Orlando edited books of the era do), and deserve to be seen again.  Hopefully someday soon.

DC's war books were, somewhat surprisingly, very well represented in the SHOWCASE PRESENTS line.  

13 pure war books, then WEIRD WAR TALES is a partial (it started in the Kubert editorial offices with a mix of new and reprint stories and moved to Orlando's mystery side after a few issues) and SEA DEVILS is war adjacent (initially from the Kanigher offices and written by him and drawn by Russ Heath). And yet somehow they only scratched the surface.  

In addition to possible additional volumes of many of those series, which would have great work (Heath on ROCK, Glanzman on TANK, Kirby on LOSERS) and many more volumes of standalone war stories like the OUR ARMY book.  CAPT. STORM headlined 18 issues of his own book, losing who knows how many wooden legs.  If that's not enough, his fellow future Losers Johnny Cloud and Gunner&Sarge ran for years in ALL-AMERICAN MEN OF WAR and OUR FIGHTING FORCES respectively.  So you could easily fill in a book of BEFORE LOSERS or something less ridiculously titled.  

You also have various short run features which might not fill a book but could be combined in some way.  Mademoiselle Marie, Balloon Buster, Captain Hunter, Hunter's Hellcats, Fighting Devil Dog.  Surely something could be done to combine them into a book. LESSER THAN THE LOSERS seems a bit mean and not totally fair...

While PLOP was DC's big 1970s weird humour book, less weird humour was a big part of their line in the 1950s and 1960s.  I'll just note in passing some books which might have licensing constraints (though deals can be made, and they did it for frickin' DOC SAVAGE).  Long runs of BOB HOPE (109 issues), JERRY LEWIS (with DEAN MARTIN for 40 issues than solo over twice as long), THE FOX AND THE CROW (108 issues plus hundreds of stories in other books).  Books I'm only mildly familiar with, but which seem to have their fans.

More to the point, DC's in-house funny animals were a thriving business for a while.  While they mostly wound up by 1960s (except the aforementioned FOX&CROW), from 1944 to 1960 they were a vital part of DC's line.  In 1954 alone I count over 60 issues, almost 20% of what DC published, in titles like REAL SCREEN COMICS, PETER PORKCHOPS, LEADING SCREEN COMICS, FLIPPITY & FLOP, PETER PANDA, FUNNY STUFF, MOVIETOWN'S ANIMAL ANTICS, HOLLYWOOD FUNNY FOLKS, COMIC CAVALCADE, DODO AND THE FROG, RACCOON KIDS and NUTSY SQUIRREL, so you could definitely have filled some books.  The gold standard probably would have been a THREE MOUSEKETEERS collection, collecting the 26-issue series that ran from 1956 to 1960, initially by the aforementioned Sheldon Mayer and later with art by Rube Grossman.

Also on the humour front, I'm less familiar with the other DC books of the period, which are mostly in the teen humour category that most people would associate with Archie Comics.  Long running titles like BUZZY, A DATE WITH JUDY and LEAVE IT TO BINKY.  Of course my choice for a reprint would have been SCRIBBLY by Sheldon Mayer (I'm nothing if not one note) but the 1948-1952 series run places it outside the parameters.

Westerns weren't as big at DC as they were at some other publishers, but they had their share.  Two of the later day ones were represented in the extant SHOWCASE line, a slim volume of BAT LASH and two big books of JONAH HEX. But through the 1950s they ran two western titles with the on-the-nose titles of WESTERN COMICS and ALL-STAR WESTERN (plus the licensed HOPALONG CASSIDY and back-ups in other comics), featuring a lot of work by artists like Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino and Howard Sherman on characters like Johnny Thunder, Trigger Twins and Pow Wow Smith.

