RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Magazine-size comics

Looking back at my collection over many years, I find that a lot of the stuff I re-read and enjoy the most are those in a magazine format:

SAVAGE TALES
SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN
DRACULA LIVES
UNKNOWN WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION
DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU
EPIC ILLUSTRATED
HOWARD THE DUCK magazine
RAMPAGING HULK/HULK magazine
TOMB OF DRACULA magazine
MARVEL PREVIEW/BIZARRE ADVENTURES
ECLIPSE magazine
HEAVY METAL
CREEPY
EERIE
VAMPIRELLA
1984/1994 magazine
HARD BOILED
CONAN THE SAVAGE

In just a slightly larger size than the 7" by 10" comic book format, much of the artwork really gains a great deal more in the slightly larger 8" x 11" format.
The larger 11" by 17" treasury-size format of LIMITED COLLECTORS' EDITION from DC in the early/mid 70's, and MARVEL TREASURY EDITION books is also nice, particularly reading the Barry Smith Conan material. But the treasury-size can be cumbersome to handle in its over-size, and for me the magazine-size is the perfect balance of art-size -vs.- manageability battle.

I also think that much of the material in magazine form represents some of the best and most labored-over work by many artists, where they gave greater sophistication and attention to detail than in their comics work (some examples being Wrightson's 1974-1978 work for Warren CREEPY and EERIE magazines, Starlin's "Metamorphosis Odyssey" in EPIC ILLUSTRATED 1-9, Tim Conrad's Almuric in EPIC 2-5, and Michael Golden/Bob McLeod's "Drake-ula" and "Duckworld" stories in HOWARD THE DUCK magazine 5 and 6, and Moench/Bolton's "Kull: Demon in A Silvered Glass" in BIZARRE ADVENTURES 26)

I also like the accompanying format and articles in many of these magazines, that aspire to a more sophisticated and literary feel.


I'd include in this category the graphic novels by Marvel, DC, First, Eclipse and others that are in the same size format, such as ELRIC by Thomas/Russell, DREADSTAR and THE PRICE by Starlin, NIGHT MUSIC by P.Craig Russell, RAVEN BANNER by Vess, and SILVERHEELS and FROM HELL by Scott Hampton, and ROBERT E. HOWARD'S WORMS OF THE EARTH (Bran Mak Morn) by Thomas and Conrad.

Magazine-size comics have largely gone the way of the brontosaurus since the late 1980's, but I still enjoy the occasional one that appears, and savor the ones from the years they were prevalent.

I have had:
Conan
Punisher
Justice League
Superman/Fantastic Four

The Supes/FF one was my favorite.

I have AIDS

I used to, at least. I gave it to Doog.

Lothar, is it true that you bought an used copy of Batman/Hulk from Stan Lee just to lick the back?

Lothar is an expert in licking backs.

I have the original Muhammad Ali vs Superman magazine.

Except for CONAN magazines, I never saw magazines for the others.
And a few Punisher mags.

Do you mean tabloid-size books for the others?

Are you sure that's backs?

Great book.

Dennis O'Neil story, Neal Adams at his peak, inked by Dick Giordano and Terry Austin. And more original pages in one book by Neal Adams than any other ever done.
I have the original too. And about 2 years ago they reprinted it as a hardcover in two formats, a regular 7" X 10" edition, and a "deluxe" 11" X 17" edition. From what I understand, the new edition at least partly changed the colors and that ruins it for purists like me who want an edition fully true to the original.

The likeness of Muhammad Ali and capturing the essence of his personality in the story is also good. I resisted it at first, and finally got it 20-plus years ago to complete my Adams collection, and was very pleasantly surprised. About as good a Superman/Ali joint adventure as you could ask for.

yeah I like the neil adams work. looking for the green arrow run he and o'neal created in the 70's. I have the speedy smackhead issue,.

Another magazine I enjoyed, an anthology with a sophisticated science-fiction/fantasy theme, from 1982, unfortunately only a one-shot, in the EPIC ILLUSTRATED and ECLIPSE magazine mode.



Great black-and-white stories by Ken Macklin, Lela Dowling, and then-new talents like Frank Cirroco and Tony Salmons (the latter with an additional extensive portfolio and interview.) With a playful Alex Toth story, and a lengthy illustrated Jim Steranko interview about his career and comics storytelling design and technique.

I actually liked it better in the 7-issue GREEN LANTERN GREEN ARROW Baxter-paper reprint series, circa 1984-1985.

The slipcased hardcover has changes to the art and overlays, and for the lower quality paper stock, I think it is not worth the cost. I understand there is a new hardcover available of these issues. And the issues were also reprinted in a two-volume set of trade paperbacks, about 10 or 12 years ago.




Another collection of some of Adams' earliest comics work --just before Adams did STRANGE ADVENTURES/Deadman, THE SPECTRE 2-5, OUR ARMY AT WAR 182, 183, and 186, and BRAVE & THE BOLD 79-86-- was some scattered stories in CREEPY and EERIE in 1967-1968.

