His cover art for 1981′s King Conan #6 is one of my favorite’s. I love the bold colors and perspective with all the bodies and the over turned wine jug in the foreground as Conan stands warily dripping broadsword in hand with the conniving Thanara hanging from his neck. I wish I would have had a copy of THIS book with me when I ran into Walt at the convention! (click below for 1920×1200 wallpaper)

After 3 issues of Marvel Feature they got their own book in 1972:

The Defenders were always Marvel’s odd-ball team – if you can call them a true team at all. In fact they were referred to as the “NON-Team” -ONLY called together when something really big/bad threatened the earth. The original core members were Dr. Strange (more or less the leader of the group), the Hulk and Namor the Sub-Mariner. A little later Norse beauty the Valkyrie joined as well as Nighthawk. Over the years many different super-heroes quit and joined some officially and many non officially, a partial list would include Power Man (Luke Cage), Hell-Cat, Tigra, Silver Surfer, Son of Satan, Gargoyle, Moondragon & Daredevil. In contrast to the more main-stream Avengers book many of the Defenders story-lines involved the supernatural and various demonic beings. Several of the early issues tackled racism and actually had the team fighting white supremacists (ya gotta love Steve Gerber)!

Now that I have them all I’m reading them straight through in order. I’m about 30 issues in now and I stopped to read Giant Size issue 1 and the title’s 1st (and only) King-Sized Annual. 1974′s Giant Size #1 is a 68 page square-bound volume that reprints some material from Incredible Hulk #3, Sub-Mariner #41, Strange Tales #145 & Fantastic Four Annual #5. Stringing the reprinted stories together is new material where Dr. Strange’s protege Clea brings up images from the character’s past to help Valkyrie understand her team-mates better. It’s a clever idea but the coolest part for me was getting to see some early art by the great Jim Starlin. Check out this panel (click for larger scan)for a sample:

Clea and Valkyrie never looked more voluptuous!

This is a mini review of two mini sized comics. The first one was a HUGE disappointment. I didn’t pick up The 8 issue mini “Thor -The Mighty Avenger” when it came out originally in standard comicbook form. But I’ve read review after review where people go on and on about how GREAT it was. So I looked at some art samples online and liked what I seen of Chris Samnee’s art. Marvel originally put this out as part of their kid-friendly line of books under the “Marvel Adventures” imprint. This is a totally separate line with it’s own continuity. It’s not part of the classic Marvel Universe or the Ultimate Marvel Universe. And since I just can’t buy and READ everything it’s something I’d normally take a pass on. But I ordered the trade paperback from Amazon based on the great reviews and good art. This was truly a mistake. What I didn’t realize until I got it in my hands is that this thing measures only 6×9 inches in size. It’s similar to an Archie Digest or Marvel’s “backpack sized” trades from a few years ago. It’s an interesting size. It would be easy for the collector in me to trash it outright simply because it doesn’t fit well on the shelf with standard sized trades and hardcovers. But I gave it a chance. I TRIED to read this thing. But the reduced size truly does NOT give the great art by Chris Samnee any justice what so ever. It really suffers being shrunk down like this. The text/fonts look kind of OFF this small as well. There are ELEVEN editors (counting assistants) listed in the credits for this. I find it astonishing that one or more of them didn’t speak up and question the wisdom of putting this out in this format? Am I the only one that thinks this looks terrible? I really hope they release a full size version that collects all 8 issues so I can give this another shot one day. Oh yeah and did I mention the price? $14.99! The standard price does not match the substandard size!

This is in SHARP contrast to the little hardcover by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming called “Takio”. This is a true gem of a book. It’s roughly the same 6×9 size of the Thor TPB but this is an original graphic novel not a collected series or story arc. This is published under the creator owned Icon imprint also by Marvel. At $9.95 for 96 pages it’s a bargain. It’s also an absolutely charming story that any fan of the comic medium or the super-hero genre will love. It’s appropriate for any age. This is the PERFECT book to hand to a young kid to spark their interest in reading and/or get them into comics specifically. This is a story about two sisters (ages 13 and 9 I think) that accidentally get super-powers. If you think you’ve heard that before too many times think again. This is a fresh spin on an old idea. It’s told mostly from the point of view of the girls themselves and it’s a winner. Anyone familiar with Brian Bendis’s other work on Marvel’s Avengers or Ultimate Spider-Man knows that he is a master of dialogue. This is no exception. The banter between the two sisters (especially the over the top excitement from the little one) is terrific. The cartoony artwork by Michael Oeming does NOT suffer at this smaller size. The backgrounds are pretty sparse. I think more detailed backgrounds would suffer badly at this digest like size, but it just works great here. The colors really pop. Buy this book. Buy it for yourself and buy a copy for any young people in your life. They will thank you & probably come back wanting more. Hopefully Bendis & Oeming won’t make us all wait too long for volume 2.