Going back further from traditional westerns, one of DC's longest running series to never have a decent reprint is TOMAHAWK, which ran from 1950 to 1972, for the most part set during the American Revolution (the last part of the run features Hawk, Son of Tomahawk, which is closer to a traditional western comics setting).  Haven't read too much of it, but it looks like there were some wild adventures, and artwork by Fred Ray, Bob Brown and Bruno Premiani.

And let's go back further still for some historical fiction in the early run of THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD.  Long before it was a Batman team-up title, the first 24 issues of B&B focused on historical adventure stories, with the Viking Prince on the north seas, the Golden Gladiator in the Roman Empire, the Silent Knight in the days of King Arthur and (later) Robin Hood a few centuries later.  All with art by Joe Kubert, Irv Novick, Russ Heath and others.  Perfect length for one big single volume collection, too.  The Viking Prince did get one nice colour reprint, but the rest haven't.

I'll close a super-hero feature, a category that the SHOWCASE PRESENTS had no shortage of, and unlike the Ditko and Kirby features above one that still hasn't seen a reprint in another format.  I am of course talking about THE INFERIOR FIVE.  Appearing in three issues of SHOWCASE in 1966 and then ten issue of their own comic from 1967 to 1968, this was a humour comic about a group of second generation heroes with mostly ineffective powers running into parodies of other characters and wacky villains.  Created by E. Nelson Bridwell and Joe Orlando, later drawn by Mike Sekowsky and Win Mortimer.  There was just enough for a nice slim volume.

Of course that just scratches the surface of what could have been possible in the SHOWCASE PRESENTS line, and hopefully will be possible in the DC FINEST line.  What would you have liked to see?

Showcase Presents Retrospective - The Inevitable Errata

Okay, if you've read this weblog for a while you know I've got this thing, some would say obsession, for errors in comic books, in particular errors in reprints.  And the Showcase Presents line, well, you can't publish over 60,000 pages without making a few mistakes, and I can even excuse a few of them given the low price of the line.  The bar for forgiveness of an error in a $15 book is way lower than for a $150 book.  But no reason not to document them...

Which, by the way, DC themselves did for a while, they have a whole page devoted to Errata for their books, which I've talked about before.  They don't seem to have updated it much beyond the initial entries well over a decade ago, and sometimes it's hard to find on their site, but it's there.  In case it gets hard to find again, here are their entries for the Showcase Presents line.

Showcase Presents Collections

Showcase Presents: Batman Vol. 1

The art on pages 22-36, 37-48, 50-64, 82-93, 94-106, 108-122, 124-135, 136-147, 174-188 and 190-213 was pencilled by Sheldon Moldoff, not Bob Kane.

Showcase Presents: Metal Men Vol. 1

The story from The Brave And The Bold #55 was written by Bob Haney, not the artists Ramona Fradon and Charles Paris.

Showcase Presents: Metamorpho Vol. 1

Ramona Fradon was the cover artist on Metamorpho #5-8.

Showcase Presents: Superman Vol. 1

Al Plastino was the both penciller and inker on all the stories from Action Comics #251-252 and Action Comics #254-255.

Showcase Presents: Superman Family Vol. 2

On page 6, Table of Contents: "The Girl of 100 Costumes", should have Al Plastino listed as sole artist.

On to my list.  Just a basic list for now.  I noticed a handful of other errors as I was reading them over the years, but (uncharacteristically) didn't make precise note of them.

The biggest mistake I know of was one they actually fixed, and got its own post here.  To summarize, some pages were missed up in SHOWCASE PRESENTS SUPERMAN FAMILY Vol 2 back in 2008.  A correct edition, only distinguishable from the incorrect one by the correction and the logo colour on the cover, was issued a few weeks later.  If you ever look for it, you want the white and red logo, not the yellow and red.

Another error is related to one I first noticed in a 1983 British reprint of  DC COMICS PRESENTS #29 [1981].  A problem with lettering printed in colour rather than black ink led to some missing dialogue from the Almighty.  Also a hastily redrawn Supergirl headshot.

