Tuesday, November 24, 2009

DC Comics Rarities Archives



I really, really love the DC Archives series. It's given me a chance to have nice reprints of books that I never could afford. It's given me a chance to look at Golden Age material that had rarely been reprinted or even seen for that matter. One of my favorites is the DC Rarities Vol. 1. It reprints the two New York World's Fair Comics of 1939/40 and the Big All American Comic Book from 1944.







I really love the iconography of the 1939 World's Fair. The 1930's view of the world of tomorrow is awesome in all its Art Deco glory. Nowhere was this more evident than the icons of the fair, the Trylon and Perisphere. Here are some fun facts about the T&P from the 1939 issue.



Of course Superman was the main attraction of these issues, although most of DC's stable of heroes at the time made an appearance as well. I don't think it gets more inspiring than the Man Of Tomorrow visiting the World Of Tomorrow.





These great books are chock full of goodies relating to the Fair and this archive is a must have for anyone interested in the Fair or Golden Age DC. It's a real treat from cover to cover. Now if only they had done Superman Goes To The 1964 New York World's Fair. Now, that would have been a cool comic!

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Tales Of Terror



I was recently going through some of my hardback collections and I came across this great history of the preeminent horror line of the 1950's, EC Comics. I picked it up at the 2000 San Diego Convention where they had the author and many of the surviving EC creators there to do a signing. It was wonderful to meet such legends as Al Williamson, Marie Severin, Al Feldstein, and many others. I got everybody who was there to sign the inside front cover.



I didn't know a whole lot about EC prior to this book. The original issues of such titles as Tales From The Crypt and Weird Science were kind of hard to find and expensive. I always liked what I did see though and it was cool reading about the history of this great line of comics. I'm not sure if the book is still in print but if it is, it's a must have for any comic lover's collection.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Strange Adventures #117



I've always been a fan of DC's science fiction titles of the Silver Age. This particular issue of Strange Adventures from June, 1960 features everything that made these books great. It has an awesome Gil Kane/Murphy Anderson gorilla cover followed by the story of this incredible simian by the quintessential DC science fiction team of John Broome, Carmine Infantino, and Joe Giella. If that was all that was in this issue, it would have been one to remember. But the true gem of this one was the first appearance of Broome and Anderson's Atomic Knights. I've always been a huge fan of the Knights and have loved Anderson's exquisite artwork on the series for a long time. That's why I was so excited to hear that DC is putting out a hardback reprinting of all the Knights' tales next summer. I've always wanted a full collection of these stories and now they're going to do it. I hope the printing is good. Sometimes the reproductions on these collections isn't very good but I've got my hopes up for this one. It's a must have for anyone who loves DC science fiction.

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