"What happened in August 1972," you ask? How about this...

• While the last issue of Jack Kirby's Forever People hit the stands, so did the first issue of his latest creation, Kamandi. DC also published Swamp Thing for the first time...
  
• Marvel kicked off two new titles of their own: Night Nurse and The Cat, the latter debuting the first appearance of the title character who would later become known as Tigra...
  
• Archie's new series: Archie at Riverdale High...
• The fourth comic convention in San Diego, later to become known as Comic Con International, took place from August 18th - 21st! It was the first time to be held at El Cortez Hotel, which was the show's primary location for the rest of the 1970s. Bob Clampett, Harry Harrison, Jack Kirby, Mel Lazarus and Roy Thomas were guests.
• John Barrett, Bud Plant and Robert Beerbohm opened the first Comics & Comix, about a week after the convention. Though it was not the first dedicated comic book shop to open, it helped paved the way for a number of other shops and shop owners, notably Beerbohm and Plant. (Beerbohm passed away in 2024 but Plant is still active to this day.)
• Yours truly was born on August 20. (Happy birthday to me!)
  
• Snoopy, Come Home was released in theaters on the ninth. It featured the first appearances of Woodstock and Franklin onscreen.
• Ben Affleck -- who later went on to play Daredevil, Batman and George-Reeves-playing-Superman -- was born on August 15.
  
• Fantastic Four #125 was released. This was the last issue of the title where Stan Lee is credited as the writer until #296, the 25th anniversary issue. (OK, strictly speaking, this last item is a little bogus. The issue is cover-dated August 1972, but it actually hit newsstands a couple months earlier. The issue that was actually released in August, though, isn't especially note-worthy, so I'm going to include #125 here anyway. 😊)
  

I've happened across more than a few instances recently of comics fans who are out there talking about their favorite hobby online. They've got their own channel/outlet and they're doing their own takes on Jimmy Olsen and Jack Kirby and the Eternals and Wally Wood and any/everything to do with comics. There's nothing new with this, of course; fans have been talking about comics LOOONG before the internet was even a thing, so it makes sense that it would translate online. In fact, many -- if not most -- of my interactions online back in the late '90s centered around talking about comics. I began my own Fantastic Four themed site in 1996, and I spent time discussing characters and creators and issues both past and present on a variety of message boards. Several of the people I talked with back then are still in my circle, and I still talk with them about comics.

But these folks I've come across more recently are a bit different. Beyond the obvious things like their using social media, which wasn't even a thing back in the day, but rather... well, basically that they weren't even there back in the day. I don't mean that as a slight or anything; they're simply too young (probably not even born in some cases) to have been part of the conversations I was having back in 1996. For them, Jack Kirby has always been a legend that already passed away, Chris Claremont has always been a former X-Men writer, Image Comics has always held a significant piece of the comics market, mega-crossover events have always been the norm, Wednesday was always New Comics Day, etc. The people who I've been discussing comics with have obviously aged with me and, while there may be as much 10-15 years between us in age, there was still enough overlap that we saw many of the same comics experiences in real time. We read Watchmen as a monthly serial, we watched as Judge Dredd get juggled from Eagle Comics to Quality Comics to Fleetway Comics, we saw DC run a 1-900 kill-your-partner hotline to vote on Robin's life, we debated whether Marvel Comics would sell off some of their characters to help get them out of bankruptcy, we saw comics drawn on a computer for the very first time... Even there were several years between us, we had those touchstones that were part of our comics background and makeup.

By contrast, I just caught a video providing an overview of the original Secret Wars series. It wasn't a review exactly, it didn't reveal any previously hidden background details, it didn't have any new interviews with the original creators; it was just an overview of what happened and some of the context around it. That's a piece that would never have occured to me to write because... well, why? Everyone I know read it as it came out back in the '80s. More poignently, I would never think to write a piece like that because there's little for me to learn in the process. I read the comics back then, I read articles about the comics back then. From a strictly fact/content basis, I could've dashed off the same info of the video I watched without even doing research.

But then, there's the real key difference. These people I'm talking about? They've got the perspective of someone in their late 20s/early 30s. Meaning a) they're reading these stories in a notably different (post-Y2K, post-9/11, post-comiXology) context, and b) they have a different form and style of communication than we older folks do. The most obvious differences are a much heavier dose of snark and the regular use of (borderline reliance on) cutaway gags. I'm not opposed to these ideas, mind you; I'm conversant enough in their language that I get it, even though it's not engrained nearly enough for me to sound natural or casual with it. Those are both styles that really didn't show up on my radar until I was an adult and had a writing/communicating style already pretty firmly established; they're just not an inherent part of my media background.

That combination of things is what I find striking. That they're talking about comics that are just part of my background growing up, as well as having a better set of language components to speak to a younger crowd. I haven't noticed much of a difference between myself (firmly planted in Gen X) and Millennials, but I do see a much more pronounced break between Millennials and Gen Z. (Well, as pronounced as these type of broad generational classifications allow; I expect several of these people I'm seeing are technically Millennials, albeit ones from the tail end of that period.) There's a markedly different approach they're taking, one that's more media-literate, where digital editing has always been the norm and remixing content is something they've been doing they're whole lives.

To a degree, this has always been how aging works, right? Folks get older and start seeing how younger people are doing things differently? "These kids today..." and so on. I think it's much more noticeable now, though, because younger folks have access to a much wider platform than literally any generation before them. My initial thought when I saw some of these videos were out there was to question why they were doing them; the topics they're spelling out in the titles have been covered to death already. Which they have, but by older people who don't speak Gen Z fluently. These younger folks use a different media language, and it takes someone speaking in that vernacular to connect in a way that an old fart like myself wouldn't.

Ultimately, my point is that, while it's easy to dismiss "these kids today" as being wholly unoriginal and simply re-hashing the discussions we had decades ago, they're actually having different talks. Ones that come from a different media landscape. Ones that come with an entirely different way to unpack its baggage. Ones that still rely on and reference those discussions we had on USENET, but with emojis and memes and Snapchat filters instead of just, you know, Courier.

Maybe it's easier for me since I was never "with it" in any capacity, and no one listened to me even when I was a marketable demographic. But don't dismiss "these kids today" as just covering the same ground you covered decades ago. There's some new and interesting approaches out there, and I'm eager to hear more of what these folks have to say.

If you've read my blog for any length of time, you're probably aware that I'm an old school Fantastic Four fan. Even when I'm not talking about the book explicitly, it's been something of a background topic that I've used to launch into something else. I started reading the series when I was 11 years old and continued month-in, month-out until the Civil War storyline. I thought they collectively did a phenomenally bad job at interpretting the characters, and I wasn't liking the direction they were taking the broader Marvel stories anyway, so I dropped everything. A few years later, Marvel cancelled the book entirely. And when they announced they would bring it back in 2018, I spent half a year or so picking up seven years' worth of back issues from dollar bins and got myself caught up in time for the new series. (For about a third of the price of if I'd have bought all those issues new!) I mostly enjoyed what Dan Slott did (except for the periodic interruptions mandated for whatever the big crossover du'jour was) and was generally enjoying the book again. Then Ryan North started writing the book in 2023 and...

