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Post by beccabear67 on Aug 17, 2019 14:10:06 GMT -5
anything by Jeff Nicholson Another name from the early '80s with Ultra Klutz (parody of Ultraman)... I may even still have the first small b&w issue and the first comic book sized one he put out... nice to know he kept going, I'll have to do an online search!
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Post by thwhtguardian on Aug 17, 2019 14:40:49 GMT -5
I don't really see how anyone could read about the issue and come away with thinking Larson had a foot to stand on...even Larson seems slightly sheepish about it these days. Larsen is very opinionated and passionate about things, and thus maybe looks back and see's that he was too defensive. We all make mistakes in judgement from time to time. I think that's the case, though I don't think he's ever said it in so many words.
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Aug 17, 2019 16:35:16 GMT -5
'90s comics I like: - Amazing Spider-Man #400 (Ask me why I dislike John Byrne so much, and his nullification of this perfect sendoff for Aunt May is the top reason why.)
- Bone
- Essentially any comic illustrated by Mark Bagley featuring Venom
- The few "Ben Reilly-as-Spidey" storylines where Ben was allowed to be Spider-Man without Clone Saga nonsense gumming up the works
- Hellboy
- Most of Dark Horse's Star Wars output
- Simpsons Comics
- Spider-Girl (This title allowed me to get my Spidey fix after the death of Reilly and the coming of Byrne ruined the mainline titles for me.)
- The Triangle Era (Admittedly, there are large swaths of this era I haven't read.)
- Untold Tales of Spider-Man
- Many of the Valiant titles
I will second literally everything you said and add the following non comic related bits 1. Music. Love 90s alternative and grunge. For me that’s the last era of quality rock music. 2. Cartoons. So many greats. 90s Spider-Man and Animaniacs to start.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 17, 2019 17:05:09 GMT -5
I was so sure that all the Gimmicky comic covers started AFTER Superman # 75 until I checked to see that Spider-man #1 and X-Force #1 predated the book. 1990 and 1991 respectively . X-Men #1, as well, with the segmented covers and the multigatefold 6th version. The second Robin mini-series, in 1991 had some kind of prism gimmick card... My memory is a bit hazy on the specifics of the gimmick; whether it was a prismatic overlay or one of those where you put a plastic film viewer over the spot to reveal an image. The actual mini was good and didn't need that; but, it was the era and it did boost the numbers. Team Titans, with the variant origin story for each member (and the same framing story) also predated Superman #75, by a few months.
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Post by profh0011 on Aug 17, 2019 17:13:58 GMT -5
Another name from the early '80s with Ultra Klutz (parody of Ultraman) My favorite thing Nicholson did was Colonia, but I believe that was early 2000s. He won Eisners for Father & Son I have all those.
I don't know if the story in "COLONIA" was ever finished. Fortunately, "FATHER & SON" was done as a mini-series.
"ULTRA KLUTZ" was a slow burn for me. I only got the odd issue here and there... until years later, when Jeff managed to do a pair of "phone book" reprint collections. The first one pretty much had the bulk of the "regular" run of the book. The 2nd book... the more downbeat, serious, thoughtful one... was the one that TOTALLY blew my mind.
Let me see if I can describe how it struck me. It reminded me... of Keith Giffen's "Five Years Later" run of LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES. Except... "DONE RIGHT". Perhaps because he was doing his story SOLO, without multiple editors, writers and various artists all contributing and derailing its momentum, Jeff managed to do a story that was also a sombre commentary on all that was going "wrong" with comics at the time. And, most importantly, he brought it to a MAGNIFICENT ending, that made the entire thing REALLY WORTH reading. It was JAW-DROPPINGLY good.
And here he was doing it in his own unique "cartoon" style.
Somewhere in the 90s, things in my own personal life caused me to begin appreciating likable character more than "dark serious storytelling". At the same time, I developed more of an appreciation of artists with "cartoon" styles, MORE than those with "realistic" styles. The work from the "cartoonists" tended to be MORE expressive, MORE "alive", and their sense of visual storytelling is often FAR MORE developed than the "illustrators" have.
Hence, my growing love for the work of Sergio Aragones, Stan Sakai, Phil Foglio, and Jeff Nicholson. And, in the last 10-15 years, Paige Braddock. Her series "JANE'S WORLD" is one of the few I can think of where I've read it start to finish at least 6 TIMES in only a few years. I'd read all of it, then immediately go back to the beginning and start over. I actually had to force myself to take a break at the end the last time I read, since I'm still waiting for the final "JW" collection to come out.
