Random Lulu panel

If you haven't been checking out Dark Horse's current reprints of John Stanley and Irving Tripp's LITTLE LULU comics, you really should. Eight volumes out so far with more on the way, over 200 pages in each, really fun stuff

From LITTLE LULU: SUNDAY AFTERNOON

And they say EC was a bad influence on kids.

I did notice that Dark Horse's weird release order has made the Amazon listings a bit of an adventure, with two books each labelled volume 1 and volume 2, and no volume 4 or 5.

--Link-- BUYER'S GUIDE index

A real treasure trove for fans of old fanzines as the folks over at THE COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE are putting up an index of all their old issues, starting with their precursor THE BUYER'S GUIDE TO COMICS FANDOM, with a cover index to the first 400 issues and scans of the first 50 up there so far and more to come. Check out the ones by Dan Adkins and Dennis Fujitake in particular.

(shown at right, a cover to a later issue, #928 (Aug 30, 1991), with Groo by Sergio Aragones)

http://cbgxtra.com/Default.aspx?tabid=1433

My Collection - USAGI YOJIMBO [1987 Series]

Usagi Yojimbo [1987 series]
37 issues [1987 - 1993]
1 - 11, 13 - 38

The first version of Stan Sakai's still on-going series, later published by Mirage and now by Dark Horse. Usagi had of course appeared in several issues of the anthology books ALBEDO and CRITTERS before the first issue, as well as a one-shot special reprinting his earliest stories the previous year.

I started reading the book sometime in 1990, I think after reading about it in one of the AMAZING HEROES preview issues. After a few months of getting the new issues I was also looking for all the back issues, although quite a few of them proved hard to find. I did eventually pick up the tradepaperbacks for those issues, so I was less interested in buying them, but still kept an eye out for them. I found most of what I still needed in the last year, except that elusive #12.

Pretty extraordinary series, as Sakai quickly got into the pattern of alternating long epic stories with a patch of shorter bits, mixing lots of drama with humour and a wide selection of Japanese mythology and history. And while he still does great art to this day, I think the peak of his work is probably around the middle of this series, from "Dragon Bellow" through "Circles".

In addition to the Usagi stories, the series also ran back-up stories of the same style as CRITTERS in most issues. The best are probably Sergio Aragones doing Catnippon in #11 (I still hope we get the UY/Catnippon crossover some day), the Evanier/Shaw! Digger Duckbill in #13 and Sakai himself drawing Tom Stazer's Lionheart in #23.

Some noteworthy issues:

#13-#18 - "The Dragon Bellow Conspiracy", the first really epic UY story, and maybe still the best, especially the ending.

#20 - "A Kite Story", a good funny single issue story using some Japanese culture and history.

#38 - "The Last Ino Story", a touching story that also has a lot of Usagi/Gen interaction, which is always a highlight.

EC - Trip Into the Unknown (Kurtzman)

Trip Into the Unknown
art by Harvey Kurtzman, story by Al Feldstein(?)
Weird Fantasy #13[#1] (1950)

According to the notes in TALES OF TERROR Feldstein says that this story might be one of the Gaines/Feldstein stories, though he isn't sure. If so it would be one of the only ones drawn by Kurtzman. In terms of story it's always hard to tell how much leeway to give EC stories with major cliches, since in some cases they're the ones who came up with the cliches, or at least were among the first to use them. The twist ending in this one is the case, with an exploration spaceship landing on a world with the ruins of a once advanced civilization of giants, now reduced to savages. Yeah, you can guess the rest.

Kurtzman's art rises above the story, especially the early part of the story with some good use of close-ups and sound effects to make the launch dramatic and the pages of the crew of the ship getting used to zero gravity. I also liked the panels of the now-savage aliens, which has some funny bits.

--Link-- Hulk on Intelligent Design

Hulk: Hulk am next step in evolution because God wanted Hulk like this. Hulk getting hit by rays was no mistake! It was all in God’s plan! That’s why Hulk have complex features like rest of animals, but Hulk also have more muscles and more brains!