I haven't disliked the book as much as I did during Civil War, but I've found it devoid of anything engaging. It's not bad exactly, and there have been some interesting germs of ideas, but I do not connect with it at all. Every single issue since then has fallen totally flat for me. And that's fine. I don't have any right to expect any comic to hold my interest in the same way over four decades, and Marvel doesn't need to cater to my interests in particular. The book seems to be selling reasonably well, and the broad response seems to be positive, so who am I to argue with which way the winds are blowing?

But I've kept buying it, hoping for things to shift into a groove that I like. And it keeps not happening. Every time I've sat down to read an issue for the past few years, I've put it down feeling disappointed. Again, not that it's necessarily bad, but that I'm not connecting with it at all. I've been at the point for a while now where a new issue comes in, and I set it aside without even trying to read it for months because I'm so unehtused at the prospect. The last issue I read was #6 (pictured above) which seems to have come out on December 3 of last year.

I was going through the ordering process last night for the latest issues of everything, and I decdided that I'm going to set the title aside once again. I've been buying it out of habit, and that's 100% the wrong reason to continue buying anything. And I don't say that as some kind of major pronouncment against Marvel or anything, but to call out the nature of the habit. One of the reasons, I think, readers tend to drop a series only when the publisher starts a new renumbering or a title change or something is because the publisher themselves are "forced" a break in the habit. But like any habit, the best time to break it is when you're ready. When you're able to recognize that what a comic is delivering now is no longer what it delivered previously.

I've looked at the small stack of Fantastic Four issues I've continued buying since December on many occasions. I've added a new issue to that pile every month, and there have been plenty of times I've thought I should sit down to catch up with them. Only to be so unenthused at the propsect that I go on to something else. It can be difficult to recognize that. Particularly with a history of positive experience that goes back literally decades.

I believe I first posted the suggestion of not buying comics out of habit back in 2009. But that can be easier said than done, often because it's difficult to recognize precisely when you stopped buying out of enjoyment (or at least the anticipation of enjoyment). And you don't want to stop reading a book entirely just because they came out with a single bad issue. But you do need to take a few moments to periodically reflect on what you're buying and why. There are thousands of great comics out there; don't waste your time and money on ones just because you used to enjoy them.

In part because folks are still recovering from Comic-Con and not paying attention to me but in part because it's still just generally busy here at Kleefeld Headquarters, I'm going to pull out an article I wrote a decade or two back concerning how the Fantastic Four have been portrayed in media outlets within the Marvel Universe. It's old enough now that I'm 100% sure I'm missing some more recent significant incidents, but I think it's still interesting for the earlier historical stuff...

One of the things that made the Fantastic Four stand out from other superhero comics was that the characters were, if not media-savvy, at least very aware of the media from early on. This document will highlight some of the Fantastic Four's appearances in the Marvel world of media exploitation.

Shortly after the Fantastic Four gained their powers, Reed Richards began to feel guilty for having "destroyed their lives." So he made a very conscious decision to make them all into celebrities, hoping that their fame might make up for their hopes of having normal lives.

Being the first of a new generation of heroes for the Marvel Universe, the FF naturally attracted a great deal of media attention early on, including front page headlines on the Daily Bugle and Daily Globe. (Fantastic Four #2, Human Torch Vol. 2 #1) Their first encounters with the Miracle Man and Dr. Doom saw the front pages of the Bugle as well. (Tales of the Marvels: Inner Demons, Fantastic Four #238, 294) The Human Torch received more coverage in both news and gossip columns from the Daily Chronicle and IBC television for some of his solo exploits. (Strange Tales #102, 103, 119) The FF were even awarded a trophy of gratitude at a televised ceremony from the Capitol. (Fantastic Four #7)

With the fame they already generated, it came as little surprise that when S-M Studios released a film featuring the Fantastic Four battling a cyclops, a tribe of fire-proof Africans, and the Sub-Mariner himself, their stardom skyrocketed. (Fantastic Four #9) Further ensuring their celebrity status, Marvel Comics managed to acquire the rights to publish the FF's adventures in comic book form which continue to this day. Although Reed personally oversaw the authenticity of the comic magazine early on (Fantastic Four #10) the group eventually gained enough confidence in the Marvel Bullpen to allow a greater degree of flexibility. (Thing #7, Fantastic Four #176, 262)

Before gaining her super powers, Susan had tried her hand at acting, but was only able to land small and infrequent parts in television commercials. (Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Vol. 2 #6, Before the FF: The Storms #3, Fantastic Four Vol. 3 #50) It seems most likely that this was only the fault of a poor agent, as she began receiving sizable movie and television offers once her name became known. (Fantastic Four #14) She soon decided on the leading role in Lost on an Unknown Planet, which evidently had enough set problems to convince her not to pursue acting again for some time. (Fantastic Four #15) If not that, certainly the subsequent talk-show tour didn't leave her very impressed. (Fantastic Four #16)

The Fantastic Four's lives continued to be reported in various media outlets as the news events they generally were. (Fantastic Four: Fireworks #2, Fantastic Four #23, 38, 78) They also began having lead magazine features being done on them in well-respected magazines like Life. (Fantastic Four #24, Marvels #2) But once Reed and Sue publicly announced their engagement, "the world's press goes wild!!" (Fantastic Four #36) with coverage in all the major media outlets, including every magazine from Redbook to Seventeen. (Marvels #2) The wedding itself was even more of a media event with full page headlines running in the Daily Bugle, Daily Globe and Daily Press. (Marvel: Heroes and Legends, Fantastic Four Annual #3)

With the exception of regular media coverage, the FF spent their time saving the world, instead of being celebrities. (Marvels #3, Fantastic Four #78, 112, X-Men: The Hidden Years #20) That changed during a New Year's Eve celebration when Thundra publicly challenged the Thing to a battle in Shea Stadium. The event was billed as the "Fight of the Century" and warranted headlines in the Daily Ledger, Morning Ledger, Daily Sun, and Daily News. The Off-Track Betting Corporation issued odds and Shea Stadium itself sold out. Television crews undoubtably tried filming the event, only to have the two combatants leave the stadium and complete the fight elsewhere. (Fantastic Four #133) The crowd felt cheated and it was this event that perhaps kept the FF from attempting any significant media events for some time afterwards, letting their names only come out in occassional news event. (Fantastic Four #168, 191, 238)

Shortly after the Fantastic Four broke up, Susan received a telegram from Imperial Studios offering her a new lease on her acting career. (Fantastic Four #191) She starred in Henry's Angels, a generally fictionalized account of King Henry VIII where he was married to all six of his wives simultaneously. Filming was interrupted, however, by the Retrievers of Atlantis. (Fantastic Four #195) It is unclear whether or not the film was completed or if footage of the Retrievers was weaved into the final cut.

