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Post by codystarbuck on May 2, 2018 10:42:10 GMT -5
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Post by Rob Allen on May 2, 2018 14:07:30 GMT -5
This is the month my purchasing of new Marvel & DC comics ended. In May 1978 I graduated from college and started looking for a job and preparing to get married in early July. So there wasn't the time or money any more. I haven't been posting in this thread but I was buying almost everything from Marvel, DC, Charlton, and Warren from ~1973 until May '78. I'll go thru my inventory and find out what I bought that month (since there's no chance I'll remember the covers; I actually still haven't read some of the comics I bought in 1977-78). That'll be my swan song in this thread.
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Post by brutalis on May 3, 2018 8:00:39 GMT -5
May 1978 Amazing Spider-Man 83 Spider-Man annual 12 Avengers 174 Batman 302 Captain America 224 Defenders 62 Devil Dinosaur 5 FF 197 Firestorm 4 Godzilla 13 Hulk 226 Hulk Annual 7 Invaders 31 Iron Man 113 John Carter 15 Man from Atlantis 7 Marvel Preview 14 MTU 72 MTIO 42 MOKF 67 Mister Miracle 25 Ms Marvel 19 Powerman and IronFist 52 Showcase 103 Spectacular Spider-Man 21 Spiderwoman 5 Star Hunters 6 Star Wars 14 Steel 4 Superboy and LOSH 242 Warlord 14 What If 10 X-Men 112
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 2, 2018 22:03:53 GMT -5
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Post by EdoBosnar on Jun 3, 2018 4:51:07 GMT -5
Oh, yeah, the 3-packs; I had all of those DCs pictured with the Whitman logo. Don't recall ever seeing the Whitman/Marvels or Modern/Charlton comics, though - I would have been all over those if I had.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 3, 2018 21:25:34 GMT -5
Oh, yeah, the 3-packs; I had all of those DCs pictured with the Whitman logo. Don't recall ever seeing the Whitman/Marvels or Modern/Charlton comics, though - I would have been all over those if I had. I didn't see the Modern ones very often; but, I seem to recall them at the Turn Style discount stores (later bought by Venture, which competed with K-Mart, in the Midwest, especially Illinois and Missouri), in their toy department. My hometown was a little farm town, with a very small grocery store (basically a convenience store with a butcher shop). For a time, they had a wire rack display with the Whitman bags and I bought all I could, over one summer (when I had cash) and for as long as they continued to have them. You'd see them, occasionally in places like K-Mart and some grocery stores and pharmacies, along with the Whitman/Gold Key bag sets. The Modern Comics ones were very sporadic, though. Whitman was based up in Wisconsin; so, they had a stronger presence, though Charlton had a bit of a presence on the newsstand, in my area (not consistent; but, they did pop up here and there). They were in bad shape by the time the Modern Comics reprints came about, pretty much running reprints in the bulk of their regular comics. Turn Style was, generally, a pretty good place to find comics, though what you would find would vary. They always had one of the better toy departments, in Decatur, near where I grew up, and the activity/coloring book section usually had some newsstand comics and/or bagged sets. They were operated by Jewel, which also ran the Jewel and Eisner (later re-branded as Jewel) grocery stores, in Illinois.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Jun 4, 2018 4:39:21 GMT -5
I mainly found the bagged comics in drug stores. The smaller stores usually had them on a spinner rack next to the paperback book rack (which was usually right next to the cash register - so you couldn't pop a hole in the bag to see what was in the middle without getting scolded by the cashier). There was also a chain of large drug stores in the Pacific NW called PayLess that were actually a lot like K-mart, and I seem to recall that the bagged Whitmans were in the toy section - even though those stores had big book and magazine aisles, which is where you could find treasury editions and DC and Archie digests. And I think I mentioned this in another thread, but since Oregon has no sales tax, you actually did pay less than a dollar for those packs, i.e., 99 cents.
