If you happened to read my blog post about Green Lantern #55 some weeks back, you’ll recall that that issue was merely the first chapter of a two-part epic. But if you missed that post, or would simply appreciate a memory refresher, here’s a handy recap of GL #55’s “Cosmic Enemy Number One” from writer John Broome and artist Gil Kane — straight from the splash page of issue #56 itself: Read More
By August, 1967, I’d been buying and reading comic books for two years — and the books that I had bought had almost exclusively been those published by DC Comics, with an occasional Gold Key issue for variety. But in that month, as the Summer of Love (or the Long Hot Summer, take your pick) wound down — I finally broke down and bought my first Marvel Comics Group comic book.
So what the hell took me so long?
It’s entirely possible that I just didn’t see that many Marvel comics on the spinner racks in those first two years of comic-book buying. Prior to 1968, the publisher’s newsstand distribution was controlled by Independent News (a company owned by National Periodical Publications, aka DC Comics — and no, that doesn’t sound like an ideal competitive situation, does it?), which restricted the number of titles that Marvel could release per month. That restriction would be all but completely lifted by early 1968, but in the summer of 1967, it was still in place. Read More
Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books 