Once the team re-formed, Dino Lorenzo took a stab at making a Fantastic Four film, which Reed authorized only to earn some money they owed to the IRS. Lorenzo took a great deal of liberty portraying the FF and the group considered themselves fortunate that special effects supervisor Luigi Cantalopé accidentally caused his 15-foot Thing robot to run amok. As an interesting side-note, the Thing's battle with his robotic counterpart stumbled into the set of The Gong Show and was believed to be one of the acts. While the "act" was not gonged, the winner was "Annabelle and her Singing Appendix Scar." (Fantastic Four Annual #12)

Not long afterwards, director Joseph L. Jusko began his Incredible Hulk television series starring Bill Bixby, Sonny Bono, Charo, Howdy Doody, Roger Stern, and Karen Page. Although the series was cancelled after the Hulk and the Thing wrestled through several active soundstages, Ben was still offered a key part in his own television sit-com series: "Thing in the Family." (Marvel Two-in-One #46)

Although Johnny was "out of town the day the contracts needed to be signed" NBC went ahead with the production a Fantastic Four cartoon using the newly-designed HERBIE the Robot as the fourth member. Reed had designs for the robot already and offered them as an alternative, given that robots -- which are legally treated as property -- would have no need to sign a contract in the first place. (Fantastic Four #209) The show, however, was unsuccessful as the representations of characters were decidedly flat and only superficially represented the FF.

Not much later, producer Ted Silverberg convinced Simon Williams to star as the title character in his new ABC series: Monster Man! The show was VERY loosely -- and unofficially -- based on the Thing but included sidekick Kid Monstro and his pet Monstie. As lawyer Matt Murdock pointed out, "whoever thought this show up is a master at treading the line between plagiarism and public domain." The show's concept and real backing, however, came from Xemnu the Titan, who intended to subliminally plant messages in the show to be able to conquer the world. The alien was stopped by Wonder Man and the Thing but Silverberg was still able to take the footage and promote it as The Xemnu the Titan Show. (Marvel Two-in-One #78)

Given the general lack of success the Fantastic Four had in dealing with fictionalizations of their adventures, they began dealing with more documentary aspects of the media. Susan appeared on an hour-long special Woman to Woman with host Barbara Walker. The show was part of a series dedicated to the five most influencetial women in America. (Fantastic Four #245) Ben was recruited for an exhibition boxing match against the Champion that fueled headlines in the Daily Bugle, London Times, Sports Illustrated and Time. (Marvel Two-in-One Annual #7) Johnny had his profile featured in Celebrity magazine and the entire group was spotlit on an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. (Fantastic Four #285) The team was invited to speak at a meeting of the Adventurers Club. (Contest of Champions #1) And, although not exactly intentional or approved, She-Hulk was the centerfold for the best selling issue of T.J. Vance's The Naked Truth. (Fantastic Four #275)

Meanwhile, Ben, while not still an actual member of the FF became one of the original members of the Unlimited Class Wrestling Foundation. Ed Garner, the U.C.W.F. promoter, still played up the Thing's association with the Fantastic Four to help promote the sport on national television. (Thing #28) Although Ben continued to downplay his former role in the Fantastic Four, his unbeatable winning streak kept him very much in the public eye and Garner continued to use the FF angle until Ben's last fight. (Thing #33)

During a brief respite, while the U.C.W.F. made some technological modifications to the arena, the Thing went to visit then stunt-woman Sharon Ventura on the set of Devil Dinosaur. The film experienced any number of technical problems (not the least of which being Godzilla) and ended up not being completed; however, the footage was sold to Ripley's Believe It or Not who most certainly also played up the FF and U.C.W.F. angles. (Thing #31)

The Fantastic Four themselves once again took a respite from the media and limited their media exposure mainly to news events and the inevitable gossip column. (Fantastic Four Annual #22, Marvel Two-in-One #96, Amazing Spider-Man #338, Web of Spider-Man Annual #5, B-Sides #3, Fantastic Force #1, Fantastic Four #299, 300, 362, 377) She-Hulk, on the other hand, became the subject of a Major Motion Pictures' bio-pic detailing her life as a super heroine. Although the script was poor, the effects were cheap, and there were several blatant attempts to disrupt filming altogether the movie was quite successful and ran for at least ten record-breaking weeks. (Sensational She-Hulk #12) It was the success of this movie, combined with the need for extra cash following the destruction of Empire State University, that prompted the Fantastic Four to give the go-ahead for a second attempt at animating their early adventures. The show was done very poorly and, despite a marketing attempt that included action figures, plush dolls and lunch boxes, the show went off the air quickly. (Fantastic Four #396)

It was not long afterwards that Onslaught reared his head. With so many powerful figures rising up to challenge him, it's no wonder that media coverage was so very nearly complete. CNN's Trish Tilby was even on hand to witness first-hand the "demise" of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. (Onslaught: Marvel Universe) The FF continued appearing in the news afterwards, with television stations often using file footage from previous events insterspersed with coverage of tribute ceremonies. (Thunderbolts #1, 2) Of course the media were quick to jump on the story of the heroes' return as well. (Captain America Vol. 3 #1, Thunderbolts #10, X-Men #71)

It wasn't long after the Fantastic Four settled in their new home that they began working the media again. Reed started by arranging a documentary on the FF's life to be filmed by Manoli Wetherell and Neal Conan for NPR-TV. (Fantastic Four Vol. 3 #9) He also tried to set up bigger press conferences (Uncanny X-Men/Fantastic Four 1998, Fantastic Four Vol. 3 #52), get their names and likenesses in more periodicals (Peter Parker: Spider-Man #53), and even made an appearance on Politically Incorrect. (Inhumans Vol. 2 #4) Meanwhile, Johnny made a very public display of his romance with the Atlantean, Namortia. (New Warriors Vol. 2 #3, 6, 9)

The biggest media commotion, however, came when Susan announced that she was marrying Dr. Doom. NPR-TV and CNN were on-hand filming the event, and papers from New York's Daily Bugle to Spain's El Pais documented everything they could. (Fantastic Four Vol. 3 #27)

After the marriage was sorted out, Johnny turned his eye towards Hollywood as reported in Vanity Fare. (Fantastic Four Vol. 3 #35) Surprisingly, of all the members of the FF, he had previously had the least amount of experience with the movie industry. Johnny evidently felt the need to earn some money of his own to contribute to tha Fantastic Four and signed on to star in Hawk Productions' western: Blaze of Glory. (Fantastic Four Vol. 3 #37) After training with stunt man Bob Diamond (Fantastic Four Vol. 3 #40) Johnny attended the official launch party where Hawk revealed the first images of him as the lead character -- Rawide Kid -- and the film's new name: Blazing Star. The event was covered fairly heavily by the press, not only for the usual reasons, but the party (in all likelihood, intentionally) coincided with the Fantastic Four's anniversary. Retrospectives, biopics, and interviews were published by Time, Newsweek, the Sun, the Globe, as well as several unnamed television stations. (Fantastic Four Vol. 3 #50, 60) Shortly afterwards, the Make-A-Wish Foundation's annual Bachelor Auction, with Rosie O'Donnell as host, was televised. Johnny and Ben collectively raised $30,000. (Fantastic Four Vol. 3 #50, Second Story) Their success also led them to participate in a similar, Jay Leno-hosted World Trade Center relief auction some time later. (Spider-Man: Sweet Charity #1)

The Fantastic Four, by design, continue to be a market-driven force. T-shirts, bobble-head figures, coffee mugs, snow globes, and comic books featuring their likeness still persist, thanks to the help of a large support staff. (Fantastic Four Vol. 3 #60) Their popularity has led to references by other pop culture icons like Cypress Hill and Linkin Park. While the popularity waxes and wanes with the whims of a fickle public, Reed has gone to extra lengths to make sure that his family maintains a high public profile in some capacity.

