The Comic Book Thread

The Last Temptation books I was talking about was a 3 issue run by Neil Gaiman of Sandman fame and put out through Marvel. I looked them up and just going by the covers I think I only had the 1st issue. They have since been released all together in one big book. Amazon had it used really cheap. I might pick it up. It was pretty dark stuff from what I remember. And anyone familiar with Neil's work knows he's not really about fuzzy bunnies & rainbows.

SpectreFate wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

I have that framed in my house.

I also have this comic book, I have had it for 20 years, never thought of framing it. BTW did n't KISS release a series of comic books in the late 90's when they released 'Psycho Circus' ? Or was that just a reprint of the 70's Marvel Comics?

manny wrote:

did n't KISS release a series of comic books in the late 90's when they released 'Psycho Circus' ? Or was that just a reprint of the 70's Marvel Comics?

Yea, they did... I believe they were done by Todd MacFarlane Productions, who were producing the KISS action figure line at the time. Never checked out any of the books tho.



I do have this reprint of the two 70s Marvel KISS comics compiled into one book called KISS CLASSICS and it is hilariously awesome. There's no way Todd Macfarlane could've made KISS comics as terrible as these.

Any of my fellow KISS comic geeks got any of these?




Prior to the Todd MacFarlane "Psycho Circus" comics, the small black-and-white publisher Revolutionary Comics (known for their series of unauthorized band-bio books, "Rock N Roll Comics") did a number of KISS books. The first one here (issue #14 of "RNR Comics," circa 1990) was unauthorized but the band liked it so much they gave the company consent to publish several more KISS related comics, "Tales From The Tours" and a three-issue KISS History mini series. They also produced the comic book that was included in the first KISSTORY hardcover book as well as a comic book adaptation of "The Elder," which was included in a Metal Edge KISS magazine special around the time of the reunion tour (because the company had gone out of business before it could be published as a stand-alone comic).

I still have all of the issues pictured above and they're quite cool. The original "RNR Comics" issue is a bit on the lame side as they tried to fit nearly 20 years of KISS' history into one 32-page comic so it's really rushed, but "Tales From The Tours" is pretty cool and the 3-issue "History" mini-series was great, much better than the first biography they did. Since they had three issues to work with instead of just one, the writing was more in depth and the artists obviously had access to tons of decent reference material because the depictions of the band's costumes and other details are very well done. Cool stuff if you ain't never seen'em.

Sadly, the publisher of Revolutionary Comics, Todd Loren, was found murdered in his apartment in 1992 and his killer has not yet been found. The case remains unsolved.

I had a number of those Rock n Roll comics, they did bio's on The Doors, Sex Pistols, AC/DC what I remember the most about those comic books was the terrible art work. I never owned the KISS issues, and over the years I sold off those Rock n Roll comic series.

Yea, most of the Rock N Roll Comics issues were pretty terrible -- I had a bunch of them too. The Guns N Roses comic (the first issue of the series) got'em in hot water with the GNR camp, who threatened to sue the crap out of 'em ... they also did books on Metallica, Aerosmith, etc. - basically anyone who was hot at the time. There was even an issue about New Kids on the Block!

Quote :

Sadly, the publisher of Revolutionary Comics, Todd Loren, was found murdered in his apartment in 1992 and his killer has not yet been found. The case remains unsolved.

Wow, that's creepy.

I have a coupla of those Rock N Roll Comics too. Guns n' Roses & Metallica for sure, as well as a few others probably. I might even have that KISS one. They were pretty laughable and the inner artwork was questionable (the covers were usually pretty nicely done). But they did have a certain charm to them.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

Quote :

Sadly, the publisher of Revolutionary Comics, Todd Loren, was found murdered in his apartment in 1992 and his killer has not yet been found. The case remains unsolved.

Wow, that's creepy.

Yea, I didn't know about that till just now when I was Google searching for pix of those comics and read it on Wikipedia. Apparently the cops at first thought he was killed by that Andrew Cunanan nut-bag but that theory has been disproved. It sez that a documentary film has even been made about the case. Kinda weird that this story would've slipped past my radar then, since it pushes two of my geek buttons (music and comic books) at the same time.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I have a coupla of those Rock N Roll Comics too. Guns n' Roses & Metallica for sure, as well as a few others probably. I might even have that KISS one. They were pretty laughable and the inner artwork was questionable (the covers were usually pretty nicely done). But they did have a certain charm to them.

The covers of the Rock N Roll Comics issues were always the best part. The guy who did the covers rarely, if ever, did the interior work on'em though.

Although I think that three issue KISS History series I posted pix of above was all drawn (covers and interiors) by the same guy. I forget his name but he obviously knew his KISS stuff.

Here's some additional info on Revolutionary Comics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Comics

and founder Todd Loren:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Loren

And a partial gallery of covers:

http://www.rocknrollcomics.com/Gallery.html

That Bon Jovi comic book looks very laughable.

manny wrote:

That Bon Jovi comic book looks very laughable.

If memory serves, the Bon Jovi comic is one of the most collectible in the series, because the Bon Jovi camp sued them and had it taken out of circulation. Other issues in the series were reprinted over and over again but the Bon Jovi issue only had one print run so it's the rarest issue. GNR's camp supposedly wanted to take them to court too but legend has it that Axl himself liked the comic and told them to lay off.