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Post by String on Aug 17, 2019 18:29:26 GMT -5
Best gimmick cover I saw in the 90s: Glow-in-the-dark that gives perspective of DD's radar sense. I didn't mind gimmick covers if they actually put some imagination and thought into them (sadly, most didn't) I've been catching up on Michelinie's ASM run with both McFarlane and Larsen. After finding his Sinister Six story arc issues at a recent con, I went digging through my collection and found that I had quite a bit of this run, apparently I had forgotten that I had them or simply hadn't read them in years. I think Michelinie has always been one of Marvel's more underrated writers so I don't know what Larsen is thinking, this ASM run holds up rather well. I love how he handles Peter and MJ's marriage/relationship and the action is great. McFarlane's art is eye-catching and Larsen's art is reminscient of it which is why I would see why Michelinie agreed to him coming aboard the title. As for their Image work, I tried to get into Savage Dragon awhile back and couldn't make it through the first volume. McFarlane's writing skill may be about the same as Larsen's but with his art, I found Spawn to be a better book. Also, I've heard over the years so many bad things about Bob Harras' Avengers run during this period. Finally got around to reading it and for the most part, liked it. Yeah, it may be draped in the hyped milieu of the 90s (I like bomber jackets though) but I found the underlying love triangle between Dane Whitman, Sersi, and Crystal to be very interesting along with the overall Gatherers' story arc as well as the personal issues haunting Vision. Steve Epting's art was quite good too.
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Post by tarkintino on Aug 17, 2019 19:11:21 GMT -5
That Denny O'Neil's first run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow and some of his Batman stories, or Spider-Man #121-122 made history is something that became exaggerated, and they were unique more as breaking the formula so that once that becomes the formula ('dealing' with real life issues, death, drugs) there is no impact, and there is damage done to sustainability in so far as you are involving super powers and costumes and all those tropes that were originally cooked up for the twelve year old. You might say that, but we should not forget that early superhero comics featuring THE superhero of them all were dark, with a "don't care" vigilante's personality that took another 4 decades to become the norm in superhero comics-- That's not even getting into how much Golden Age Captain America was judge, jury and executioner. Yes, he was the four-color representation of America's sentiments/position in World War Two, but superheroes were never entirely innocent "funny books." One of the reason Denny O'Neil's Batman run was so celebrated was that he (and the Robbins/Novick period preceding him) was the idea of returning Batman to his roots, which were darker. Superman and Batman never started out as the stereotype of the Golden Age characters being the worst of their 50s stories (aliens, endless Lois marriage traps, cavemen, and on and on, and unfortunately, DC plays a part in that marketing misrepresentation). That said, the praise the O'Neil and/or the early 70s Spider-Man stories were/are well deserved, and have not lost their impact for who and what those characters were at the time the stories were published, even if that type of story (i.e., real world subject matter) was run into the ground by decades of arguably inferior writers trying to ape that kind of story.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 17, 2019 21:14:32 GMT -5
Best gimmick cover I saw in the 90s: Glow-in-the-dark that gives perspective of DD's radar sense. I didn't mind gimmick covers if they actually put some imagination and thought into them (sadly, most didn't) I've been catching up on Michelinie's ASM run with both McFarlane and Larsen. After finding his Sinister Six story arc issues at a recent con, I went digging through my collection and found that I had quite a bit of this run, apparently I had forgotten that I had them or simply hadn't read them in years. I think Michelinie has always been one of Marvel's more underrated writers so I don't know what Larsen is thinking, this ASM run holds up rather well. I love how he handles Peter and MJ's marriage/relationship and the action is great. McFarlane's art is eye-catching and Larsen's art is reminscient of it which is why I would see why Michelinie agreed to him coming aboard the title. As for their Image work, I tried to get into Savage Dragon awhile back and couldn't make it through the first volume. McFarlane's writing skill may be about the same as Larsen's but with his art, I found Spawn to be a better book. Also, I've heard over the years so many bad things about Bob Harras' Avengers run during this period. Finally got around to reading it and for the most part, liked it. Yeah, it may be draped in the hyped milieu of the 90s (I like bomber jackets though) but I found the underlying love triangle between Dane Whitman, Sersi, and Crystal to be very interesting along with the overall Gatherers' story arc as well as the personal issues haunting Vision. Steve Epting's art was quite good too. The one where I said, "Okay, that's a pretty good idea," was Radioactive Man #1, from Bongo... ...the glow-in-the-dark skeleton! It was perfect.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2019 21:44:27 GMT -5
the 90's Spectre series made fantastic use of Glow in the Dark too. (pic snagged from Tom Mandrake's Twitter. .where he commented that: The Spectre glow in the dark covers, take them out of the closet 25 years later and they still glow! #dccomics)
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Post by chadwilliam on Aug 17, 2019 22:52:40 GMT -5
Re: the Erik Larsen/David Michelinie thing. Larsen, with the launch of Image was probably the biggest offender for shooting off his mouth and putting his foot in it. He wrote a letter to CBG, as "Name Withheld" where he basically said that artists were the only ones who counted in comics and they were the real creators. He touched off a firestorm, with multiple pros firing back, Peter David going to town in his But I Digress columns and Larsen's exposure as the author of the letter. I remember when Barack Obama appeared in a Spider-Man comic and Larsen fumed that Marvel stole the idea from him. Not the plot of his story or anything like that - just having Obama appear in a Marvel comic since he had him appear previously in an issue of Savage Dragon. Larsen thought that despite Obama's popularity and the fact that he was once a comic fan himself, it was just too improbable for Marvel to have come up with such a crazy idea without him. Peter David chimed in and, with tongue in cheek, agreed with Larsen saying that coincidences such as this just can't happen. After all, David once wrote a Hulk story in which the Hulk had to decide whether or not he should donate his blood to an AIDS victim given that the transfer might save his friend or kill him. David noted that shortly thereafter, another writer came along and did the same story but with his own character (a character who himself seems to have been influenced by David's take on The Hulk). That writer? Erik Larsen. I believe that Larsen actually shut up about the matter thereafter.