So here I am switching again. That is dumping the traditional 32 page stapled comic book in favor of hard cover and softcover collected editions. Of course I’m only doing this for NEW comics. I still prefer the original format for the old stuff. But honestly about 95% of everything written in comics today is really intended for the collected format. They read BEAUTIFULLY in nice collected arcs (typically 4-12 issues or 88 to 260 pages). I will continue to complete the great old stuff like Werewolf By Night, Tomb of Dracula, etc. in “real” “comic book” comic form. But as of now I’m out of the 32 pager for $2.99 -3.99 cover price business. It just had to be done. It should save me a bit of space in the ComicBook Room and maybe even a bit of money -but NOT MUCH. Lets take a look at a cost breakdown for the typical newish comicbook run:

Marvel’s Avengers Volume One (2009) this collects the 2009 series issues 1-6. Amazon has it right now for $16.49 (34% off of cover price) Cover price is $24.99. This is for the hardcover. The math on this comes out to about 12.5 cents a page (Amazon) or 18.9 cents a page at standard retail list.

IF you had bought the same story as they came out in 32 page (22 without ads) chunks it would have cost you about 13.5 cents a page (at $2.99 cover price) or 8.13 cents a page (@40% off by PRE-Ordering online).

Another option is the Trade Paperback (softcover) collected format. The math on this is 10.29 cents a page (Amazon) or 15.14 cents a page (retail list).

Just looking at the raw math the 32 pager pre-ordered online from an etailer like DCBS seems to be the clear winner. BUT there are hidden costs (at least for ME) in the form of Bags and Boards. Hardcover books if moderately cared for have a nice long life sitting on a normal shelf. Tradepaperbacks aint so bad either. But “real” comicbooks need a fair amount of “care and feeding”. They need a proper box/lid and they also need a board and a bag. If you use ANYTHING other than Mylar you are just making a bad situation worse and in time (5-20 years depending on various factors) that cheap plastic bag will degrade, yellow and eventually start to destroy your books. I put all my comics in Mylite2s from E.Gerber. I buy in lots of 500. Even at this quantity they ADD about 30 cents an issue or 1.36 cents a page (only counting story pages here).

So the single 32 pager pre-ordered online is STILL cheapest at 9.49 cents a page (this now includes a nice Mylar bag & board). But this does NOT put a dollar figure on the Pain in the Ass factor. I’m talking about the time and labor of messing around with bags and board, boxes and lids and all that jazz. Sure its “fun” for a while but in time it does get old. And let me tell you mylar bags are NOISY. When one is trying to read a comic or two at night when the wife’s asleep you DO NOT want to be rattling a crispy/crinkly mylite bag! Trades and hardcover are virtually silent in comparison!

Now all the calculations above were assuming we are dealing with the $2.99 cover price of the typical modern comicbook. Sadly many comics are now $3.99 and many more soon will be. The math on this is:

10.86 (naked without bag or board) pre-ordered online or 18.13 (naked -standard cover price)

WOW

Shipping -lets not forget the shipping cost. Amazon has free shipping for all orders over $24.99. This is easily met so effectively my hardcovers and trades will have NO SHIPPING charge. At DCBS I currently pay $6.25 per month for UPS ground – a good deal to be sure but this adds (averaging book numbers here) about 16 cents an issue or .75 a story page. Not a lot but a little.

And don’t even get me started on how much Pain in the Ass factor is added by having to order all your comics months in advance. Trust me it sucks.

Amazon.com here I come.

