Been on a Jon J Muth kick recently, with the reprint of MOONSHADOW and his recent adaptation of THE SEVENTH VOYAGE, so I'm looking forward to his adaptation of Ray Bradbury's "The April Witch". Also, Jean Giraud pinup and a few other interesting stories. I've gradually picked up most of the Bradbury comics that Topps did in the 1990s, and usually enjoy them, so I might go ahead and finish the run soon.
One-shot reprinting the three issue introduction of the Stephen Murphy / Ryan Brown created Turtles spin-off THE MIGHTY MUTANIMALS by Murphy (as Dean Clarrain), Ken Mitchroney and various inkers. This also includes a great pin-up gallery by Stephen Bissette, which has the oddity of an Archie comic plugging SWAMP THING and TABOO
And the final Charton I needed to have every Ditko original story they published from 1968-1978. For those curious, that’s 238 Ditko stories in 215 different comics totaling 1811 pages, plus 84 covers. Busy decade for Mr. D, especially when you add in his DC and independent work from that period. Still missing some Charlton original covers by Ditko for issues with no interior work by Ditko, but not as interested in those. This issue has proven elusive for two reasons. First, it looks like a Doctor Strange story, so tends to be overpriced compared to other Ditko Charltons (it was actually originally a rejected Spectre story by Steve Skeates that he rewrote for Doctor Graves). Second, there was a Modern Comics reprint in the 1970s, and every previous time I ordered this issue I wound up with the Modern version (all the sellers were very apologetic and offered refunds).
Finally picking up the non-anthology year of CRITTERS, the funny animal title published by Kim Thompson at Fantagraphics from 1986 to 1990. Still need a few more, but I don’t hold out hope of finding the three “Birthright” issues (#47 - #49), which seen scarce and very expensive when available. I'm going to have to go back and re-read some of the shorts that lead up to these full issues
The CBLDF LIBERTY ANNUAL anthologies that Image published from 2008 to 2016 are always a mixed bag, but there’s always something great in them. Some Evan Dorkin and Richard Corben to look forward to in these two. One more to go, coming in an in-transit shipment
Mike W. Barr’s MAZE AGENCY is an amusing light mystery series. These two issues are drawn by Adam Hughes and Rick Magyar and have been hard to find, as have some later issues. After one more in-trasit order is in I'll have all but one issue of the original series, might go looking for some of the short-lived revivals after that.
I will soon finally have every issue of the Jim Aparo / Mike W. Barr OUTSIDERS runs. I love what I've read of it, looking forward to getting the full picture. I especially love Aparo on a team book, and inking his own pencils (and even doing the lettering) on most of this run, which he didn't do as much after this.
And there's the last Gene Conan / Don McGregor NATHANIAL DUSK issue I needed, a real pain to find. Looking forward to reading it, though DC’s early attempt at printing from Colan's pencils doesn’t quite work.
Re-reading some J. M. DeMatteis Batman stories recently made me want more, so got this Two-Face one I was missing. Seems like a very good subject matter fit for DeMatteis. I do wish that DC and Marvel would get there act together and reprint their various cross-company books, including two DeMatteis Batman / Spider-Man team-ups. Those are hard to find and pricey.
Of course I have Evan Dorkin's ELTINGVILLE collection, as well as this individual issue digitally, but I have to have the individual print issue. Does this make me a candidate for joining the club?
The last two of Paul Grist’s 40 issue JACK STAFF series (through various restarts and title changes and specials) I needed. I have these two digitally, but you know, only paper counts. Wonder if that’s ever coming back? Grist always seems to plan to come back to his books like KANE or BURGLAR BILL, but never does.
Mark Badger’s crazy little Batman style is fun. I’ve probably seen a hundred copies of the first two issues of this RIDDLER series without finding the finale. Maybe I'll take a look at the follow-up BATMAN: JAZZ series later.
This damn LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES issue. Not only hard to find, but because it was a Crisis crossover it was skipped in the misguided hardcover/softcover reprint scheme of the time. Anyway, last issue of the second Paul Levitz Legion run (1981-1989) I needed. It's a pretty uneven run in my experience, but has some great highpoints, looking forward to reading it all to see if it hangs together better. Also I think most of his first run (1977-1979) is now available in collections and digitally, so I may take a look at that. And maybe just continue to pretend his third run (2010-2013) never happened...
Pretty sure I had this Jerry Ordway / Peter Krause / Mike Manley issue of POWER OF SHAZAM before, but a few were missing when I pulled them out to re-read a while back. So here it is again. One other missing one I still need coming in the mail and I'll have the series from the Ordway "grapic novel" up to #20 and will re-read and decide if I want to get #21 - #50. I liked the book at the time, but pretty much stopped buying all monthly mainstream comics for a while there for various reasons.
This 1992 Wolverine one-shot by Bill Sienkiewicz and Dan Chichester looks crazy. Didn’t even know it existed until a few years ago. During this decade most of Sienkiewicz's "mainstream" (DC/Marvel) work was inking or short stories. I think this is his only full-art mainstream job longer than ten pages between 1988 and 2001.
And finally one of a few BORIS THE BEAR issues by James Dean Smith I needed to have a solid run. That’ll be an interesting read/re-read when I get a few more. By coincidence, the book came up recently at Progressive Ruin almost exactly halfway between when I place my order and it arrived here.
So it’ll be a relief not to have to go through many of those sections of the dealer bins at local shows anymore looking for that one elusive issue. Of course, that just means some other stuff moves up the priority list.
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