The day before the shutdown order for “non-essential”
businesses here in New Mexico two months ago, I went out to a local used
bookstore and the comic book store downtown.
I’d sort of had a heads up on the shutdown and wanted to give them some
business before it happened. I almost
said something to the people running the stores, but didn’t, just in case I was
wrong. I doubt a warning would have made
any difference.
I read everything I picked up fairly quickly, but didn’t
write up anything about them until now.
I didn’t exactly forget about doing it.
I have been pretty busy scanning other stuff for the blog. Maybe I didn’t want to do any extra scanning
while I was in the middle of a huge stack of scan. (I have a whole bunch more to post from that
stack.) Maybe I was kind of disappointed
in the new comics and didn’t want to go to the trouble of writing anything.
The Coas used bookstore has a couple of bins of old
comics. It still boggles my mind that
the nearby comic bookstore doesn’t have something similar. I’d come with the intention of buying
something, so I wasn’t as picky as I’d usually be. I picked up eight comics that caught my
interest.
Two were Witchblade
comics the early 2000’s. I’d had some
experience with the character from the 90’s in a trade paperback. Those were probably from Michael Turner’s
run. It was okay, but while the book had
a great price, it was so cheaply put together that it came apart on my first
reading. Unfortunately, while the
artwork in two issues I got (#’s 56 and 90) was good, but it wasn’t near
Michael Turner-level quality.
I appreciated the concept of a cop with supernatural
powers and that it is played like a realistic TV cop show. (Which admittedly isn’t very realistic. I’ve been watching a lot of Chicago P.D. lately
in syndication. I blame Sophia Bush.) That said, it’s hard to imagine
this setup running for 90 issues without some changes to the premise. How much weird magical stuff could a NYC
detective be in the middle of before everybody noticed the connection?
Everything else was from the 80’s. I grabbed four issues of DC’s The Warlord. I’m not sure if I’ve ever read any issues
before, but I knew about the concept of an Air Force pilot trapped in the
mythical countries of the hollow earth.
(Obviously, this is fantasy.
Everyone knows the earth is flat, not hollow.) I managed to get most of a complete storyline
from #77, 78, 79, and Annual #3. It had
the beginning and end of a trippy time travel loop story involving the Art
Bell-ish trope of the Philadelphia Experiment.
Needless to say, this was the kind of fun stuff that
comics should be all about. (Having a
fetish-y cat-girl character named Shakira didn’t hurt either.) Admittedly, they were a bit simplistic. I partly blame the convention of the time in
DC comics of having a backup feature.
That space should have been devoted to adding more characterization and
story to the main feature. The Barren Earth second feature was
okay. It made the most out getting only
six pages per story.
I showed these to my friend Ron. I think he enjoyed the old comic book ads
from the time more than the story. One
of the issues published a fan letter asking about the number of rounds Morgan
has available for his gun in this fantasy world. Answer: a lot. 2,016 bullets at best estimate.
Nexus #48
got me one issue closer to collecting the whole six-part bowl-shaped world
(another weird world) saga. Maybe
someday. This was peak Steve Rude artwork
right here. Lastly, there’s Kull the Conqueror #6. He’s another Robert E. Howard creation, kind
of like a more thoughtful version of Conan, but from an earlier era. The story was pretty good, but I really
enjoyed the artwork by John Buscema and the distinctive inking and coloring of
Klaus Janson.
Then I saw this. It
was on display on a shelf. I’m not
normally that much into art books, but this one immediately caught my eye. Thankfully, the book wasn’t sealed up, so I
was able to take a look inside. I was
sold immediately. This was a new book,
so I even paid full price for it. You
can look at the artist’s, Ilya Kuvshinov, artwork on his website. The book’s intended purpose succeeded with
me, as it inspired me to draw a little after several years of not picking up a
pencil.
No comments:
Post a Comment