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Post by beccabear67 on Aug 18, 2019 0:45:20 GMT -5
the praise the O'Neil and/or the early 70s Spider-Man stories were/are well deserved, and have not lost their impact for who and what those characters were at the time the stories were published, even if that type of story (i.e., real world subject matter) was run into the ground by decades of arguably inferior writers trying to ape that kind of story. That sums up how I feel better than I seem to be able to put things! They didn't kill title hero characters off back in the '40s-'50s that I know though, not sure if there was much in the 'gimmick' before Doom Patrol #121. It seems logical for Batman to be able to consider killing baddies, especially what happened to his parents in front of him, not sure why Supes would be quite that mad or if here ever did kill intentionally ( I think in one of the '40s cartoons he may have). Dick Tracy sure did kill, as did the villains in many of the early comics. I'm not sure who'd call it mature literature. Perhaps when O'Neil or Conway wanted to write about certain subjects it was done more organically, not forced in trying to make history or get publicity, though I think they may have gotten a bit of publicity back then. They fit things into a continuing melodrama in a way that didn't break the genre/format or title character permanently. The Punisher and Wolverine weren't necessarily heroes (nor was Rambo in the original movie), they didn't start as title characters, you were meant to be uneasy about them and they were always in conflict with more definitely heroic characters. By the '90s it was Rambo, Punisher and Wolverine as major leads (and whatever Lobo was while laughing about fragging people) and the subtleties had evaporated as often as not. I think Wolverine should drink beer, smoke, and kill sometimes, I just think there should be some reflection of other characters having issues with some of that where the character in question doesn't.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 18, 2019 6:21:06 GMT -5
On the subject of gimmick covers, I only really thought these two stood out among the many- Superman Man of Steel # 30 which came poly bagged with chloroforms figures to place on the actual cover to make your own scene And the wrap around foil cover to GenerationX from Marvel There were other foil covers that were excellent too, but I bought around 10 copies of this one.
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Post by profh0011 on Aug 18, 2019 9:47:33 GMT -5
"run into the ground by decades of arguably inferior writers trying to ape that kind of story"
That's pretty much 90% of Denny O'Neil's run as BATMAN editor, lesser writers BADLY trying to out-do Miller's "YEAR ONE", missing the point that that story should have been seen as a rough beginning from which the character grew and improved as a hero... not a starting point from which he would get increasingly WORSE, DARKER, MORE VIOLENT and ANTI-SOCIAL.
It always seemed to me that "YEAR ONE" was meant to re-tell Batman's ORIGIN... not create and entirely different character.
I'll take the 90s WB cartoons over anything DC did in the 90s anyday.
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Post by badwolf on Aug 18, 2019 13:39:54 GMT -5
There was a three-part Batman/Deadman story that had glow covers to good effect. Wish I'd held on to mine; unfortunately they aren't reprinted in the hardcovers (with the glow).
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Post by mikelmidnight on Aug 20, 2019 11:50:40 GMT -5
Fleetway, who published 2000 AD, started publishing a comic called Revolver. Bit of a weird comic, like an even more dystopian version of 2000 AD. It lasted seven issues (I think there may have been some specials). I suppose, and my designation could be mistaken, that it's best described as a counter-culture publication.
I never invested much in Revolver, as the only strip which interested me was "Dare" (which I currently have in two different collections. It was a good attempt though, and I was buying Fleetway's Crisis at the same time.
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