We're in the back half of July, which means that we'll inevitably start seeing some people making note of the anniversary of the Fantastic Four (and therefore Marvel Comics in general) on August 8th. Supposedly, this is because many people claim August 8, 1961 as THE day that Fantastic Four #1 first hit the stands. The problem is: that's not the correct date of the FF's anniversary.

That date seems to originate from Greg Theakston, who mentioned it in Pure Images #2 circa 1991. In his essay on the earliest days of the Fantastic Four, he mentioned that that August 8th date. That is, I believe, the first time anyone put a specific date to the issue's release. Previously, the FF's anniversary was always tied to the November issue of any given year, regardless of when the November issue actually came out. After Theakston published that, however, the conversation started to shift from "November cover-dated issue" to "August 8th release date." My guess is that Theakston got the date by finding the earliest records he could of a newsstand receiving their copies.

But he wasn't comprehensive in his search.

See, back in 1961, there wasn't a single distributor system for comics. It was a comparitively very loose network off regional distributors. Not to mention what was available worked much slower. So different newsstands and drug stores got their shipments on different days. Generally kind of close to one another, just not on the same day. One shop might get their books on a Tuesday, the guy in the next city might get his on Wednesday, and the guy in the city after that might be on Thursday.

There was also poor communication to the retailers. They didn't necessarily know what they would get on any given delivery, or when the next shipment of a particular title might come in. Since all the comics (and magazines) were returnable, this wasn't a big deal. But retailers did need to know when it might be okay to send old books back, so they would often write or stamp the date they received them on the cover. (Collectiblity was obviously not a concern.) Then, as they were surveying their stock, they could easily determine that it had only been three weeks since they got this issue, but maybe ten weeks since they got this other one. But, here and now, decades later, we can use those same markings to determine when certain issues hit the stands!

Which leads us to Fantastic Four #1. If the copies of the version Theakston saw in the late '80s and early '90s had nothing earlier than an August 8th date, it's reasonable to conclude that that was the earliest anyone got it. However, since then -- thanks in large part to the internet -- we've uncovered examples of other copies with other dates, such as August 1st, 3rd, 8th, 9th, and as late as the 21st. I've even found one marked as early as June 30th! Which means, if the title hit some of the newsstands on June 30, then claiming the FF's anniversary is August 8 means you're off by at least a full month. Check out these examples...



Most of the images here are pulled from the Heritage Auction site. There are plenty more examples to sort through there if you're interested, but you can check eBay too as there are usually a few copies available there as well. But the dates just in this small sampling range from June 30 to August 21!

It's a minor point, to be sure, but if you're going to go around celebrating the exact day the issue hit the stands, let's at least try to be accurate about it, huh?

The cover image here is the first variant cover from The Fantastic Four and I think it might be the first variant cover from Marvel. Although it wasn't an intentional one!

The story, from 1971, is fairly unremarkable relative to other issues for a good stretch both before and after it. Stan Lee had been writing the series for a full decade at that point, and John Buscema had several issues under his belt after Jack Kirby left* and would continue on for a few years afterwards. There are no new charaters introduced, nor are any storylines started or wrapped up. It's not a bad story, by any means, but it's largely unremarkable relative to any other given post-Kirby FF.

Except for the cover.

Fantastic Four #110 was produced in exactly the same way every other issue was produced. Lee provided a general outline to Buscema. Buscema created the story and drew the art. Lee came back and added dialogue. It went to Joe Sinnott to ink, and one of the "house" letterers to letter. (In this case, Mike Stevens.) Then the whole ball of wax got shipped off to the printers to do a print run of 250,000 or so.

Quick lesson in printing. You know how your ink jet printer has four cartridges of ink, right? Black, yellow, blue (cyan) and pink (magenta). Those four colors are used because when they're mixed in the right quantities, you can produce an incredibly wide range of colors. Professional printers who print comics use the same colors. The difference is that back in 1971, instead of being controlled by a computer, the colors were controlled by hand. There would be a person who had to take a copy of the artwork, and physically cut out all the bits that required each color. They would end up with four pieces of art: one containing just the black parts, one containing just the yellow parts, one containing just the cyan parts, and one containing just the magenta parts.

Then, a printer would create a metal plate based on each piece of art. These plates are kind of like rubber stamps, but just made out of (usually) aluminum. The image is reversed, then coated with ink and pressed onto a piece of paper. So when you coat the four images with four different inks, and press them onto the same piece of paper, you get a colored image!

Now, what happened to FF #110 is that the cyan and magenta plates got mixed up for the cover. So everything that was supposed be blue was printed using magenta ink, and everything pink was printed with cyan ink. Consequently, we see the FF in pink uniforms, and the orange of the Thing (remember your old color wheel? yellow + red = orange) now looks green (the "red" of that equation was replaced with "blue").

The issues were shipped out before the problem was noticed. Which means there were over 200,000 of these floating around at one point. Marvel issued a recall, and had corrected issues shipped out (I'm sure at the printer's cost, since it was their fault) but not before a good number of the error version had sold. And while we weren't really into the direct market system quite yet, there were no doubt people who had begun speculating on the market, and deliberately held onto their copies without sending them back to get pulped. So these days, they're not exactly common, but not terribly hard to find either.

So the next time someone talks about some exclusive variant cover they picked up at a convention, you can pull this bad boy out and tell them you've got the original variant cover!
* Yes, I know John Romita did a few issues between Kirby and Buscema, despite the implication my phrasing above implies. There just wasn't a smooth way to add in Romita's contribution there, and it wasn't really relevant to my point anyway.

Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

Kleefeld on Comics: Tom Hanks Is an OG FF Fan
https://ift.tt/NsZJgB2

Kleefeld on Comics: The Fantastic Four's Chest Emblem
https://ift.tt/K5wmqv3

Kleefeld on Comics: Nap Time
https://ift.tt/mOGk7Jn

Kleefeld on Comics: Political Speech Now Illegal
https://ift.tt/RAjGYtC

Kleefeld on Comics: Steranko Histories
https://ift.tt/cbtCFwm

Speaking, as I was yesterday, about the 1960s Fantastic Four, there has been, for many years, a big debate on how much Stan Lee contributed to the early Marvel output versus Jack Kirby. Some say Lee did the bulk of the work and Jack was just a hired hand to illustrate Lee's vision; others think Kirby did everything and Lee was nothing more than a glorified proofreader. The truth likely lies in between somewhere, although it is pretty readily accepted by everyone that Kirby did all the artwork and design.

