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Post by Ozymandias on Mar 3, 2021 9:04:10 GMT -5
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 3, 2021 11:21:07 GMT -5
I'm amazed at the level of detail people muster in this thread, (...) Well, one of the advantages for those of us who grew up reading comics in North America back then is the wonderful site, Mike's Amazing World of Comics, and its absolutely indispensable Newsstand feature, which allows you to get comics listed by month and year of publication or on-sale date for American comics. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who goes there and checks the covers for the month in question, which helps jog my memories of what I bought/had and when.
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Post by Ozymandias on Mar 3, 2021 12:57:05 GMT -5
It's not just a list of items, people remember what they were doing, where and when they bought the comics... I can only recall making some particular purchases, many times it's beyond me even knowing which ones I bought at the time or years later. And I also have a website for checking the Spanish newsstand month-to-month, otherwise I would be writing nothing here ;-)
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Post by berkley on Mar 3, 2021 19:45:06 GMT -5
It's relatively for me because almost all the comics from that time that I have read are comics that I bought and read when they came out back then, not back-issues that I bought years later. And Mike's Newsstand is such a handy tool, enabling us to check what came out in any given month.
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Post by brutalis on Mar 3, 2021 19:52:13 GMT -5
Indeed, Mike's was my go to as I can vividly remember the covers and usually associate them with where and when I bought 'em up new. Memorable covers or issues that I read again and again stand out greater than anything current in my mind.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 4, 2021 4:42:05 GMT -5
Indeed, Mike's was my go to as I can vividly remember the covers and usually associate them with where and when I bought 'em up new. Memorable covers or issues that I read again and again stand out greater than anything current in my mind. Yes, this. So much this.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 4, 2021 6:56:25 GMT -5
Indeed, Mike's was my go to as I can vividly remember the covers and usually associate them with where and when I bought 'em up new. Memorable covers or issues that I read again and again stand out greater than anything current in my mind. I drive my wife crazy by associating this or that event in our life with this or that comic-book. "Oh, sure, I remember that time we visited your Granma and I left you at your cousins' place! That's when I bought Marvel Spotlight #7!") Priorities, right?
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 4, 2021 19:29:40 GMT -5
Bought on the newsstand: Avengers #208 Fantastic Four #231 Justice League of America #191 Legion of Super-Heroes #276 Marvel Two-in-One #76 Micronauts #30 New Teen Titans #8 Rom #19 Spider-Woman #38 Uncanny X-Men #146
Bought more recently: Dazzler #5 Marvel Two-in-One #77 Master of Kung Fu #101
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Post by EdoBosnar on Apr 1, 2021 5:26:45 GMT -5
April 1981 - this was still my personal golden age for comics buying/reading, and in any given month I was picking up anywhere between twelve and fifteen books. This month, however, I counted over twenty (!) books. I'll break with my usual practice of just noting the highlights and list them all: Adventure Comics #483 Amazing Spider-Man #218 Avengers #209 (I was picking up Avengers on auto-pilot at this point) Best of DC #14 (digest spotlighting Batman villains) Daredevil #173 DC Comics Presents #35 DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #11 (digest featuring JLA stories) Flash #299 (still mainly picking this up for the Firestorm back-ups) Incredible Hulk #261 (the beat-down with Absorbing Man on Easter Island) Iron Man #148 Justice League of America #192 (first part of the only Red Tornado-focused story I've ever liked) Legion of Super-Heroes #277 Marvel Super Action #33 Marvel Two-in-One #78 New Teen Titans #9 Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #56 Star Wars #49 (solid story, and I loved the art by Simonson) Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #3 Uncanny X-Men #147 What If #27 (the Phoenix didn't die story) And finally, that month's highlight by a very long shot: Oh yeah, FF #232. At this point, I was still smarting from Byrne and Austin's departure from X-men and I actually had no idea that Byrne was going to take over FF (I was still 12 in early 1981, so I wasn't reading any fanzines or the Comics Journal, and if there was a Bullpen Bulletins announcement to that effect, it had slipped right past me). So when this Byrne cover art caught my eye as I was browsing the spinner rack, I pulled it out, flipped through it, and was overjoyed to see that Byrne had drawn the whole issue. From that point forward, the FF immediately became my favorite book.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,269
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Post by shaxper on Apr 1, 2021 12:09:34 GMT -5
April 1981 Avengers #209 -- I found this one a lot more fun than others have. Batman #337 -- My favorite stretch of Batman stories (#307-400) and yet I have no memory of this one. Epic Illustrated #6 -- One of my favorite runs in all of comicdom. Every issue was such a sincere delight! Fantastic Four #232 -- I keep meaning to start on Byrne's FF, but I haven't gotten to it yet. Man-Thing #11 -- Another issue I absolutely don't remember from another run I absolutely adore. Master of Kung Fu #102 -- I need to get back to reading this run New Teen Titans #9 - Sometimes I think the only reason I write reviews is to actually remember what I wrote. Sure enough, I reviewed this one. Thor #309 - I own this one only because it occurs between Doug Moench's first Thor story and Moench's regular stretch on the title. I have always found Bill Mantlo's writing forgettable at best. And I always feel bad saying that, considering how his life has turned out. X-Men #147 - Say what you will about Claremont's writing; I feel like every time he gives Storm the spotlight, he knocks it out of the ballpark. What If #27 -- I know I read this right alongside X-Men #137, but I don't remember much about it. Did it begin with the unused original opening page for X-Men #138?
