Martinex1: The weeks keep flying by, and every Tuesday is Follow the Leader time here at BitBA! Join the conversation with all of the regular crowd. What will the topic be today? Let's get started!
Martinex1: Update --- here are some of the covers and posters mentioned in the comment section today!
16 comments:
Hey, no one's here yet?
Let me get in here with this one...
What's your favourite comic book cover that led you to an impulse buy that you would not have made otherwise?
Not counting covers of series you were already collecting or which had your favourite character appearing, or issue #1's or anniversary issues that you may have decided to check out. It's an impulse buy made purely on the basis of the cover.
Second question: favourite comic book poster purchases?
For my first question, I want to go with Thor #356. That's the fill-in issue from the Walt Simonson run that showed Hercules shoving Thor aside saying: "Walt Simonson is on vacation and so art thou!"
I had not purchased a single issue of the Simonson run to that point, wasn't even sure who he was, but something about that scene screamed "this will be a fun, different type of issue." And Hercules is usually good for a laugh. So I bought my first Thor in years (and did indeed enjoy the issue very much).
My favourite poster is a tie between my first poster I bought, a John Byrne Alpha Flight with a giant Puck holding the other 7 members at the time, along with my second poster, the John Byrne Fantastic Four poster with every Stan and Jack character from the first 100 issues. Stared at both of these beauties for hours on end once they adorned my bedroom wall.
Good stuff!
-david p.
Never had any posters per se. BUT I did remove Kirby's full pager from Steranko History of Comics volume 1 which shows Cap and Bucky fighting Red Skull and Nazis. IMHO this is Kirby's finest work. I had it taped to my wall, growing up, for years!
Though Avengers 127 got to purchase my first Marvel comic, with the Thing prominently featured in the center with Thor, it was a couple of years before I was tempted to branch out to Brand Echh.
Being a loyal Marvel reader, it took the Marshall Rogers cover to Detective Comics 473 to get me to finally buy the Distinguished Competition's dark knight. I'd been interested, but it took this art and the realization that Steve Englehart had defected from the Avengers to DC. Their Batman is still one of my favorite DC runs.
As for posters, I have to agree with the previous comment about the John Byrne FF poster. I still look at it today, having put it on a coffee mug! I also had the many FOOM posters up in my teenage room, featuring Steranko, Kirby, Ditko and Colan. One other that I still have up is a Jonny Quest ad from Comico, featuring the tagline "The Youngest American Hero." Love that Doug Wildey artwork.
A more recent favorite, though, is my framed copy of Steve Rude's Marvel Universe Classic Sixties. Looking at this image just brings back all the fun of collecting Marvel back issues.
Hmmm, I think I bought MTIO #52 because I thought Moon Knight looked cool on the cover. I remember buying Dr. Strange #32 because of the cover and being rather disappointed with the story.
As for posters, I was never really into them, though I always wanted that gigantic Legion poster by Keith Giffen.
I bought my first Micronauts - #20- based entirely on the cover. Ant-Man was mingling among cereal boxes on a store shelf while chaos ensued just around the corner. I loved that cover and not knowing anything about the Micronauts - it drew me in. I ended up collecting the whole series.
That was a Michael Golden cover - and he did it to me again with ROM #12 - my first ROM buy. Again a guest star - this time Jack of Hearts - was rendered so beautifully on the cover that I had to pick up the book.
Regarding posters - I actually only owned one comic related poster. I received it free after filling out a Marvel questionnaire and mailing it in. A few weeks later a Hulk poster arrived. The green Goliath was stomping toward the viewer with his fist overhead and the landscape of the world in the background. That is how I remember it. I think it may have been a Sal Buscema work; I will have to try to find it on line.
Thanks for getting the conversation started today David.
I could not find every example - and I hope I captured the correct posters that were mentioned - but I added some of the covers and posters that were mentioned in the comments today so that you can view them. Cheers.
Well let's see, I had seen Daredevil on the spinner racks for a while but only after seeing #126, a Gil Kane cover with Torpedo speeding towards DD, did I take the plunge. I was a regular reader after that.
