Alan Weiss | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books

Dracula Lives #1 (May, 1973)

In February, 1973, Marvel Comics published 42 individual comic books — a 75% percent increase in production from the previous year, when the second month of 1972 had seen the company release a mere 24 new issues. And notwithstanding such a prodigious expansion in production, the company (which had recently surpassed arch-rival DC Comics in sales numbers for the first time ever) wasn’t nearly done. But Marvel’s next major phase of growth — which in fact began in that very month of February, 1973 — was to be in a different area than the full-color comics line in which it had made its mark. Read More

Korak, Son of Tarzan #46 (May-Jun., 1972)

Posted on March 9, 2022 by Alan Stewart

As I wrote last month in my post about Tarzan #207, I firmly believe that it would have been all but impossible for an American child of my generation to grow up not knowing who Tarzan was. Korak, son of Tarzan, on the other hand… well, maybe not so much. Sure, the scion of the Lord of the Jungle had been around since 1914, when he appeared as the infant Jack Clayton in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel The Eternal Lover. But he’d made a much smaller imprint on popular culture, at least as a solo adventurer, only appearing in a single film, the 1920 serial The Son of Tarzan; as far as most moviegoers (or movies-on-TV viewers) were concerned, the Ape Man’s kid was a boy named, er, “Boy”. Seriously, unless you were a reader of the novels, about the only way you’d know the name “Korak” was from comics — and even there, the poor guy had to work to stake his claim. Read More

Avengers #96 (Feb., 1972)

Posted on November 10, 2021 by Alan Stewart

In November, 1971, the cover of Avengers #96 heralded a new era for the title, as a streamlined new logo created by Gaspar Saladino replaced the one that had graced almost every issue of the Marvel Comics series since its launch back in 1963. A previous attempt to replace the original logo in 1969 had lasted a mere eight issues; this latter effort obviously proved a great deal more durable, as Saladino’s design, while undergoing multiple modifications over the years, has survived in recognizable form down to the present day. Read More

Batman #237 (December, 1971)

Posted on October 30, 2021 by Alan Stewart

Batman #237’s “Night of the Reaper!” wasn’t the first comic book story set at the real-life Rutland, VT Halloween Parade; that distinction goes to Avengers #83, which was published one year earlier (and was covered here on this blog last October). Nor would it be the last such tale.

But it was almost certainly the best of the bunch.

That’s really not surprising, given that the story was crafted by one of the most outstanding creative teams of the era — writer Denny O’Neil, penciller Neal Adams, and inker Dick Giordano — as well as that it, more than most of its fellows, aspired to be about something more than either the Parade itself, or conventional superheroic goings-on — something decidedly more serious, in fact — and was largely successful in achieving this aim, ultimately addressing the subject of the Holocaust in a dramatic, but sensitive, manner.

Nevertheless, the origins of this classic story in certain actual (but not very serious) events — and the appearance within its pages of several equally actual persons who either already were, or would soon become, well-known comics industry professionals — can’t help but be responsible for a certain amount of “Night of the Reaper!” lasting appeal. And it’s with those events, and persons, that we begin. Read More