Somehow this was still a problem when they got around to including it in SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE SPECTRE Vol 1 in 2012, at least for one of the problem pages (the other two seem fine).  They got a second bite at the apple the next year in SHOWCASE PRESENTS DC COMICS PRESENTS - THE SUPERMAN TEAM-UPS Vol 2.  Let's see how they did by comparing the two books:

Well, that's much better.  Now to just photocopy the correct one onto the correct paper stock and carefully paste it into the SPECTRE book.

This next one is less a mistake than it is an interesting choice, and maybe even a rare correction from an earlier mistake.

As you can see the AMBUSH BUG Showcase from 2009 used the cover for ACTION COMICS #565 [1985].  Good choice, but someone also made a choice to colour the skin of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman green (most noticeable on WW, of course). Now, what I wonder is, was that supposed to be the joke Giffen intended in the original, finally restored 24 years later?  Or was this an entirely new bonus joke added for this book, at no additional cost to you, the reader? I guess only Irwin Schwab can answer that...

This is of course an evolving list.  Anything you think should be included, let me know at bobh1970 at gmail dot com

Showcase Presents Retrospective - Many a slip 'twixt...

Well, not surprising that in the ten years that DC was publishing the SHOWCASE PRESENTS line there were a few announcements for books which didn't end up coming out, especially as the industry evolved into announcements for books running further and further ahead of the publication date.  I've decided to call these Ghostcases. DC tends not to reveal the reason for the cancellations, might be a lack of sales, or problems with the quality of the physical source material requiring extra time in production, or problems with the contracts (there's apparently a period from 1976 to 1997 where they require a reprint fee which makes thick cheap books unworkable unless the creators agree to a royalty deal like they have for pre-1976 material)  Here are a few I've seen evidence for...

SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE CREEPER Vol 1

First heard about this one in late 2008, and there was some speculation for a while on the exact contents, beyond creator Steve Ditko's initial SHOWCASE #73 story and six issue series from 1968/1969.  The eventual list seemed to be

Showcase #73
Beware the Creeper #1-6
Brave and the Bold #80, 143, 178
Justice League of America #70
Detective Comics #418, 447-448
The Joker #3
First Issue Special #7

Doesn't matter because after that it fell off the schedule, and instead we got THE CREEPER BY STEVE DITKO, a (mostly) colour hardcover with just the stories that Steve Ditko worked on.

SHOWCASE PRESENTS WHO'S WHO Vol 1 & 2

Announced in 2006, this would have been a two volume set collecting everything from the 26 issue WHO'S WHO - THE DEFINITIVE DIRECTORY OF THE DC UNIVERSE series first published from 1985 to 1987.  An ambitious and not entirely successful attempt to catalog DC's fictional universe, it had some great art, including a lot of Jack Kirby artwork on his many creations and some wonderful wraparound covers by George Perez initially (including the ones seen on the cover mockup). They seemed pretty gung-ho on the concept for a while, despite it being well outside the usual SHOWCASE era. Was not to be, and much later they came up with a much more comprehensive hardcover.

SHOWCASE PRESENTS: SUICIDE SQUAD Vol 1

They had this on on the schedule at least twice, in 2007 and 2010.  Also outside the usual SHOWCASE PRESENTS timeline, it would have collected the first 19 issues of the 1987 series by John Ostrander, Luke McDonnell and others, plus a few relevant crossover appearances with the Justice League and Doom Patrol.  Eventually they went with a colour softcover for this one in 2011, and eventually continued the line (once the Squad movies started coming out) until they collected the full 66 issue series in 8 books by 2019. Now the series is set to be reprinted again in the next year as both a hardcover and in the new DC FINEST softcover line.