Except when he didn't.

One of the pages of original art that has survived is page 16 from Fantastic Four #3. The Thing and the Human Torch get into a fight, and the Torch leaves. More interestingly, though, we have on the back of the art board several sketches for a chest emblem. The was the issue where the FF debuted their team uniform and it would appear that there was some discussion about what the chest emblem should be. And what we can see with this page in particular was that Kirby was not the only one making illustrative contributions to the book.

The logo sketches were most likely Lee's work. Some of the other earlier FF pages indeed have rough (i.e. really bad stick figures) "layouts" that are Lee scribbled to help describe what he was envisioning to Kirby. It's possible that someone besides Lee could have done these emblem sketches, but A) it almost certainly wasn't Kirby -- those bear no resemblance to his style of sketching -- and B) not many other people would've had access to the original art.

Now, the other possibility for the logos could be Sol Brodsky. He appears to have done some elaborate re-work on the Human Torch figures throughout that issue, including on that page (at right, circled in red) to bring him more in line with the original Carl Burgos design. So Brodsky would have had access to the art boards, and he did create the "Fantastic Four" logo that shows up on the cover. That said, I'm inclined to say it was still Lee as Brodsky had a fair degree of artisic skill and most of the designs seem to have been drawn by someone with an unsure hand.

But then there's the question of the sketches showing up on page 16 instead of 7, when the costume first appears. That doesn't strike me as particularly odd. Kirby wouldn't have only turned in one or two pages at a time, he turned the art for an entire story at once. So when Lee (or Brodsky) opted to doodle some new logo ideas, he could've grabbed any page from the story at random. Brodsky, already going through the pages to re-work the Torch, would have also been able make other adjustments to the characters' costumes as the same time.

In Pure Images #2, Greg Theakston goes back to the original art and inked some of the pages onto new boards using some of Jack's original pencil lines. Jack's original FF logo was an interlocking "FF" similar to one of the middle ones on the far right of that page. (Circled in red at the left. The final is circled in blue.) Further, the costumes included masks for everyone, hence that really weird close-up on Sue's face when she first steps out in the new costume. (See below.) All that would have been "fixed" by Brodsky along with those Human Torch figures.
The extruded "4" design was eventually simplified to a more flat figure -- probably because Kirby simply forgot about the drop shadow effect somewhere around issue #16. He never rendered it consistently anyway. Had Joe Sinnott been on the book by this point, he may have added it back in for consistency, but the book still had a more-or-less rotating cast of inkers; Chic Stone is the first person to ink more than three consecutive issues starting with #29. The 3D effect on the "4" doesn't return consistently until John Byrne picked up the title many years later.

Tom Hanks first drew a lot of attention in the sitcom Bosom Buddies back in 1980 before making a very successful transition to movies with Ron Howard's directorial debut of Splash. Hanks has since had an incredible career with everything from the Academy Award winning Forest Gump to the now-three-decades-running franchise Toy Story. Some of his work has been more successful than others, of course, but even in something like Mazes and Monsters -- a made-for-TV movie which had an awful premise born out of the Satanic panic of the early 1980s -- Hanks turned in an excellent performance. But because of his long successful career, you don't need me to tell you who he is.

Not surprisingly, too, because he's been acting in such a high-profile capacity for so long, he's done more than a few interviews over the years promoting his various works. I certainly can't claim to have seen/heard all of them but, like I expect many of you, you've seen him on talk shows and heard him on podcasts and maybe even caught him speaking at a graduation ceremony or two. But in the decades of hearing him, I've never heard him mention comic books. Even when he was doing the circuits for Road to Perdition in 2002 and Here in 2024 both of which were based on graphic novels, I never heard him mention comics in any capacity.

Until I caught this interview from about a year ago, in which he describes the a-ha moment he had about how to handle his career in the wake of A League of their Own... It's only a three-minute clip in total but the comic reference goes by fast so I'll call it out. He says of this a-ha moment he had...

If you could go back now and shoot a movie about that, lightning would've flashed, the walls would've shook, and it sort of would've been like 'Black Bolt speaks!'

That's not a reference to the current Marvel Cinematic Universe. There's no great revelation about Black Bolt speaking in the shows or movies. That's a throwback to the original 1960s storyline when Black Bolt was a complete enigma. The character debuted in Fantastic Four #45 circa 1965 and little was offerred about him, other than the other Inhumans gave great deference to his power. However, a few issues later in #48, Black Bolt's brother Maximus traps the entire Inhuman civilaztion behind a Negative Barrier that no one cane break through. It became on ongoing subplot for the next year and change, and it was only destroyed in FF #59 when Black Bolt finally speaks. His voice is so powerful, it obliterates the barrier. Jack Kirby spent a page and a half showcasing all the destruction it caused, and Stan Lee used whatever space remained on the art board to fill with descriptions of how we were witnessing something "of such incalcuable power that it cannot possibly be described in merely human terms!"

This was a profound moment for fans. Dean Hill of Warrior, AL wrote in to say...

Words haven't been printed to describe F.F. #59! IThe story was like Shakespeare had written it! The artwork was like Michaelangelo had drawn it! Even the lettering was like Guttenburg had lettered it! In other words, this was a rather good mag! By the way, a certain question has been haunting me. When Black Bolt spoke (as so wonderfully shown on page 11, panel 5), what did he say?? Did he say "Sooie!"? Did he say "Four score and seven years ago..."? Or did Honest Irving slip him a few nickles (wooden, of course) to let the Inhumans hear Black Bolt say, "Make mine Marvel!"???

Doing some quick math, Hanks would've been about 11 when the issue came out. That is, the prime target demographic for those stories back in the day. That he would recall that story beat as such a pivotal and powerful moment -- casually and decades after the fact -- strongly suggests he was an avid reader at the time and was heavily invested in the story.

Tom Hanks, old school Fantastic Four fan. Who knew?

Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

Kleefeld on Comics: An Evolution, or Just a Long Time to Get to Where I'd Always Been Trying to Go?
https://ift.tt/4FpMRil

Kleefeld on Comics: Lois Lane, Girl Reporter Redux
https://ift.tt/8n76KxF

Kleefeld on Comics: The Power of One
https://ift.tt/dsZxUA9

Kleefeld on Comics: The Fantastic Four #136 Cover Mysteries
https://ift.tt/iAZ4EJx

Kleefeld on Comics: Be Careful
https://ift.tt/giDKZbL

I stumbled across a minor, but curious, mystery a little while ago and for some resaon started thinking of it again last night. Here are the covers for Fantastic Four #135, 136 and 137...

And here are the covers for some French-language Canadian reprints that came out about two months after the originals...

Most of the covers of the reprint series are lifted from the original comics, with just the English translated into French. But for some reason, the issue reprinting Fantastic Four #136 doesn't use the original cover art, but a panel of interior art.

Now it's certainly possible the original cover art was lost or destroyed. But here's the cover to a British reprint of the same story from about four years later...