EERIE 125 collects all these stories but one. Under a nice Corben cover


Reprinting stories from
CREEPY 14, 15, 16 and 75,
EERIE 9 and 10, and
VAMPIRELLA 1

Index of stories:
http://www.comics.org/issue/35761/

The only Warren-published Neal Adams story missing from this collection is an adaptation of Harlan Ellison's "Rock God"( in CREEPY 32, April 1970. Which is reprinted in HARLAN ELLISON'S DREAM CORRIDOR QUARTERLY 1, 1996)

http://www.amazon.com/Green-Lantern-Arrow-Collection-Volume/dp/1401202241

The biggest problem with Adams reprints is that he tends to let his marginally talented kids recolor them with garish photoshop.

That, and he insists on redrawing these books in the new hardcover editions. I wouldn't mind if he included new versions in addition to the full original versions, just as extra material.
But I hate this self-butchery he insists on doing, in all three BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS hardcovers, in the DEADMAN hardcover, and (I haven't looked at it in many years) changes to the art in the GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW hardcover.

Despite having the hardcovers, I often prefer to look at these stories (particularly the 1967-1969 work from BRAVE & THE BOLD and STRANGE ADVENTURES/Deadman) in their original and unedited form.

When I clicked on your Amazon link, G-man, I also saw DC UNIVERSE ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS, reprinting some obscure stuff by Adams from
DETECTVE 369, TEEN TITANS 20-22, OUR ARMY AT WAR, STAR SPANGLED WAR, SUPERMAN 254 and so forth.

But this book is likewise re-colored and re-drawn.

I thought it would get me high like when you lick a frog. Turns out it's not so great.

By the way,guys,don't lick frogs. There are better ways to get high and licking frogs is not a healthy habit for you. Even if the frogs do seem to like it.

This is what I'm thinking about. Maybe we're talking about two Different Things here.

Superman/Fantastic Four http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman/Fantastic_Four Good story and I think it fit in continuity at the time.

JLA Heavens Ladder http://www.comicvine.com/jla-heavens-ladder/49-27724/ Aliens kidnap the Earth looking for God-or Bob Marley-or some such goofy plot. Nice art with a dumb story.

Punisher magazine http://www.atomicavenue.com/atomic/titledetail.aspx?TitleID=987 Black and white reprints of past Punisher stories. They were ok.

Yeah, that's what threw me, I was referring exclusively to 8" X11" magazine-size material, and two of these are 11" X 14" tabloid-size books.

HEAVEN'S LADDER I picked up when it came out in 2000, partly for the beautiful art and colors, and partly out of nostalgia for the oversized LIMITED COLLECTORS' EDITIONS of the 70's. But despite the 72 pages of gorgeous art by Bryan Hitch/Paul Neary, the story by Mark Waid just wasn't that impressive.

The SUPERMAN/FANTASTIC FOUR one I've still never seen.

I vaguely recall the PUNISHER magazine, but never read it. I looked it up and it appears to be almost completely reprint material from other Punisher titles, except for a few covers and pinups.
I always wanted to like the Punisher, because to me he's the most realistic vigilante, who works outside the law and actually kills criminals, that it makes sense any true vigilante would do. Otherwise he'd be in law enforcement. But even with the amount of top-name creators who have worked on Punisher over almost 40 years, somehow none have been able to do a version that ever stood out as groundbreaking storytelling.
I recall some really nice pages by Jim Lee on the series, and some really beautiful Michael Golden covers. But the only Punisher book that I thought was really well done was a comic book size one-shot PUNISHER: THE END, back in 2004, by Garth Ennis and Richard Corben.

Another great one was HOWARD THE DUCK magazine, that ran for 9 issues, right after Gerber had left the series. Disney had sued Marvel, alleging he was an infringement on Donald Duck, so as a settlement Marvel began to differentiate between the two by having Howard the Duck wear pants.

Mantlo had taken over after Gerber's departure as writer, and the first magazine issue sported Michael Golden art for the entire issue, inked by Klaus Janson (an interesting collaboration, but I honestly would have preferred a different inker, who didn't mask Golden's linestyle). The main penciller on the series was Gene Colan (as he was on the preceding comic book series) but his art was greatly enhanced by inkers Dave Simons and Bob Mcleod.

The stories were pretty average for the most part up till issues 5 and 6, when Golden came back and did 2 more issues, with very detailed inking by Bob McLeod.

Issue 5 has a story that parodies Marv Wolfman's angry departure from Marvel. He's been writer/editor of both the TOMB OF DRACULA comic book, and simultaneously at the end the TOMB OF DRACULA black-and-white magazine, published roughly the same years as HOWARD THE DUCK magazine. The Wolfman-parody-character storms out of Editor-in-chief Jim Shooter's office and breaks his legs in the process, and then is bitten by a vampire, and seeks vengeance for the rest of the story as a paraplegic vampire. A fun and beautifully illustrated story with a lot of twists.