SHOWCASE PRESENTS HOUSE OF SECRETS Vol 3

Well, this is typical.  While Cain over in the HOUSE OF MYSTERY got three books collecting his series, his brother Abel only got two.  He was apparently promised a third, which would have presumably started with #120 where the previous one left off, and maybe run to the end of the series, #154.  Eventually all those issues were collected in colour in a the HOUSE OF SECRETS BRONZE AGE OMNIBUS Vol 2 (while a lot of HOUSE OF MYSTERY remains uncollected even after three books in that format.  Cain's not going to like that).

SHOWCASE PRESENTS SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER VILLAINS VOL 1

An odd little short-run series from 1976 to 1978, plus various related stories from JLA, SUPER-TEAM FAMILY and others.  Has some really off-model Fourth World depictions.  Eventually it showed up in two very thin hardcovers.

I remember a few more seemed to get to some stage of talk, but can't clearly remember what was official from DC and what was just fannish speculation and wish-listing.  Speaking of such things, post still upcoming on that other SHOWCASE PRESENTS books we could/should have seen.  Feel free to suggest, keep it from material published by DC from 1954 to 1976.

Showcase Presents Retrospective - It walks amongst them, but it is not of them

Alright, so we have 124 distinct books published by DC under the SHOWCASE PRESENTS title.  That's pretty straightforward.

But what if we extend it further, and ask what it really means to be a SHOWCASE PRESENTS book.  More than the title.  What if we say that it's a black and white comic book reprint collection of originally colour comics published and owned by DC.

Well, then there's one that sticks out:

I mean, what are we even doing here?  Just by the cover, some weird painted thing.  There are a few stylistic outliers in the other covers (mostly those using Jack Adler's halftone technique), but nothing this far out.  And then you look in detail and you find out that this is a reprint of a Marvel comic?  Licensed from Conde Nast?  And was originally published as a black and white magazine?  In the words of JOKER (2019) star Marc Maron, WTF?

I mean, clearly there were some crossed wires here.  DC had hardly even dug deep into their own history when this came out, with first (only) volumes of THE LOSERS, SEA DEVILS, THE SPECTRE and many more still to come.  But for some reason they got the rights to Doc Savage and, in addition to incongruous team-ups with Batman and The Spirit*, gave us some reprints of Marvel's comics from the 1970s.  One colour volume for the 8 issue 1972-1973 series and this for the 1975-1977 b&w magazine, also 8 issues.

[* and if that was on the table, at least give us a SHOWCASE PRESENTS WILL EISNER'S THE SPIRIT...]

And I guess because the mentality was that "our black and white reprints are the SHOWCASE PRESENTS line", that's what this got shoved into.  So the art is shrunken down and the pages have ridiculous margins. And while the vast majority of proper SHOWCASE PRESENTS books have art sourced from good quality file material, for this they clearly had to resort to copies of the printed comics as source material.

And to be fair, by the standards of reprints from such sub-optimal source material, it's not bad (but varies a lot).  A lot of similar reprints look much muddier.  I think the newsprint closely matching the original helps. But as good as it is, it really can't match the other books.  The reproduction of the covers (often a weak point in the other books) is especially bad, as they were painted, mostly by Ken Barr (with #1 by Roger Kastel based on the film poster.  Yes, there was a film...).

All of this isn't a comment on the actual comics.  I mean, some John Buscema pencils, a lot of Tony DeZuñiga (full art or inks over others), Val Mayerik and others, all look pretty good.  Doug Moench is a usually solid writer, seems well suited to the material from what I've read.

I was about 20 copies away from a full run of the SHOWCASE books when a copy of this became available, priced a bit higher than I liked.  I did waver quite a bit on getting it, pretty much had to make the decision there if I was going to be all-in or let a few books slide.  Obviously I made a wrong choice.

Still don't like it though.  I don't even like shelving it with the other books, except for the photo-op.  Definitely the bronze sheep of the family.  Like some mutant book, and if I learned anything from X-MEN comics it's "Accursed is the Mutant" (honestly, I only skimmed X-MEN, did I get the gist of it?  And I might be confusing it with THE CRYSALIDS (look it up, kids)).

