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[linefinds]

Detective Comics  #482 - featuring Batman   (Feb/March, 79)

Adventure Comics  #371 - featuring Superboy   (Aug, 68)

Amongst my first few finds - grabbed off the line alongside each other , both coverless.  The Batman seemed older at first glance than it turned out to be, but the Superboy was vintage 12 cent era.

If you've read comics at all, you may have noticed the frequent phenomenon of seeing a particular character bearing uncanny resemblance to some real life celebrity - usual always for one panel only. And then you wonder for just a moment if it was something like "in-joke" deliberate - as sometimes it may be.  The case in point panel above (from Detective #482)  struck me as somewhat resembling Christopher Reeves, who first starred in Superman only months before - about a six or seven on the resemblance scale, I'd say.

"A man, a plan, a canal, Panama."   Superboy's lofty plan to build one reminded me of that phrase being known for it's letters reading exactly the same way in reverse.  Try it!

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Best Of DC - Vol 1 Blue Ribbon Digest   (Oct, 1979)

Found coverless with couple front pages missing, and "digest" size.  Thought it was older than it's 1979 publication date when I first grabbed it, because it featured a compilation of earlier Superman "classic" tales - like "Superman Under The Red Sun" from 1963. 

Speaking of resemblances earlier, the panel above looks like something I saw in an "Ascension" painting once.

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Herbie!   (1946)

"Herbie" is cartoonist Bing Coughlin"s composite character representing the average Canadian foot soldier of World War Two.  This "Herbie!" book - first published in 1946 with accompanying text by J.D.M. - contains a compilation of 177 single panel comics presented in such harmonic balance with the text it might almost be considered an early graphic novel.  It reads like the field report of a seasoned journalist who knew all the ins/outs, schemes, pitfalls, joys, dreads associated with being a common soldier.

This original pressing was a little battered about the spine and hardcover edges, but still all there and intact.  

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Pif Gadget   (June, 2007)

Children's comic magazine from France that ran from 1969-93, then resurrected 2004 till 2009. Bound in larger than comic book, durable magazine format with glossy cover, this 2007 issue bore a variety of colorful comics and illustration styles - thirteen stories ranging from one to sixteen pages long...plus games and puzzles. 

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Black Star - Vol 1, No 1   (1986)

Spawn: Book of Souls #1   (February 1998)

Two first issues here.  Black Star published by short-lived Imperial Comics - crumpled, but all there.  And spawn in near mint condition - best shape of any comic I'd find.

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Something "Star Wars"   (2013)

Cover and couple outer pages missing from this one, so not too sure about it.

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Crazy     (early 1980's)

"Crazy" was Marvel's initiative toward creating a magazine in the genre of MAD,...until, as one story goes, it's second editor sought to distinguish it from it's competitor by having it's creators produce work which was not only "crazy", but that strongly implied they themselves were insane.  I'm not sure how that would have distinguished it from MAD.

Can't recall if I ever read "Crazy", and like some may have completely confused it with "Cracked".

This coverless copy I found contained the "Stan Lee presents" feature Teen Hulk. 

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Two colored comic section pullouts from weekend newspaper - one from January 1978, the other from March same year.  Twenty-four comic features in each, plus games. 

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Captain Canuck - Vol 1, No 2   (1975)

Conceived in Canada as a superhero for Canadians ("Canuck" being a nickname for "Canadian"), this character was more of a special-ops agent to a national security agency than many a typical superhero who leaned more toward free agent status.  The story in this issue was set in the futuristic 1990's.

A basic flaw I've surmised may have diminished whatever greater credibility this comic could otherwise have had, was it's hard to take a hero as seriously as this one was intended to be taken when he's got a moniker like "Captain Canuck".  I mean were we being serious here, or not?  In this second issue, we were talking "invasion attempt of Canada" by an "underground group...lead by a fanatic" armed with "nuclear warheads" causing Ottawa to be "a scene of world tension" at a time when Canada has somehow become a global superpower...and the central hero has a name more befitting a breakfast cereal mascot. If it was necessary to flaunt his Canadiana, maybe a beaver emblazoned on his chest might have sufficed.  That aside, it's nonetheless evident the comic has had perseverance and staying power, having seen numerous resurrections over the decades since it's creation. It was the first Canadian superhero comic to be distributed in the U.S., is a sought after collectible in some circles, and the hero was featured on a Canadian postage stamp in 1995.  

Also in the issue I found was a second feature (Jonn: The Lost City of Molan), as well as there being real photographic images superimposed onto the panels in Captain Canuck for an added dose of realism. 

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Playboy  (March 66, June 67, November 71, December 71)

Found all four in excellent condition!

Goes without saying to anyone familiar with Playboy in those years that comics were an abundant mainstay of the magazine - full page color washes of voluptuous, big-eyed semi or unclad women, often in ambiances reflecting cultural trends, taboos, fashion of the times, had a uniquely familiar appearance. Lots of smaller single-panel comics too, as well as full blown colored strip features like Little Annie Fanny.  Cartoonists like Jack Cole, Gahan Wilson, Shel Silverstein, Harvey Kurtzman, Rowland B. Wilson were known for their contributions to Playboy.