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Post by Ozymandias on Apr 1, 2021 13:00:04 GMT -5
And finally, that month's highlight by a very long shot: Oh yeah, FF #232. At this point, I was still smarting from Byrne and Austin's departure from X-men and I actually had no idea that Byrne was going to take over FF (I was still 12 in early 1981, so I wasn't reading any fanzines or the Comics Journal, and if there was a Bullpen Bulletins announcement to that effect, it had slipped right past me). So when this Byrne cover art caught my eye as I was browsing the spinner rack, I pulled it out, flipped through it, and was overjoyed to see that Byrne had drawn the whole issue. From that point forward, the FF immediately became my favorite book. Byrne has never drawn better, before or after. Being tasked just one comic that month helped for sure.
Bolton also did a great job with Bizarre Adventures #26. Other than those two great pieces of art, we had Daredevil #173, a chapter of the Metamorphosis Odyssey and Cerebus the Aardvark #25 (which was starting to shape into something worth minding).
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 1, 2021 21:26:12 GMT -5
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Post by chaykinstevens on Apr 4, 2021 8:22:59 GMT -5
What If #27 -- I know I read this right alongside X-Men #137, but I don't remember much about it. Did it begin with the unused original opening page for X-Men #138? No, this one was by Jo Duffy and Jerry Bingham. The unused splash page from X-Men #138 was published a few years later in Phoenix: the Untold Story.
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Post by chaykinstevens on Apr 4, 2021 8:39:18 GMT -5
Bought new: Batman #337 Brave and the Bold #176 Conan the Barbarian #124 Darevevil #173 Defenders #97 Flash #299 Green Lantern #142 Incredible Hulk #261 Justice League of America #192 Legion of Super-Heroes #277 Master of Kung Fu #102 Micronauts #31 Moon Knight #9 New Teen Titans #9 Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #3 Weird War Tales #101 Wonder Woman #281
Bought later: Avengers #209 Captain America #259 Charlton Bullseye #2 Eclipse Magazine #1 Epic Illustrated #6 Fantastic Four #232 Ghost Rider #58 Ka-Zar the Savage #5 Madame Xanadu #1 Man-Thing #11 Thor #309 Warlord #47 what If #27
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Post by berkley on Apr 4, 2021 17:49:34 GMT -5
April 1981:
Bizarre Adventures #26 - a Kull story by Doug Moench and John Bolton. I really liked Bolton's art, but for some reason I've never thought of him as one of my favourite Kull artists. Perhaps it's just that I've forgotten this story, not having read it for so many years, though I remember liking it at the time. Marvel's black and white magazine line seemed to be winding down, though SSoC hung around for years.
Master of Kung Fu #102 - don't recall the story of this issue but Gene day taking over as artisit seemed to breathe new life into the series around this time, even though his difficulty meeting deadlines sometimes showed in his faces and figures. ALways excitingly inventive with his layouts, though.
New Teen Titans #9 - I think I must have been a little desperate at the time for some traditional superhero comics I could follow, because try as I might, I never developed a liking for any of the characters of the Titans team. Wolfman and Perez were enough to make up for that, though - at east for a while.
Uncanny X-Men #147 - This series continued to lose its attraction for me. Maybe Claremont's writing always required a boost from some exceptional artwork like the Byrne/Austin team or the earlier Cockrum run, but at any rate, neither the writing nor the artwork felt up to the standard that had been set previously by these same creators.
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