And while my brain knows it doesn't work this way, that the most likely alternative to them doing this probably was just no book, not a different book, my heart can't help but resent it on behalf of the SHOWCASE book we didn't see.  We got this instead of SUGAR & SPIKE?  This instead of PLOP?  This instead of a 1970s Kirby book?  This instead of... well a whole other future post on which SHOWCASE books that should have been, but we got Marvel's DOC SAVAGE instead.

So what's the conclusion? I guess you have to decide for yourself.  For convenience I'm going to keep saying there are 124 books, but I say for the record I do so under protest.  If comics are a religion, this book is in the non-canonical apocrypha.  And let me be clear there is one book which is my least favourite, one book which I will let burn if there's a strange fire and I only have time to rescue 123 books, and that book is SHOWCASE PRESENTS BOOSTER GOLD DOC SAVAGE.

Showcase Presents Retrospective - The Phantom 125th

So, as I alluded to here, while there are, for all intents and purposes, 124 SHOWCASE PRESENTS book published by DC from 2005 to 2016, as seen in the graphic on right and on my bookshelf, there's an argument to be made for a 125th book needed for a truly complete collection. Not a great argument, really, but it's an interesting bit of trivia.

Let's go back to February 2008, pretty much the peak of the line, they had been releasing two books a month for over a year, and would continue at that pace for more than another year.  Sometimes something that slips through the cracks and in this case it was SHOWCASE PRESENTS SUPERMAN FAMILY Vol 2, released on February 27, 2008, the very week of Superman's birthday (and on a year he gets to celebrate on the proper day).

Well, that seems fine.

Several weeks later, this statement was issued by DC to retailers:

In SHOWCASE PRESENTS: SUPERMAN FAMILY VOL. 2 TP (NOV070244), several pages from SUPERMAN’S GIRL FRIEND LOIS LANE #2 were accidentally swapped. DC Comics will provide retailers with new, corrected copies of this title in quantities equal to their orders to date on the current printing. Retailers will not be billed for these new copies. DC asks retailers to please dispose of any copies of SHOWCASE PRESENTS: SUPERMAN FAMILY VOL 2 TP they currently have on their shelves, and to accept returned copies from their customers in exchange for corrected copies. The SHOWCASE PRESENTS: SUPERMAN FAMILY VOL 2 TP new printing is scheduled to arrive in stores on April 2. To differentiate it from the original printing, the logo on this cover will be red and white instead of red and yellow, and will arrive in stores under the item code JAN088359. 

More detail about the error can be found on the GCD entry for the book:

In the first print run, the splash page of "Superman's Secret Sweetheart" is followed by pages 2-8 of "Superman's Forbidden Room," and vice versa. The logo on the corrected edition is red and white instead of red and yellow.

Well, that was a silly thing to do.

And so, if you're looking for the book, make sure you get one that looks like this, which flew into stores a few weeks after the previous one (April 9 apparently, as they forgot to account for the April Fools' Day holiday):

Which should be almost all available copies, because of course all retailers followed DC's request to dispose of the erroneous versions.

But if for some reason you really want to be complete (and really, even I'm not that crazy.  Yet) you obviously need one of each.  And then you'd have 125 books, such a nice solid number.  Five cubed.  Five shelves of 25 books apiece (yeah, okay, three of them are slimmer). I think I'm talking myself into wanting that book...

Not really.  But since I still instinctively check any Showcase books I see, I do keep my eye open for the yellow label SUPERMAN FAMILY Vol 2, and if it's not too expensive, I'll probably pick it up.

By the way, a few of the early books also had second printings, with a different cover price and without the "Over 500 Pages..." blurb on the cover, but counting those would be extreme even for me.

But of course, there's another book one the list that doesn't belong at all, the Apocryphal Showcase.  But, as they say on Hammy Hamster, that's another story...

