"And one single issue: Puppy Action! a hilarious one-shot that came out sometime in the mid to late 80s. It was like Office Space with cute puppies instead of people. It was nasty and cynical and funny as hell. I forget who did it, but the art looked an awful lot like whoever did the Sniz 'n Fondue cartoons for Nickelodeon."
MY GOD! I have that comic-- it was HILARIOUS!!!!! During a period where my tastes were changing and I was more inclined to check out "cartoony" and "funny" than any more of this "dark cynical violent" crap, that a blast of left-field "What the hell is THIS?"
But TRUFAN ADVENTURE THEATRE and its sequel BOFFO LAUGHS tends to loom higher in my memory. "Sister No-Mercy, The Ninja Nun! For her, killing is just another habit!")
"And profh, all those SHIELD/Nick Fury issues have been reprinted, in full color, by Marvel a couple of years ago..."
I have the 2 Steranko TPBs. These were DECADES overdue!!! They did a very interesting job on the color, but some of the special effects got all screwed over. Worse, the linework-- so typical of ALL Marvel reprints-- was blurred.
But keep in mind-- the JACK KIRBY run has NOT been collected yet-- nor have any of the Frank Springer, Barry Smith or Herb Trimpe issues EVER been reprinted!
It's one of my all-time fave series, but I always WISH they'd have gotten a steady inker / finisher for Jack (he did just layouts on most of the episodes). Can you IMAGINE if Wally Wood had worked with Jack on S.H.I.E.L.D. The mind boggles... After Steranko left, NOBODY seemed to really have a clue what they were doing. the ONE issue by Steve Parkhouse (who much later wrote DOCTOR WHO comics) and Barry Smith (before he got good!) was the single real highlight of the end-period. Unfortunately, it was the beginning of a multi-issue story, and neither Steve or Barry returned for subsequent issues! I point this up because MANY years later, Bob "Why say it in 5 words when you can use 50?" Harris ripped off the plot for his overly-long and completely WRONG-HEADED maxi-series NICK FURY VS. SHIELD. (Oh, God, was that BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD.)