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Post by brutalis on Jun 4, 2018 8:03:31 GMT -5
June 1978 summer after sophomore year in high school Amazing Spider-Man 184 Avengers 175 Batman 303 Captain Marvel 58 Cerebus 4 Devil Dinosaur 6 FF 198 Godzilla 14 Invaders 32 Iron Man 114 john Carter Annual 2 JLA 158 Machine Man 6 MTIO 43 MOKF 68 Nova 21 Spect Spider-Man 22 Spiderowman 6 Star Wars 15 Superboy and LOSH 243 X-Men 113
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Post by Rob Allen on Jun 4, 2018 22:11:14 GMT -5
This is the month my purchasing of new Marvel & DC comics ended. In May 1978 I graduated from college and started looking for a job and preparing to get married in early July. So there wasn't the time or money any more. I haven't been posting in this thread but I was buying almost everything from Marvel, DC, Charlton, and Warren from ~1973 until May '78. I'll go thru my inventory and find out what I bought that month (since there's no chance I'll remember the covers; I actually still haven't read some of the comics I bought in 1977-78). That'll be my swan song in this thread. Well, I didn't get this done by the end of the month, but I haven't given up on this.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 5, 2018 20:35:58 GMT -5
Although I have plenty of distinct and vivid memories of exactly where I bought and read many comics in the 70's, I don't remember where I first saw Modern Comics versions of the Charltons. I've "always" been aware of them, and I think I have one or two in my collection, but I don't remember seeing them for sale individually or in the multi-packs. One of those fuzzy areas that it might be fun to explore in another thread.
But I do know that in June 1978, my comics purchasing was starting to dwindle as I prepared to head off to college. Here's what I did buy:
Adventure Comics #459: to follow the beloved JSA and Jim Aparo's Deadman Brave & Bold #143: For Aparo doing one of my favorites, the Creeper, in this issue's Batman team-up, and for guest backup the Human Target, who I'd been fascinated with since seeing him originally pop up in an Action Comics back-up years before. DC Comics Presents #2: In hopes that this would rival B&B as a good team-up comic. It never did. Detective Comics #479: The new Clayface was one of the best Batman villains in years. Godzilla #14: I just plain loved this goofy little book. HULK! #10: A huge disappointment to see the continuity implants cease as of this issue. TV-style Hulk was nowhere near as fun as 60's Hulk. Human Fly #13: I still don't know why I stuck with this, but I did. Tomb of Dracula #66: I knew better than to ever miss an issue of this. X-Men#113: I was completely on the bandwagon with this series.
Cover of the Month: Looking over them all, I find myself most drawn to Luis Dominguez' Unexpected #187. Dominguez was never a favorite of mine, but I really like this one. Comic I'd Most Like to Have, But Don't: I'd happily take that final issue #181 of Our Fighting Forces, considering that I intend to buy up the entire post-Kirby run of The Losers in the near future. I've got the first Showcase, and the Kirby collection, and the Crisis Special, so that would be all of them. Stuff I passed on: I was a prime target for DC's revived Showcase, but OSS Spies at War looked like generic war comics to me, and with art by Estrada and Draut, even if I did peek inside, I wouldn't have given 50 cents for it. At the time, I was unlikely to buy any war comics, but the lack of a distinctive character lead made it almost unthinkable. I'd given up on JLA somewhere along the way. Tired of Conway and Dillin making this a bore. Evidently I was tired of Kirby, too, because I don't think I considered picking up Devil Dinosaur, Black Panther, or Machine Man, despite having bought the early issues of each. Least Appealing: I've got respect for Infantino and Robbins, but their covers for, respectively, Nova# 21 and Captain America #225 repel me.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 5, 2018 22:02:53 GMT -5
Hmm what I had from this month as a kid...
Avengers 175-Avengers was the only book I made sure to get, but this was the next to last issue of my run of getting Avengers off the stands due to mom deciding I was too into comics and forbidding me to get any comics for about 6 months.
Dynomutt #6-I picked this up while we were visiting my grandparents in rural main at the general store in their small town. There were about 6 choices on the rack and this was the only one that really appealed to me.
Ghostly Haunts 41-I think I got this in a polybag set for my birthday later that summer, but that cover creeped me out and remains one of my favorites. I had about a half dozen of the Modern prerints of Charlton books, but this is the only one from this month I remember (I had different issues of Captain Atom and Judo Master than the ones seen here, plus Vengeance Squad and Blue Beetle).
Iron Man 114-Arsenal was a favorite new villain of mine (who would be revisited in Avengers Annual 9). I still had a subscription to Iron Man, but it was winding down and because of my comic prohibition I couldn't renew it.
Justice League of America 158-I had the Whitman variant of this (again I think it came in a polybag set I got for my birthday later in the summer.