No posters for me but I did order the 1981 Marvel calendar (which I still own). Hey you can hang it up like a calendar :-)
Thanks for posting those images! Man, even being a casual Legion fan, that would've been a great poster to stare at.
Don't really have any room in the house where comic book posters fit the decor anymore, but if I did, I'd sure love to have that Alex Ross Marvel 70s one. Don't know if anyone here has seen it, but it's pretty great.
Best,
david p.
Fun topics, David! Many thanks!
Probably the first cover that 'pulled me in' to something new was DC's "Rima the Jungle Girl" #1. Back in early 1974, I had only just started reading heroic comics, and only Marvels at that. But seeing that beautiful green Kubert cover led me to make my first DC purchase. And the inside art by Nestor Redondo was fabulous too...
As for posters: had several, wish I still had my "FOOM" poster. Maybe I'll try ebay sometime. But I did have a very cool poster by Barry Windsor-Smith of a ghostly figure fading against the trees and shadowy ground. It was called "Withering"; unfortunately it too got lost over the years. So did my Jonny Quest poster by Doug Wildey (probably the same one you had, Disneymarvel). All my old posters are long gone. But, I now try to pick up original artwork and sketches; but I did get a fun poster/print at C2E2 this year: a Scrooge McDuck poster by Don Rosa parodying Will Eisner's Spirit. Need to frame that.
Wow Marti - thanks for posting those images! I haven't seen the Kirby one in a few years... it still grabs me hard!
Quick question: The FF by Byrne... who is standing underneath the Sandman and left of the baby Skrulls? Is that Diablo by chance?
It's The Miracle Man, Charlie Horse.
Thanks! Now... who was Miracle Man, lol? 1980s FF?
Ha!
Byrne liked to bring back some of those Lee, Kirby characters from the early FF days, during his run.
1. Avengers #161 is a book I first picked up because of the cover. I was pretty young at the time (around 11) and wasn't a regular Avengers reader, but I really liked Ant-Man and that cover just really caught my eye. It turns out it was the beginning of one of all time favorite comics as well.
2. My favorite poster is a Spider-Man by Todd McFarlane. It features Spider-Man in his red and blue costume crouching on a ledge with his black costume pinned to a brick wall behind him, and a lot webbing crisscrossing everywhere. It's just really cool and moody image.
Remember those Marvel Superhero posters from the sixties? Sold as a group of eight - Cap, Iron Man, Dr Strange, Thor etc? That are worth a goodly sum these days? I bought a set of those in a poster shop for a couple of dollars back in the mid 70s, and had them stuck on the bedroom wall for a while.
A couple of years ago I had a phone call from dear ol' Dad - he'd been cleaning up around the house and found those posters - did I still want them or should he throw them away? I was around there pronto to take delivery and brought them back home. Yep, apart from pinholes in the corners they were in excellent condition. I was one happy camper that day, I can tell you! I placed them next to my computer and went to bed, wondering what to do with them....
And woke up the next morning to find the cat had p*ssed all over them.
You know, you can't take it with you. At times like that, all you can do is remember how much pleasure they gave you back in the day, and accept that nothing lasts. Though I had to remember that through gritted teeth for an hour or two...
B Smith - as the owner, or, perhaps more correctly stated, butler of several cats, I can sympathize.
Charlie, Miracle Man is one of the earliest FF villains; his debut was in FF #3. He didn't appear much after that, as he was frankly pretty lame (he's just a hypnotist who fools people into thinking he has godly powers). He did, however, appear in a pretty hilarious early story in Marvel 2-in-1 (issue #8 I think), which involved a recreation of the Bethlehem Christmas story in a desert in the American southwest. It's notable because the Thing and Ghost Rider disguised themselves as two of the three kings at one point. Steve Gerber wrote that one, if you're wondering.
I didn't have any comic book-related posters. As for books that I picked up based on the covers alone - heck, when I initially got bitten by the comics bug at the age of 6, that was kind of my M.O.: I'd see a cool cover on the grocery store spinner rack, esp. if it had Spider-man on it, and beg my mom to get it for me.
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