It's been modified a bit to accomodate a slightly wider format, but there was clearly some form of reproducible art still around.

Or was there?

On closer study, The Complete Fantastic Four cover might in fact an entirely new piece of art, recreated based on the original. The more you look at the two, the more discrepancies to see: Medusa's left boot, the Torch's flame aura, the placement of Thing's left hand, the number of steps on that dais, the placement of the upper bike rider... There are more issues there than would be touched up for the size difference. Which leads one to think that the actual cover art for FF #136 was lost in the mail, and John Buscema recreated it based on a printed version.

But then again, most of the differences are either in placement or details near the edge. So was this then a heavy re-cut/paste job with a few touch-ups at the edges? It wouldn't be the first time Marvel put a fair amount of time and effort into heavily retouching some cover art for arguably inconsequential changes.

And, in doing some further research, The Complete Fantastic Four issue is an anomoly. Other foreign reprints -- some coming later still -- use the original art...

So if the original cover art was still around (or at least some version of it that could be used in production) there's a fair case to be made that The Complete Fantastic Four version was NOT a re-creation. But it still seems like a heck of a lot of production work just to get the art to fit a slightly different format. It probably would have been faster, and possibly cheaper, to just have Buscema draw a new one.

Getting back to the Canadian cover, it makes sense that if Marvel sent the art up to Canada for that reprint and the cover art was somehow lost or damaged, and they had to scrounge for something quickly. Depending on when in their printing process the cover are became unusable, it might make sense to just grab the nearest available art that would fill most of a cover -- the opening splash page. But, why the strange treatment? Why the odd angle? Why the red border? Why color some of the figures, but not the Human Torch? And why color the figures with the least intense color of the three chosen? Questions I do not have even speculative answers for. Nothing in my graphic design background can figure out how they arrived at any of their decisions here, aside from, "Hey, what's the biggest piece of art we have that we can use for a cover?"

There just seem to be a number of weird (and admittedly inconsequential) questions around this cover.

The most memorable comics to me remain the ones I read a few decades ago as a kid. The images etched into my brain and the dialogue still ringing in my head. Some of those books were indeed note-worthy. The O'Neil/Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow for example. Others I kind of wish I could forget. There was a particularly bad 1976 issue of Archie that still haunts me -- especially that splash page of Archie racing down the stairs crying about his broken platform clog. But both of those types of comics, as well as all the not-great-but-not-bad ones in between, stick out more strongly in my memory than some more recent works that are particularly well-done. Why should I have better recollection of a mediocre comic I read decades ago than a stellar one I read last month?

I suppose nostalgia plays into that at some level, but a lot of the bits I remember don't hold any emotional weight with me. I can remember the stories and the art, but not that they really spoke to me in any significant way. There are some books I certainly do feel nostalgia for, but not most of them.

When I was in my early 20s, I was at a comic convention and came across a copy of Fantastic Four #76, which had been on my "want list" along with a host of other old issues from that title. I don't recall what I paid for it, but I'm assuming it must have been reasonably priced. When I got the issue home, though, I discovered that I had already bought a copy sometime previously. TWICE! I bought one, read it, forgot it, bought another copy, kicked myself for buying a second copy, forgot that, and bought a third copy! That was when I realized that I was no longer able to keep track of what I did or didn't have with an easy mental checklist. My want list had grown too large and too varied to remember.

When I was I kid, before I was really a deep fan of comics, I would only read a new comic once every few months on average. I couldn't really afford any on my own, so I basically had to rely on gifts at that point. When I first started getting into them, I got exactly one new comic a month. A year or two later, that got upped to three comics a month. It was six by the time I graduated high school.

But that one new comic a month bit? Twenty-two pages of story. I re-read books, of course, but new material (for me) was coming at a rate of less than a page a day. These days, I regularly read a minimum of 40-50 pages of new material every day (via webcomics) not to mention various manga and graphic novels when I can. In fact, I've only been able to read one 168-page graphic novel and half of a 142-page one this week on top of those regular 40-50 pages because it's been an especially busy week. I'm not saying that to try to brag -- I have no clue how that compares to others' reading habits -- but to just to point out that it's a phenomenally huge increase compared to what I was reading as a kid. In the past five days alone I've read 20 times the volume of new material that I used to read in a whole month!

So it should come as no surprise that I don't recall stuff from last week as well as from last century. I had more time to commit individual comics to memory because they weren't competing with each other. Any given issue of Superman or Action Comics that I might've gotten needed to tide me over for a couple of months, not a couple of minutes. So I'm certain I spent much more time with each book back then. The relative isolation in which each comic was read back then made them stand out more. I read through so many now that they wind up blurring together a bit more, and it's harder to remember them.

Just like it was easier to remember which Fantastic Four issues I was looking for when I was ONLY looking for Fantastic Four back issues. And how I started re-buying issues because I was also trying to look for their appearances in other titles, back issues of Avengers and the first appearances of Moon Knight and Punisher.

I do enjoy the comics I read today. I'm a little disappointed that I can't retain the memories of them more vividly, relative to those books I read as a kid, but only inasmuch as it's a failing on the part of my memory. I don't care to dwell on what's already happened, and I'd rather spend my time looking forward to new cool things. I'll enjoy the new books as they come out and move forward.

Say, how soon until the next volume of The Moon on a Rainy Night comes out anyway?

Here's an experiment I proposed several years back. I've brought it up every four years or so, but I have yet to see anyone take this challenge up, so I thought I'd present it here again.

Is there anything in the original Star Wars trilogy that necessitates any given character being a certain race or gender? I can't think of anything. Obi-Wan and Yoda could have been female. Vader could have been Luke's mother. Even the Han/Leia romance could easily be portrayed by either two men or two women. Everything you think of as masculine or feminine in those movies is strictly a social construct, and it would be no problem at all to do color-blind casting since all ties to what we think of as racial identity are effectively null and void in a galaxy far, far away.

That got me thinking about how things are portrayed in comics. (Actually, everything pretty much gets me thinking about comics!) There are a lot of the same types of issues in mainstream comics. So what would happen if you took an existing comic book story -- particularly something really well-known -- and gender/race swapped characters randomly? Any number of fan artists have shown what famous characters might look like if they were gender/race swapped, but that doesn't carry the thought all the way to its natural conclusion.

There have been a number of stories where characters were gender-swapped already. The most famous example I can think of offhand is Archie #636 from several years ago. But, by and large, the writers here (and on the others) were quite conscious of the gender-swapping and specifically wrote the books to that effect. So readers are given a very consciously skewed version of the characters.

That's why I'd be more interested to see some existing stories swapped. Keep the dialogue and layouts and everything exactly as they were done originally, but simply swap the specifics of the illustrations themselves. The Galactus Trilogy, The Dark Phoenix Saga, The Killing Joke, The Death of Superman... what would these stories look like if everything were exactly the same, except characters' races and genders were assigned randomly? Again, exact same dialogue, exact same actions, exact same layouts; just swap out the visuals of the character designs.