-M
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zilch
Full Member
Posts: 238
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Post by zilch on Jun 11, 2018 9:10:55 GMT -5
www.mikesamazingworld.com/mikes/features/newsstand.php?publisher=all&type=calendar&month=6&year=1978&sort=alphaThings are "Exploding" all over as the DC Explosion gets into full swing!!! Adventure Comics 459 (WOW!!!) Captain America 225 (Great Cover!!) DCCP 2 (Garcia-Lopez!!!) Detective Comics 479 (Rogers/Austin!!) Green Lantern 108 (Golden Age GL backup!!!) Iron Man 114 JLA 158 (JLA/JSA team-up with History's greatest heroes!!) Kamandi 58 (with Starlin OMAC!) Marvel Two-In-One 43 (more Byrne artwork!) Superboy/Legion of Super-Heroes 243 And subscripton books... Avengers 175 Invaders 32 X-Men 113
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Post by Rob Allen on Jun 26, 2018 17:51:04 GMT -5
This is the month my purchasing of new Marvel & DC comics ended. In May 1978 I graduated from college and started looking for a job and preparing to get married in early July. So there wasn't the time or money any more. I haven't been posting in this thread but I was buying almost everything from Marvel, DC, Charlton, and Warren from ~1973 until May '78. I'll go thru my inventory and find out what I bought that month (since there's no chance I'll remember the covers; I actually still haven't read some of the comics I bought in 1977-78). That'll be my swan song in this thread. Well, I didn't get this done by the end of the month, but I haven't given up on this. I finally compiled the list. These are the comics that I own that were on sale in May 1978. Most or all of them were bought at that time; I may have acquired a few later. DC: Claw the Unconquered #12 Justice League #157 Mister Miracle #25 Shade the Changing Man #8 Marvel: Avengers #174 Captain America #224 Conan the Barbarian #89 Devil Dinosaur #5 Dr. Strange #30 Fantastic Four #197 Ghost Rider #31 Godzilla #13 Human Fly #12 Kull the Conqueror #28 Man from Atlantis #7 Marvel Super Special #4 Marvel Two-in-One #42 Ms. Marvel #19 Power Man & Iron Fist #52 Spider-Woman #5 X-Men #112 And that's where my collection stayed thru several dormant decades. I continued to buy new issues of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and The First Kingdom whenever I happened to stumble on one, but I have never resumed buying new Marvel or DC comic books.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 3, 2018 17:48:33 GMT -5
Star Wars #16, the single greatest issue of the original Marvel series, as far as I am concerned. It features the debut of Valance, and ex-storm trooper turned cyborg bounty hunter, with an extreme hatred of droids. Archie Goodwin was a master in this tale. JLA was part one of the annual JLA/JSA crossover, with some of DC's historical characters brought in, by the Lord of Time. You get Jon, the Viking Prince; Miss Liberty, Jonah Hex, the Black Pirate and Enemy Ace. This was also right after the Earth-2 Batman had died, in the pages of Adventure Comics; so, Huntress, aka Helena Wayne, was dealing with the grief over the death of her father, while seeing her "uncle" Bruce, the Earth-1 Batman. Unknown Soldier featured on of the best stories of the series, "Rubber Band Soldiers," about a group of refugees from occupied territories who are trained by US to operate dummy rubber tanks, to decoy the Germans. This was based in part on the actual deception methods used by the Allies to convince the Germans that Normandy was just a diversion for a larger invasion at the Pas de Calais. Marvel Super Action featured reprints of Captain America, circa the Steranko issues. This one features the Trapster and Sharon Carter helpless on a table of white goo. Nothing Freudian there! Also that month, Iron Man was in the midst of an excellent run that culminates in Demon in a Bottle, X-Men has seen them split off, after facing Dr Doom (with each believing the ther group to be dead), Flash Gordon is back at Gold Key/Whitman (with Carlos Garzon on art), Batman meets Ragman, Thor fights the Invaders, John Belushi and the cast of SNL join Spidey in Marvel Team-Up, Charlton reprints some Ditko Captain Atom (earliest stories), and David Anthony Kraft and John Buscema take Tarzan to Pellucidar.
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Post by Chris on Jul 4, 2018 2:31:03 GMT -5
JLA was part one of the annual JLA/JSA crossover, with some of DC's historical characters brought in, by the Lord of Time. You get Jon, the Viking Prince; Miss Liberty, Jonah Hex, the Black Pirate and Enemy Ace. This was also right after the Earth-2 Batman had died, in the pages of Adventure Comics; so, Huntress, aka Helena Wayne, was dealing with the grief over the death of her father, while seeing her "uncle" Bruce, the Earth-1 Batman. The death of Earth-2 Batman was in Adventure Comics #462, cover-dated March/April 1979. Justice League #159 was cover-dated October 1978, almost 6 months prior. The scene you're thinking of happened in the next year's JLA/JSA crossover. Which is where Mr. Terrific was killed... 1979 was not a good year for Earth-2 superheroes.
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