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Posted: |
Jul 1, 2015 - 9:34 AM
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By: |
drop_forge
(Member)
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Europe has Shakespeare, Goethe, Flaubert, Dante, Cervantes - The US have Stan Lee.
Well, ---
Yes, we DO have Stan Lee  , but we also have Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Henry James, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Tennessee Williams to name a few. 
We have Poe, and we also have H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Harlan Ellison and Philip K. Dick.
Europe can have Shakespeare. LOL!
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Posted: |
Jul 1, 2015 - 2:50 PM
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By: |
Jim Phelps
(Member)
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Europe has Shakespeare, Goethe, Flaubert, Dante, Cervantes - The US have Stan Lee.
Well, ---
Yes, we DO have Stan Lee , but we also have Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Henry James, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Tennessee Williams to name a few.
We have Poe, and we also have H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Harlan Ellison and Philip K. Dick.
..and Isaac Asimov.
I think our ale-swilling UK friend is just "Yanking" our red, white, and blue chain. 
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Posted: |
Jul 3, 2015 - 4:45 PM
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By: |
Jim Phelps
(Member)
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With summer in full blast-heat-furnace mode--and inspired and invigorated by having gone to my first-ever convention--I've been revisiting the comics of my youth (once again) as well as filling in some blank spaces in the olde collection of books from that time (roughly 1977-86) that I've not read.
One of these would be the superb 1978-82 run of Iron Man (issues 116-156), when writer David Michelinie, penciller John Romita, Jr., and inker/co-plotter Bob Layton collaborated at what is still arguably Shell Head's greatest era.
We mentioned complementary inkers in the MoKF thread, and Bob Layton is another of those. He worked wonders over JRJR's pencils. For me, Layton was the glue of this run, both in terms of Iron Man's visuals and as a co-plotter. Layton has mentioned in numerous interviews his interest in science and technology and how he read a ton about the stuff for use in Iron Man. In fact, there are so many impressive-looking panels featuring Stark Industries' high-concept architecture and huge bases--not to mention those Kirby-designed SHIELD helicarriers. Here's John Romita Jr. and Bob Layton's take on it, from Iron Man #118:
It's also, as seen on the classic cover art, the one where Tony Stark is tossed unconscious out of a SHIELD helicarrier. The kids today will scoff at this, but this was epic stuff back in those hair helmet days:
Issue #118 also marks the debut of James "Rhodey" Rhodes, who appears in all of two panels. This is also why #118 tends to fetch big $$$. Two friggin' panels.
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Posted: |
Jul 9, 2015 - 8:18 AM
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By: |
Jim Phelps
(Member)
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Howard the Duck: the Complete Collection, Volume One
"Get the full story of how Marvel's most notorious movie star became trapped in a world he never made! Howard the Duck takes an adventure into fear when he is plucked from Duckworld and finds himself on Earth, bill to proboscis with the melancholy muck-monster Man-Thing! Stuck here on a planet of hairless apes, the furious fowl forges a future for himself in, of all places, Cleveland. But the would-be Master of Quack-Fu will have his wings full hanging out with Spider-Man and waging "waaaugh" with madcap menaces like the Space Turnip, the Cookie Creature, the Beaver and Doctor Bong. Will that earn him a spot on the Defenders?
COLLECTING: Fear 19, Man-Thing (1974) 1, Howard the Duck (1976) 1-16, Howard the Duck Annual 1, Marvel Treasury Edition 12, material from Giant-Size Man-Thing** 4-5"
http://amzn.com/0785197761
**tee-hee!
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One of many reasons why Marvel as a comic company has ceased to exist for me for who knows how long:
The Time Peter Parker Struck his Pregnant Wife:
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2011/04/15/that-time-peter-parker-struck-his-pregnant-wife/
Awful, awful story. You really have to wonder what was going through the editor's heads when they green lit this junk. Of course, I think this was when they were still seriously planning on making Ben Reilly the "true Spider-Man" so why not make Peter look bad? It makes Ben look that much better. The '90s really was a terrible time to read Spider-Man. If you want to read good '90s Spider-Man, check out Untold Tales of Spider-Man by Kurt Busiek and Patrick Oliffe. It is a fun series that takes place during the Lee/Ditko era. Sadly, the book never had great sales so it was cancelled before its time.
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Posted: |
Oct 27, 2015 - 10:30 AM
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By: |
drop_forge
(Member)
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By the late 1980s, Marvel was already well into their nosedive. All the "X" books were craptastic and lacked any sort of editorial lording, i.e. quality control. And then the "chicken-scratch" art that had become so pervasive thanks to the likes of Lee and Liefeld seemed to be the new Marvel "house style."
DC clearly cleaned Marvel's clock in the '90s, just as they did in the second half of the 1980s, thanks to guys like Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Denny O'Neil, Gil Kane, the team of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez (who then went and revamped Wonder Woman on his own) and even (I almost shudder as I type this) John Byrne, with his reinvention of Superman.
The Amazing Spider-Man and Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man were fantastic books up to a point in the 1980s. Once the storylines involving the Rose and the Hobgoblin were over, things dipped majorly. And the mutant overkill nonsense...the reboot of X-Men sucked even worse than the series they'd already ground to a halt!!
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Some months back we discussed favorite Avengers storylines and either Mchael Scorefan or drop_forge recommended "Under Siege", which had gone oop. It is beng republished in Marvel's "Epic Collection" series May 24, 2016:
www.amzn.com/0785195394
Excellent news! It is great to see it back in print. My copy is showing its age, and this volume reprints other stories I don't have, so I just talked myself into buying it! Surprisingly, I needed very little convincing. One of the fights from Avengers Annual # 15, which is reprinted in this volume, was discussed in depth, with a heavy dose of tongue in cheek, here: http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2015/09/27/the-wrong-side-freedom-force-vs-combined-west-and-east-coast-avengers/
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