I think this would be a fascinating and enlightening experiment. Rather than letting the writer consciously or subconsciously play to stereotypes, this approach would force readers to directly and honestly confront their notions of gender and racial identity. Why does Mrs. Fantastic sound like an utter bitch when Mr. Fantastic just came off as a bit gruff? Is Gene Grey's destruction of the D'Bari less heinous than when Jean Grey did it? Is Commissioner Jane Gordon excessively worried about her son's capture, given that he had already proven himself capable enough to fight alongside Batwoman? Does Superwoman's fight against Doomsday seem needlessly absurd now? (Well... even more needlessly absurd!)

In most race and gender swapping experiments, we're still stuck with preconceptions developed over years, if not decades, of social conditioning of what a person should/shouldn't act like based on their gender or race. Writers and artists, consciously or not, play to those stereotypes and present readers with (typically) one man's idea of what women would be like if they had masculine traits. By eliminating that aspect of the equation, and we pretend the original writer was simply writing from a gender/race neutral position, we can see how those stereotypes are often inadvertently catered to.

So here's my challenge. I would like to see someone go through some famous comic story, and randomly assign a gender and race to each character. Then recreate the story exactly as it was originally presented, but using the newly assigned race/gender for everybody. Yup, it would be a lot of work but it would spark one hell of a discussion, one that we haven't had yet!

I got my first piece of original comic book art a little over a quarter century ago. I had just had several good online interactions with Salvador Larocca, and I bought a page to commemorate the discussion. At the time, preview material wasn't nearly as common and I was able to reserve a splash page before Larocca's art agent was even aware of it! I've since collected a few dozen pages from various artists and, while I have snagged a few just because a good opportunity presented itself, most were pretty deliberate and considered choices.

The piece I have pictured here is one I just acquired; it's from Fantastic Four #309, page 4 by John Buscema and Joe Sinnott. I got it for two reasons. First, it's by John Buscema, whose work had a pretty sizeable impact on what I like in comic book art. I've long wanted a John Buscema page just to see how he 'built' his pages out, relative to what's depicted in How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. Secondly, it's from the Fantastic Four, which has long been a favorite series of mine. Granted, the page isn't exactly action packed and of the two FF members it depicts, one of them is a replacement member. But, compared to most John Buscema pages I've seen over the years, this was positively dirt cheap!

Many of the pages I have are FF related pages by artists that I've really liked over the years. I've got ones by Sal Buscema, John Romita Jr., Stuart Immonen, Mike Wieringo, Mark Bagley, and Paul Ryan among others. I've also got several pages of artists that I really like, but either didn't work on the Fantastic Four or whose FF pages are just waaaaaay above my pay grade. John Severin, John Byrne, Ramona Fradon, Ron Frenz, Humberto Ramos...

Then I have a few pages that are kind of odd grail pieces for me. Pages that, for one reason or another, absolutely burned into my brain when I first read them. I didn't actively go hunting for these, but when I did come across them for sale, it was a "here take my money" kind of situation. A Jimmy Olsen page by Kurt Schaffenberger. A page by Tom Morgan from one of the backup stories in an FF Annual. An obscure piece from Monsters Unlimited by Win Mortimer. A Bob the Squirrel strip by Frank Page. A Scott Kolins page for Freakshow. Most of these pages are relatively unremarkable among each artist's body of work but, as I said, something about them -- something in the craft of the page -- really struck me.

With the addition of this new John Buscema piece, I don't have much left I'd be actively looking for. A Curt Swan page from one of his Superman comics I read as a kid. A Ron Lim Silver Surfer. An actual FF page by John Byrne. A Jack Kirby page if I'm beng pie-in-the-sky optimistic. And that's about it. I mean, it'd be great to have a Neal Adams Green Arrow or a Winsor McCay Little Nemo. And I'm generally happy to buy new art directly from comic artists to help support them. But I have more of an artistic interest in original art than I do with just comics, so there needs to be a deeper connection there for me. And, sure, part of that is because I have to justify spending a LOT more money on a page of original art than just a regular, monthly comic book. But part of it, too, is legitmately being able to study the craft directly. To see how the artist moved their pencil across the page, what they had trouble with and had to repeatedly erase, what notes they left for other creators further down the process line...

It's a fascinating hobby somewhat tangential to comics themselves, but the added costs almost necessitate that you need to be more critical and judicial with your purchases, and you really have to put a decent amount of conscious thought into what you're looking for before you crack open a retailer's portfolios!

I was speaking with a comics creator this past weekend who had only "discovered" Jack Kirby a couple years ago. He said he was certainly aware of Jack's work for years, but it only really "clicked" (his word) for him a year or two ago. Perhaps not so coincidentally, he'd only been drawing comics for about five years, so his appreciation might well come from getting a more visceral understanding of the comics creation process, whereas previously, he may have been stuck on the overt aesthetics.

We ended up chatting a while, and I threw out a few bits that he hadn't really been aware of. Like that Jack was writing and drawing comics professionally at age 20, doing rip-offs for the Lincoln Syndicate. And that he worked most of his career out of his home. And that he was in his 40s when started Fantastic Four and in his 50s during its peak period.

None of what I said was revelatory, really. It was new to him, certainly, but that Jack lived next door to Joe Simon is an interesting anecdote but hardly changes how you view his work on Captain America Comics. How old Jack was when he worked on any given comic isn't really a huge deal, other than perhaps how it may have come before or after some other book he worked on.

But, at the same time, there's a better sense of the whole picture.

"Wait, Jack wasn't some crazy kid throwing wild ideas out when he created Galactus -- he was 50!"

"Wait, Jack didn't go into an office every day?"

"Wait, that would explain how Jack drew 8-10-12 hours a day, but still managed time for his wife and kids!"

And what all that does is put your own work in perspective. Jack worked on comics for nearly a quarter century before he started getting to the stuff that he's best known for; maybe the five years you've been working isn't so bad after all. Sure, Jack had a tremendous output, but he didn't have to leave the house for 10-11 hours a day just to earn a living. That difference is bound to impact your output!

Comparing your work/your success/your fame/whatever against anyone else's is something of a fool's game in the first place. After all, you're not them and have a different set of talents and goals and circumstances than they do/did. But if you want to make any sort of comparisons, even if it's for superficial purposes, it helps to have some context so you know what exactly you're comparing yourself against!

I was recently pointed to this article on How to Avoid Becoming a Weeaboo and thought I should point out the utter horseshit of it.

Let's start with a little background. The definition, according to Know Your Meme, is "a Gaijin (foreigner in Japanese) displaying a heavy bias towards everything from Japan or virtually exiling oneself from the indigenous culture (also known as “outside”) in pursuit of the “superlative.”" It's a little different than "otaku" in that otaku tend to be more focused on a certain aspect of Japanese culture (e.g. anime, manga, etc.) whereas a weeaboo is more indiscriminate, taking an extreme interest in all-things-Japanese. Basically, a weeaboo is a person who is such a fan of Japanese culture to the extent that they regard everything else as inferior.