Preliminary notes on a Showcase Presents retrospective

 So, as DC prepares to launch their latest reprint initiative, the DC Finest line, in a few weeks, I thought I'd look back a bit on one of their previous lines, the Showcase Presents line of black&white reprints, mostly in the 500+ page range, which launched in September 2005 with great fanfare, ran well for several  years and then limped across the finish line just over ten years later in January 2016, with 124 books to its credit.  What does that look like?  Something like this:

Well, actually, kind of 125, but we'll get to the hidden book later.  And in another sense, 123 books, but we'll also get to the apocryphal book later.  But for the sake of clarity we'll say 124 books in 125 months.  That makes it sound like a book a month, but that's deceptive.  The last book came out almost a year after the penultimate book, and there were other gaps, while at the peak they were pumping out two a month.

In those 124 books, DC reprinted over 60 thousand pages of comics from their history (and some other histories).  A significant number of those pages were never previously reprinted, and while some of those have subsequently seen colour reprints there are still thousands of pages which have only seen this single reprint.  Hopefully that'll change with this new DC Finest line, but it'll take a while.

While there are some anomalies, mostly reprints of reprints, the bulk of this line reprints material from about 1954 to 1980.  That seems to be the era where DC's library of source material which needs minimal restoration is strongest (with some holes) and their contractually obligated royalties are the lowest.  So it pretty much covers the commonly understood Silver Age (which begins with JIMMY OLSEN #1 in 1954.  The OUR ARMY AT WAR volume reprinting stories from 1952 to 1953 is the only book which completely pre-dates that) and continues to what some call the Bronze Age.  Less than a dozen books have reprints only from the 1980s, with the latest reprints being from 1988, except for a few later AMBUSH BUG stories, because the Bug cannot be contained.

The 124 books were in 67 different series, so each series averaged less than two books.  38 of the books were standalones, with no follow-up volume (sometimes because the one book essentially exhausted the material). On the other end, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA and BATMAN tied for the most volumes, with six each. 

I was an early adopter of the line, on the record as being excited about it from the first announcement, and often mentioning new releases back when I used to post here more.  For a good while I was all-in, but then as they began releasing them more frequently became more selective, and also started to miss some interesting ones as trips to the comic shop became less frequent. Two years ago I had 89 of the books and decided to actively look for them, and with a lot of help from some friends just got the last one I needed a few weeks ago.  And what does that look like?

For the record, book 124 for me was CAPTAIN CARROT.  Which, oddly, I probably would have bought on release if I saw a copy.

(if you're in the Toronto area and want to follow where I lead, grasshopper, well first off, don't.  That photo could be captioned "Bob's Folly".  But if you do, start with BMV Books, especially the Bloor location, then check The Big Island, and then contact me, I can tell you a few other places to check).

Anyway, this post might end up being a standalone, or it might be the start of a series about the Showcase Presents line.  if it does continue, some possible topics:

A comparison with Marvel's analogous ESSENTIAL line, aka "DC Rules, Marvel Drools".  I mean, not really, but in form if not content DC's the clear winner here.

Showcase Antecedents, a look at previous DC reprints, especially black and white reprints, including the ill-advised greying of the Fourth World.

Ghostcases, the announced Showcases we didn't see. Hint, we could have gotten a lot more Ditko... (see here)

Showcases I'd have liked to see, aka 124 books and not one is SUGAR & SPIKE? How does that make sense?

What's with those three weird skinny books in the photo?  And why didn't we see more of those?

What is that mysterious 125th Showcase book I alluded to? (see here)

And what do I mean by an apocryphal book?  Are there really only 123 books in the Showcase canon? (see here)

The Making of Bob's Folly, more details than any sane person could want about my personal descent into insanity called completing the run.

The inevitable errata, a list of errors of commission and omission which continue to vex me. (see here)

Highlights from every book.  

Lists of material still only available in a modern edition in these books.

And much more.  Or, again, maybe none of that, and this is it.