A favorite I've never forgotten:   A couple sitting on their beach blanket have drawn an admiring crowd of fellow beach-goers watching the man masterfully juggling various contents from their open picnic basket - sandwiches, pop cans, apples, bananas...all swirling circularly in the air around them.  The woman confides to one of the woman gathered to watch, "He's really good in bed too!".  Next panel shows the same couple home alone in bed together.  Again, as on the beach, the picnic basket is open...the man is juggling sandwiches, pop cans, apples, bananas, while the woman watches admiringly.

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True - The Men's Magazine   (January, 1959)

Found coverless, this American magazine ran from 1937-73.

When a search revealed True altered it's subtitle from "the Men's Magazine" to "#1 Man's Magazine" in the 60's, I wondered if it was in realm of being competitor to Playboy in that era.  A few of the thirteen black and white comics in this issue were sexual reference, and the one large color comic (above) brings Playboy to mind.  But as far as I know there were no centerfolds in True.  And their orientation toward what constituted manhood may have differed somewhat from Playboy, as indicated by an ad section found on the last few pages called "True goes shopping".  Items to order include a gun that shoots blanks, and an exact replica of an army hand grenade - "a gag that will blow the lid off any party."

Over the years True published several compilation books of their comics. Another claim to fame was an article published in 1950 called "The Flying Saucers Are Real" - when the UFO phenomenon was in it's early stages. 

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Nipper by Doug Wright - featured in Weekend Magazine  (November 10, 1962)

Not a comic book itself, Weekend was a pullout magazine found in many Saturday newspapers across Canada in the 50's, 60's, 70,s.  Given mention here because it carried "Nipper" - most memorable of the first comics I became familiar with being read "the funnies" by my father as a kid.

Weekend sat on Canadian coffee tables for a week in those days until the cover image was super-engrained in everyone's brain, and the next one replaced it.  This made finding bound volumes of them at a public library some years ago as an adult an interesting find in itself as I got to review all those covers again and jar up old memories - not to mention those jarred by the Nipper's in each one!  

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Heavy Metal - The Adult Illustrated Fantasy Magazine   (July, 2003)

I'd seen and heard of this magazine before, but hadn't ever read it - maybe half presuming it was a music magazine. It's not, it's comics!  Been around since 1977, inspired by a magazine from France.

If there were a comic tailored to satisfy your pallet as an adult the way some darker comics did it for you as a kid, Heavy Metal would be in that genre.  The fantasy art can be enthralling - dark, gothic, futuristic, colors hypnotically dazzling...and can almost stand by itself without storyline - not surprising as many of the world's most developed fantasy/sci-fi artists regularly contribute.  About nine stories of varying length in this issue, each uniquely illustrated.

An initial impression I had in a moment of glossing over pages/panels of imagery in one story - seemingly depicting two separate dimensions in time and space - was that a resemblance between an architectural feature in each of them might indicate the two dimensions were actually one!...but as seen and presented from two different perceptual perspectives. This possibility raised the story to the level of mythology in my mind, and intrigued me to want to explore it further to see if I was right.

And speaking of resemblances, the panel above looks like something I saw in a Superman comic once! 

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The Amazing Spider-Man #403 (July, 95)

The Spectacular Spider-Man #226 (July, 95)

The Amazing Spider-Man contains Part 2 of four of "The Trial Of Peter Parker" and The Spectacular Spider-Man contains Part 4. Wasn't sure how this story jumped from "The Amazing..." to concluding in a "Spectacular" (presuming this may have introduced the latter as spinoff, or phased out one to the other), so did some searches to find Part 1 appeared in "Web Of Spider-Man #126" while Part 3 was featured in "Spider-Man #60."   The plot thickens!

So then I guessed these four mediums already existed before the story, and Marvel thought devising an epic tale presented through each of them would be good for all of them - while enticing fan base attached more to on than another toward expanding reading habits. But that's just another guess.

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Archie...Archie...Archie...

Seemingly always as popular as ever. Found more Archie's than any other kind of comic - mostly "digests" from 80's, 90's, beyond...plus a few regular comic book size, like a "Betty and Veronica Summer Fun" from 1979.

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Aliens - Volume 2, Number 1 (July, 1992)

Aliens was first published by British Dark Horse Comics in 1988.

This issue featured a second "free" mini-comic stapled to center page - Martha Washington's War Diary.   As this was published in 1992 about a future event, we could say the leaning twin tower image on the cover was prophetic!  On the other hand, not so surprizing an illustrator depicting the New York skyline in devastation would feature the towers.  

When I first read this, I interpreted the apparent civil war scenario in New York to be making a larger point about war always and ultimately being an attack we wage against ourselves - an initiative assessed in the final panel's last caption.

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The Organization MAD (1960, twelfth printing)

Raving MAD (1966, first printing)

Couple of vintage MAD paperbacks, 50 cent cover price. My own personal favorite MAD paperback as a pre-teen was "MAD About MAD!" by Sergio Aragones.