I don't know that I've ever met anyone who might be considered a weeaboo. Stu Levy is probably the closest, but while he has a clear appreciation for Japanese culture, I don't know that I've seen him eschew everything else as inferior. But I'm sure there are people out there who would generally be considered weeaboo; I just don't travel those circles very regularly.

So why is this "Avoid Becoming a Weeaboo" horseshit?

Well, first, there's nothing wrong with liking Japanese culture. Beyond manga and anime, they have deep, rich culture with a history at least as fascinating as anyone else's.

Second, there's nothing inherent in one's own culture (whether you're from America, France, Egypt, or anywhere else) that's necessarily superior to Japan's. We're generally taught a sense of patriotism, or even jingoism, wherever we grow up and it's infused so pervasively at such a young age that we rarely have the wherewithall to step back and recognize it as the propaganda that it is. There's no fundemental reason that says we have to accept that at face value or, for that matter, that we have to accept it at all.

By calling someone weeaboo, you're effectively saying that their value judgements are fundamentally wrong. That they're not allowed to consider Japanese culture, traditions, language, and mores better than their own. There's nothing wrong with disagreeing with that judgement, but we're not talking about anything quantitative here. It's no different than claiming someone's an idiot because they prefer vanilla over chocolate. If anything, it displays more small-mindedness on the part of the insulter because it shows how they can't accept that anyone might have a different set of values than they do.

Take a look at that How to Avoid Becoming a Weeaboo piece again too. Most of the "rules" center around not being a newcomer. If you want to actually learn Japanese, don't you have to start with just a few words? Don't many cosplayers start with relatively easy costumes using store-bought products? Doesn't everybody adopt different styles from other people as they're discovering what works for them? Don't many authors consider using Mary-Sue characters as a viable way to train yourself to write better? This list of Don'ts that we're presented with essentially says that you're not allowed to start becoming interested in Japan; you have to skip over the education portion of becoming a fan and simply be an expert without any learning curve. They're basically laying down club rules that say you can't be a member of the club unless you're already a member of the club.

And what a shitty way to treat fans! Look, I've gotten annoyed with comic fans who asked very obviously newbie questions. I used to moderate a Fantastic Four message board, and I got really tired of answering the same dozen FF questions every 6-8 months for the new guy who just discovered how awesome the comic/cartoon/movie was. But I still recognized that I had that level of excitement when I first discovered the comic as well, and I didn't want to potentially kill that excitement and sense of discovery for this new person. That's not fair to them, and it robs fandom of someone who could have a lot to contribute.

You want to roll your eyes when somebody online tastes Pocky for the first time? Fine. But don't try kicking them out of the club before they've even had a chance to see what it has to offer!

One of the first books I had that discussed comics in anything resembling a historical context was The Encyclopedia of Collectibles, Children's Books to Comics. It was part of a Time-Life series from the late 1970s; I've seen a couple other volumes but this was the only one that held any interest for me. It only had 13 pages devoted to comics, and most of those were filled with imagery, but it was still the only thing I had back in the day that looked at comics comprehensively, talking about them as a medium specifically and noting both comic strips and comic books in equal measure.

It was, for a long time, the most significant source I had about comic strips. I came to learn of other, more detailed books' existences, but my interest back then was in comic books, particularly superheroes, particularly Marvel, particularly the Fantastic Four. I put my resources towards learning about those in order of narrowest interest to widest, so I didn't really start looking at comic strips with a serious eye until I was well into my 20s, if not early 30s.

But one piece from The Encyclopedia that stood out for me was a photo of "Al Capp's Dogpatch Band" in the sidebar on toys based on comic properties. The gadget was a wind-up toy from the mid-1940s featuring characters from Capp's strip, Li'l Abner. The image struck me for two reasons. First, I had never actually seen Li'l Abner anywhere before. It wasn't carried in our local newspapers at the time, and the book didn't show any instances of the strip itself anywhere. I was largely at a loss for what the strip was about. While I was familiar with the Shmoo via some Saturday morning cartoons, that had almost no relation to the strip where the character originated.

The second thing that stood out for me was the complexity of the mechanics. Even though I only had a still picture to look at, it wasn't hard to figure out what the basic movements of the figures were. I realized, even as a kid, that the engineering to tie all of that movement to a single gear was an impressive feat. It was only recently that it occurred to me that someone might have posted a video of the toy in action, and I could finally see how it operated. It turned out to be even more impressive than I imagined, with some clever use of deliberately loose joints to facilitate even more movement. And seeing (in the above photo) that it came partially disassembled makes it even more impressive still! I can't find out who designed this, but it's a brilliant piece of mechanical engineering and I can't imagine Capp not being absolutely delighted with it!

Marvel announced yesterday they'll be publishing a book collecting over 700 covers of Fantastic Four as part of the 65th anniversary of that title. They're going with the descriptive, if unimaginative, title Fantastic Four: 65 Years of the World’s Greatest Comic Covers!

This won't be the first time Marvel's celebrated an FF anniversary with a cover collection. The "Director's Cut" edition of Fantastic Four #500 from back in 2003 ran a multi-page 'collage' of all of the covers up until that point. And, if you look at the credits of that issue, you'll find my name as the person who provided them. So it's got me wondering if they'll use my scans for this new issue as well.

It would be pretty cool if they did, but I suspect they won't. When I provided the scans back in 2003, that was prior to Marvel's digital program. The so-called "golden age of reprints" was just getting underway, so much of their library hadn't seen print since it had first been published; the original production art would've been long since gotten rid of and new scans of everything wouldn't have been made yet. They would've only had scans for maybe whatever had been re-published traditionally via, say, their Masterworks books, but that would've only covered maybe the first 60 issues of the title. I had been running a major FF fan site for several years at that point, and had talked with editor Tom Brevoort more than a couple times, so he thought to reach out to me to get a hold of the remaining cover scans fairly quickly. They weren't professional-grade scans but, if you look at the issue, they're reprinted as thumbnails, so even a poor quality scan would've been 'hidden' by the small size.

Of course, that was over two decades ago now. Marvel has since released every single issue digitally, which means that they've professionally scanned and cleaned up not only the covers but all the interiors as well. So I suspect they'll just use the cleaned up versions from those releases. Since they're doing a full book of covers, I expect they'll be considerably larger than the thumbnails used in #500 and they'll want to rely on the best sources available. Otherwise, a book of thumbnails the size of the ones they used in #500 would only be five pages!

On the off chance they happen to use my old scans, there should be a pretty easy 'tell.' All of the scans I provided were from my personal collection, and several of the issues had been signed by the creators. In the instances where a creator signed the cover, you could still see their signature in the reproduction in #500. But only if you know what to look for -- again, they're all thumbnails, so the signatures barely even register as a dark squiggle. I can go through my collection again now, and see what issues I have signed, but I honestly don't recall which ones I would've had signed back then. I'm pretty certain I had a few issues signed by Len Wein, and I think Marv Wolfman and Paul Ryan. Maaaaaybe Keith Pollard? I think all the other creator signatures I have on FF issues came later.

In any event, if you look at their new covers issue and there happen to be a few scans that include creator signatures, that's where they came from!