So I’m about to hit a mile-stone with my comic collection. A little over a year ago my X-Men collecting got side-tracked by Brian Michael Bendis. His work on the Avengers re-ignited my dormant love for Marvel’s Mightiest Heroes in a BIG WAY. Like a lot of collectors my favorite era of the Avengers was the one I was first exposed to as a little kid. That would be the late 70′s & early eighties. The issues must have been 170 or so up through the big double-sized 200. Wonderful art by George Perez and Terry Austin…fantastically detailed and tight. No one does it better than George Perez and no one inks as tight and clean as Terry Austin.

So when I got the Avengers fever I decided that I would at the very least obtain all of the issues from that time. I figured I could conceivably manage to get #150 “and up”. As I got to researching it become pretty clear that I didn’t need all of the “and up” part of the collection. I didn’t collect or read comics during the ’90s and most people tell me I didn’t miss much. What few ’90s books I have read pretty much confirm the idea that the 1990′s for the most part was the worst age of the Super-Hero comic. Like Disco nearly killed Rock-n-Roll in the ’70s the awful excess of the ’90s nearly destroyed the American Super-Hero comic. So I’ve decided to “give myself a break” and simply SKIP all the crappy ’90s issues of the titles I’m collecting. Instead I’m going to focus on the Good Stuff. I decided I would stop at Avengers #300. And now with the order I just placed with Atomic Avenue. I will have Avengers #150 through 300 solid.

And if all goes as planned I will finish reading the entire run sometime in the next couple of weeks if not before that. Right now I’m on #281 smack dab in the middle of the Roger Stern run that featured the always great art team of John Buscema and Tom Palmer. Good stuff.

So I suppose this Spring I can get back to those X-Men.

The above image is a small version of a wallpaper I just made. The art is scanned from Uncanny X-Men #518 by Terry & Rachel Dodson. This panel shows Emma Frost as she appears in the mind of Scott Summers as he is battling slivers of the Void (evil alter-ego of the Sentry)for control of his psyche.

Click here for the full-size 1920×1200 version.

Or here for a 1680×1050 version.

I am considering making wallpaper posts a regular/semi-regular thing. I have several hundred I’ve made from my own scans & make new ones often. If it seems like there is enough interest I’ll start posting these. Most are sized 1920×1200. It’s pretty trivial to add a smaller 1680×1050 version if it seems needed. Please post/email me your thoughts on this. Let me know!

Lately I’ve been rocking Marvel’s new Dr. Voodoo series. I’m a sucker for all the old Marvel horror/supernatural characters. I just recently managed to complete my Werewolf By Night collection including the hard to find (and hard to afford) coveted first appearance in Marvel Spotlight #2! But I digress the subject here is Dr. Voodoo AKA Brother Voodoo as he was better known from his first appearances in the early ’70′s Strange Tales issues 169 & 170:

Brian Michael Bendis modernized the character somewhat recently in the pages of New Avengers. Jericho Drumm got promoted to Doctor Voodoo (oddly enough that is what Roy Thomas originally called the character when he brought the concept to Stan Lee but Stan said no -BROTHER VOODOO!). According to Bendis’s story Dr. Strange “fell from grace” and the Eye of Agammato had to choose a new Sorcerer Supreme. After a lot of flying around looking at possible candidates (including among others Dr. Doom and Daimon Hellstrom the Son of Satan) Jericho Drumm was chosen. So he got a cool amulet, scarlet cloak of levitation, a black body suit and a creepy staff with attached dangling shrunken heads to go along with the upgraded nomenclature. Speaking of the creepy staff -get this -the heads SCREAM crazy unpronounceable stuff at his opponents when he uses it’s dark mojo! Awesome!

Art by Jefte Palo from Doctor Voodoo #1.

Shortly after the events in the pages of New Avengers he got his own book. I’ve read the first 3 issues now and I’m really loving it. It’s creepy and dark but it does have that goofy old school Marvel fun to it that always sucks me right in. Unfortunately these odd ball decidedly NON-main stream comics tend to not make it very long and get canceled after 12 or 14 issues (see Blade’s last series). I really hope Dr. Voodoo Avenger of the Supernatural is the exception to this rule . So please do pick it up if you like great Marvel horror books.

I made this widescreen wallpaper from the cover of issue 2 (art by Marko Djurdjevic). Click the thumbnail below for a full-size 1920×1200 version. Or click here for a 1680×1050 version.