Bruce Banner vs The Incredible Hulk on Intelligent Design by Mike Powers via the Palaeoblog
[original link no longer valid, changed to archive.org Wayback Machine mirror]

Random question

Does anyone know why that book over on the right, Batman Adventures: Dangerous Dames and Demons, a collection of Paul Dini's stories from the various Batman animated series inspired books, is so hard to find? Since it came out a few years ago I've asked for it in comic stores only to be told it was back-ordered, tried to order it on-line only to be told it wasn't available any more, and just looking for it now saw that on-line prices for used copies start at $80, more than five times the cover price. What up with that? Isn't the point of tradepaperbacks that you keep them in print, that they're easy to find? Is there some reason this was seemingly allowed to fall out-of-print so fast? With Paul Dini coming in as a writer on one of the regular Batman books shouldn't they get this back in print?

The Question miscellany

Figured as an adjunct to the posts about the O'Neil/Cowan QUESTION series I'd post a few other favourite images that don't come from the series proper.

First up there is from a house-ad which ran on the back of some DC books the month the series launched. It's a very nice, simple design with a great tagline. There's mention in one of the issues of a Question promotional poster. Does anyone know if it has the same art as this? If not, could anyone get me a scan of it?

Thanks to Eric of www.vicsage.com for providing a scan of the elusive promotional poster, which is in fact different from the house ad. It's a gorgeous Cowan/Magyar image, very detailed and with great colouring. They should use that as the cover of a tradepaperback when we finally see one.

Next is the cover to AMAZING HEROES #108, December 15, 1986. The two Charlton relaunches from DC got the cover, with their respective creative teams handling each character. Really like that Cowan/Magyar image of Vic, makes me wish they'd done a few covers together, much as I like the Cowan/Sienkiewicz covers. Inside is a 5-page article on the relaunch, with some quotes from the various creators, including mentioning a few story plans (Vic getting involved in the Wayne Foundation, leading to a confrontation with Batman, a STAR Labs story involving science ethics) that were never realized.

Here's a closeup of just the Question figure.

Over two years later the Question returned to the AH cover on #163 in April 1989. Extensive interview with Cowan in this issue, as well as a detailed article about the history of the character, the themes and fan reaction to the revamp, including a 2-page profile of Vic Sage and his public history that was really well done. You can read more about it in this comment from Dwight Williams from when I posted the cover before.

Next is a painted retail poster for the "Fables" crossover featuring Batman, Green Arrow and the Question by Denys Cowan and Bill Sienkiewicz. Had a copy of this on my wall for the longest time, and it was much admired, though I always had to explain who the Question was. 

Here's a line-art version of the same image used in house-ads for the story.

Following that is something from the only evidence I have that DC once planned a tradepaperback of the first five issues of the series, titled THUNDER OVER THE ABYSS, from an issue of DC's promotional material of the time. The image they used with the promo was a re-coloured panel from #5, apparently it was going to have a painted cover by Cowan. I wonder if the cover was ever actually done?

Next is part of a large jam image that was included in the hardcover HISTORY OF THE DC UNIVERSE collection in 1987, as well as a postcard in that issue that could be sent in to buy a separate poster. Among the over fifty characters and over fifty artists is the Question as drawn by Denys Cowan. Go here for an image of the full poster, including a certain Question inspired character.

The first iteration of DC's WHO'S WHO profile series preceded the O'Neil/Cowan series, so the Question featured there was the original Ditko version, drawn by Ditko himself in his final work on the character. The first update in 1987 featured entries based on the new series, with Lady Shiva by Jan Duursema, the Question by Cowan and Bob Smith and oddly one-shot villain Mikado by Cowan and Greg Brooks. Todd McFarlane did the cover for the issue featured Vic and Mikado.

The next version of WHO'S WHO, the looseleaf three-hole punch version, also featured some entries of interest, including the Question by Cowan

They collected the main series in a set of six paperbacks from 2007 to 2009, using covers from the series. Nice enough books, but without any extras, and not including the Annuals (and Green Arrow and Detective crossovers) and stopping short of the Quarterly and other later stories.

Any other promo images or merchandise for the series I missed? Let me know.