The New Kids on the Block took'em to court too because they already had a legitimate comic book spin-off on the racks at the time, published by Harvey Comics (the Richie Rich people) and they thought that Revolutionary's biography comic was infringing on the NKOTB trademark. Revolutionary fought'em in court on the grounds that biographical stories are protected by the First Amendment and actually won that one.

looks like theres going to be an exodus comic coming out next year.

http://www.metalkult.com/news/exodus-themed-comic-to-be-released-through-terminal-press/

I got a motley crue comic book lying around somewhere...

Alex

Borrowed a few graphic novels at the local library, actually they are collection of reprints being called graphic novels.

One is 'The Best of the Spirit' by Will Eisner, never read these stories before but I was surprised how gritty they are for stories printed in 1940's.

Also trying to catch up with all changes that have happened to Hal Jordan/Green Lantern, and the stories are excellent, but he killed off most of the Green Lantern Corps! Becomes some evil being and then becomes the Spectre and comes back to life as the Green Lantern again! Great stories but is a huge huge leap from the Green Lantern stories I remembered.

I started going back through my marvel star wars series!

exact33 wrote:

I started going back through my marvel star wars series!

I got a whole wad of those old Marvel Star Wars ishes too. Wish they were in better shape than they are cuz they'd probably be worth some serious dosh.

The best era of that series was around 81-83, when Walt Simonson and Tom Palmer did the bulk of the artwork. Faaaaan-tastic stuff!!

exact33 wrote:

I started going back through my marvel star wars series!

While the newer Star Wars comics are good, that was definitely my favorite series. That was back when Star Wars was still didn't take itself too seriously and the writers/artist were still allowed to take a few liberties and made the series fun and a bit wacky. Nowadays if you have the Star Wars license you gotta get approval from the Lucas folks for every story-line, character, vehicle, etc.. to make sure it fits in the "canon". (Star Wars fans can be a bit too uptight about those things)

Fat Freddy wrote:

exact33 wrote:

I started going back through my marvel star wars series!

I got a whole wad of those old Marvel Star Wars ishes too. Wish they were in better shape than they are cuz they'd probably be worth some serious dosh.

The best era of that series was around 81-83, when Walt Simonson and Tom Palmer did the bulk of the artwork. Faaaaan-tastic stuff!!

mine are in varying conditions. I got the whole run of 107 issues and i would say the best era was probably from 50-80s. I want to spend some more time and go back through the stuff I have that I havent read for years.

Alex

Svengo wrote:

exact33 wrote:

I started going back through my marvel star wars series!

While the newer Star Wars comics are good, that was definitely my favorite series. That was back when Star Wars was still didn't take itself too seriously and the writers/artist were still allowed to take a few liberties and made the series fun and a bit wacky. Nowadays if you have the Star Wars license you gotta get approval from the Lucas folks for every story-line, character, vehicle, etc.. to make sure it fits in the "canon". (Star Wars fans can be a bit too uptight about those things)

Thats annoying. I imagine lucas fumes over the issues right after ANH adaption marvel did.

Alex

speaking of Star Wars has there been any news on that live action TV series that was supposed to come out this year?

I used to love the Marvel STAR WARS series, have they ever been reprinted?

manny wrote:

I used to love the Marvel STAR WARS series, have they ever been reprinted?

I believe that Dark Horse Comics (who had the license to Star Wars at one time, dunno if they still do) reprinted a bunch of the old Marvel series in trade-paperback format some years ago, but don't quote me on that.

Yeah, they did. I believe every volume (7 in all, I think, reprinting the entire series. They're fat books) is in print except the first. Which reminds me that I need to pick the rest of those up

sheets wrote:

Yeah, they did. I believe every volume (7 in all, I think, reprinting the entire series. They're fat books) is in print except the first. Which reminds me that I need to pick the rest of those up

Cool thanks for the info FF and sheets.

Now that we're talking about 'em I'm gonna have to dig into my box of "keepers" from days gone by and re-read some of those Marvel "Star Wars" ishes. That was one of my "monthly buys" from the time I was a little kid so I had almost the entire series at one point. I'm not sure how many are left now, I know I sold off some of the earlier issues during my liquidation (because they were going for pretty good $$ at the time as "Phantom Menace" had just come out, so Star Wars was suddenly hot again... besides, I had many of those same comics in either Super Special format or as reprints).

The first two or three years of the series were pretty schizophrenic. They changed artists every couple of issues for the first year or so, some of 'em were good, some of 'em were awful. Then for some reason they gave the book to the aging Carmine Infantino (who did tons of super hero work, mainly on "The Flash" in the '60s) for a couple of years and I have no idea how he stayed on the series for as long as he did, cuz he was NOT cut out for sci-fi stuff at all; depending on who inked his work it would occasionally be passable, but most times it was painful to look at. As I mentioned earlier, somewhere around #50 or so (after some spiffy work by Al Williamson and Carlos Garzon on the "Empire Strikes Back" adaptation) Walt Simonson and Tom Palmer took over the art chores and their renditions were much more realistic and faithful to the look of the films than Infantino's cartoony looking work. That was the best run of the series for me (starting around 1981 and lasting till '84 or so). Simonson hung around for about two years, Palmer carried it solo for a while after that and then they handed it off to a female artist (whose name escapes me at the moment) who was godawful, her style was even cartoonier than Infantino's and somehow she stayed on it till the end of the book's run. I think there were around 120 issues in all.

Interestingly enough I read a quote on Wikipedia from (I think) Jim Shooter (one time Marvel editor in chief) who said that the "Star Wars" license literally saved Marvel's a$$ in the late '70s, as they were in serious financial trouble at the time and were in danger of going under. The "Star Wars" series sold so many issues early on that it brought them back from the brink.