Issue 6 has Howard interdimensionally return to his home Duckworld, where everything is the same as earth, only with ducks instead of people. On this world, Nixon (as Duxon) is still president, along with Spiro Agnew. "Duxon" had permanent five-o-clock shadow, and it was funny as hell to see the unlikely image of a duck with razor stubble. But it somehow worked, and added to the sleaziness of the corrupt duck president. Howard appeared with Beverly on the Johnny Duckson show, with a duck Johnny and a duck Ed McMahon, famous duckworld writer Truman Capoultry, and many other fun parallel touches.

Marshall Rogers was just off his collaborative Englehart/Rogers Batman stint on DETECTIVE COMICS 471-479, and did a great Batman parody in HOWARD THE DUCK 8, with Howard and Bev in a costumed mall security role worthy of Gary Coleman.
Also great in issue 8 was a one-page Howard story by Dave Sim, around the time Sim was developing to the peak of his talent. (This issue came out the same cover-date as CEREBUS 22.)

Also great on issues 6-9 were beautiful air-brushed covers by John Pound.

A nice, if brief, run. I think Marvel's magazines were at their best in this era, from 1979-1981. HOWARD THE DUCK issues came out the same years as exceptional work in MARVEL PREVIEW/BIZARRE ADVENTURES, HULK, TOMB OF DRACULA, and the first few issues of EPIC ILLUSTRATED and Marvel's Graphic Novel line had begun.
MARVEL SUPER SPECIAL was more hit and miss, but had some really nice art, particularly two Williamson adaptations of EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and REVENGE OF THE JEDI.

And of course, SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN, at that time done by Michael Fleisher and John Buscema, mostly inked by Chan and Nebres, that ended up out-surviving all of Marvel's other magazines. So for Marvel, it began and ended with SAVAGE TALES and SAVAGE SWORD.

In some ways I actually preferred the Fleisher stories (roughly 60-120) to Roy Thomas' (who did issues 1-59), because Fleisher was less prose-heavy and quicker to get to the action. But he arguably had the luxury of more easily continuing what Roy Thomas had firmly established. I thought it was a rather consistent continuation by Fleisher, after Thomas left.

There was a Doc Savage magazine done by Marvel's Curtis imprint. (I enjoy reading the new Showcase Presents: Doc Savage TPB, ironically published by DC Comics.)

I bought Marvel's 1972 comic book version of DOC SAVAGE off the stands, back in the day.

I've only seen the 1975 Marvel magazine version once in a comic book store, and have never read it. DC is reprinting the Marvel series?
Apparently so, from the cover I looked at (by Steranko, from issues 2 of Marvel's 1972 series).



DC also had a 1987 4-issue miniseries by Dennis O'Neil and the younger Kuberts (possibly the Kuberts' first series work), that was Doc Savage's son and brought the character into the present, which I honestly didn't like.
And after had an ongoing regular series of the original characters. But I found both to be distatefully modern in style.

Along the same lines, I always loved Solomon Kane, and there were two collected trades in recent years.

One volume, THE SAGA OF SOLOMON KANE (Dark Horse, 2009) collecting the complete magazine stories of Solomon Kane (published sporadically over a 20-year period in DRACULA LIVES, KULL AND THE BARBARIANS and SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN) from 1973-1994. All collected in a 410-page essentials-style collected volume. With great art by a wide spectrum of artists, including Ralph Reese, Alamn Weiss, Neal Adams, Pablo Marcos, Mike Zeck, Howard Chaykin, Dave Wenzel, Al Williamson and many others. Including some nice full-page illustrations by Wrightson, Adams, Gene Day, Jim Fletcher, Bob Gould and John Byrne.

A second volume, THE CHRONICLES OF SOLOMON KANE (Dark Horse, also 2009) collects a well-written Solomon Kane series from 1985, scripted by Ralph Macchio, 5 of 6 being Robert E. Howard adaptations, with art on different issues by Carr, Blevins, Mignola, Bogdanave, and Ridgeway, mostly inked by Williamson.
And also includes two 1976 Thomas/Chaykin adaptations from MARVEL PREMIERE 33 and 34 by Thomas/Chaykin.

All of them great reading, collected together for the first time, 30-plus years after these stories were sporadically published!

I also enjoyed a magazine called QUESTAR that was primarily a science fiction magazine, with some comics material icluded in the latter half of its run.

It had portfolios of art by Frank Frazetta and Boris, as well as comics stories by Marc Hempel, Mike Grell and others. A feature called "Just Imagine Jeannie" created by Forrest J. Ackerman and with art in issues 10 and 11 by Grell was visually patterned after the movie Forbidden Planet, and some of Grell's most obscure work. (another hard to find series by Grell is a Tarzan newspaper strip Grell did back in 1981-1982).

Plus some nice photo sections on movies and TV series of the period, plus articles and interviews of SF writers, artists, special effects men and animators, comparable to what you'd see in OMNI magazine.