A few of my hopes for Marvel in 2010:

1) I REALLY wanna see Norman Osborn get his ass kicked. He needs to go down and go down HARD. As fun as the past year of comics has been I am soooo ready for the good guys to WIN.

2) The Mouse should stay out of the House. I hope Disney stays out of the editorial & creative side of Marvel comics.

3) Dark Avengers should be canceled right after Osborn’s incarceration/death.

4) I’d like to see Dark Wolverine, Wolverine Weapon X and Wolverine: Origins be rolled into ONE Wolverine book called “Wolverine”….this would be a MONTHLY book and would start with an issue number around 400 or 500 or so (it would absorb all the issue numbers of all previous and current Wolverine comics). I KNOW they won’t really combine all those books but I would like to see Weapon X and Origins combined into one book titled “Logan” & the regular Wolverine book does need it’s issue number count to return to “normal” (300+ by now). Obviously my math needs checked here but you get the idea.

5) Skaar please GO AWAY. Talk about wearing out one’s welcome! I was with Greg Pak all through Planet Hulk. That was some GOOD STUFF right there. But Skaar needs to leave Incredible Hulk alone. PLEASE return Banner-Hulk! We need him! Skaar is a soulless unrepentant MONSTER. We have enough of those in real life. We need a HERO.

My tenth favorite series of 2009 is Darkhorse’s Conan. Darkhorse is doing a GREAT job with all the Robert E. Howard properties. It’s been great all the way through. Many were worried about what would happen with this series after writer Kurt Busiek left. Tim Truman has done a good job filling those BIG shoes. The art by Tomás Giorello is terrific and gives the book a real Frazetta-Fantasy feel. Another highlight of 2009 was the arc by the legendary artist Richard Corben. FANTASTIC.

Number nine is Marvel’s Thor series. We waited and waited and waited for Thor to return after it was canceled a few years ago. With the superb writing of J. Michael Straczynski the wait was definitely worth it. Too bad with the upcoming Siege universe wide event Straczynski is gone from the book and Marvel it seems. I’m still not convinced his costume needed a makeover (does the god of thunder really need chain-mail?) but I can live with it.

Number eight is Wolverine Weapon X. With the “main” Wolverine title taken over by Daken “the Dark Wolverine” for many fans Jason Aaron is writing the “real” flagship Wolverine book right here. This has been a near perfect take on the character and it doesn’t hurt having artist Ron Garney doing what is arguably his best work ever.

Number seven is Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Season Eight). Buffy creator Joss Whedon continued the TV show as a comicbook and it is an absolute joy to read. With great art by Georges Jeanty and a rotating crew of excellent writers (mostly from the show) this just couldn’t be any better.

Matt Fraction’s Iron Man has been a consistent must read all year. This book featuring the wonderful art of Salvador Larroca would be perfect to show a non-comic reader as an example of just how GREAT a super-hero comic can be.

Super-star writer Brian Michael Bendis teams up with former Alias artist Alex Maleev for this darkly moody super-hero sci-fi spy thriller. It just doesn’t get much better than this!

I was prepared to hate this book, I really was. I HATE the idea of these twisted psychos using the names of my beloved Avengers. Bullseye is NOT Hawkeye. Venom is NOT Spider-Man! And yet I can’t stop reading this stuff. It’s been fun and fascinating watching Norman Osborn’s madness play out, but surely this series HAS to end shortly after Siege completes?

Ultimate Spider-Man continues to entertain despite the crazy “restructuring” of the Ultimate Universe. I thought I might actually drop the book after Mark Bagley left. But I kept reading and was glad for it. It’s funny, charming and action-packed. It quite simply NEVER disappoints.

Brian Michael Bendis tore the Avengers apart and remade them using a combination of his own personal favorites (Luke Cage, Spider-Woman) and Marvel Mainstream heavy hitters (Spider-Man, Wolverine)…and somehow it just worked. Now 60+ issues later it STILL works. I LOVE this book.

It’s hard to believe a Captain America comic could be this intriguing without Steve Rogers….and for quite a while there it had NO Captain America either! But this book has been a non-stop action thriller thanks to the fantastic writing and twisted plots of writer Ed Brubaker.

So there it is -my Top Ten of 2009. Agree? Disagree? Make your case by hitting the comment link.