Greetings, fandom! Michael McFadden here, CGC’s QC doctor, with my personal prescription for those summertime blues. Go to a comic book show and ask your favorite artists, writers and actors to sign a CGC Signature Series book. Hmmm … judging from my vantage point in the Fortress of Qualitude, it looks like most of you have already done just that!
SigSeries books are sizzling hot, hotter than an Olympic marathon runner’s armpits, hotter than a kayaking holiday in the lava flows of hell, hotter than … cool, you get the idea. And why not? Not only is there a vibrant comic show scene this summer, not only have fans embraced Marvel’sSecret Invasion #1 fabulous blank covers, but we’ve also seen a double dose of historic Frank Frazetta signings. What’s not to love?
Let’s check those expensive (and worth every penny) Frazetta autographs. For starters, sample Thunda #1, his only complete cover and interior art comic book. But Frazetta’s reputation as the greatest fantasy artist of the 20th century rests largely on his covers. Vampirella was a popular choice. Issues 5, 7, 11 and 31 grace the DigiGallery, as well as the iconic image of the buxom bloodsucker herself on #1. Eerie #s 2 (actually the first issue … #1 was an ashcan edition), 5 and 7 and Creepy #s 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 15 and 27 were all groovetacular selections. One sophisticated cat submitted National Lampoon #41 in an apparent fit of good taste. Obscure, yet classic! Pen and ink aficionados will be jazzed by Frazetta’s Buck Rogers illos on Famous Funnies #s 211 and 212. Perhaps the most popular choice was EC’s Weird Science — Fantasy #29. Initially another Famous Funnies Buck Rogers cover, it was rejected by Eastern Color’s editors as too violent to publish in those hypersensitive days of Fredric Wertham and Estes Keefauver. William Gaines bought rights and released it as the cover of the last pre-code EC science fiction comic. Take a look at this one and you’ll see why this masterpiece had to stand out on a newsstand next to a blithely moronic Playful Little Audrey cover. Context is everything, eh?
Can we top those? I dunno, but we could sure try with Weird Science #19, autographed by some science fiction pulp, stream-of-consciousness scribe named Ray Bradbury. For those more impressed by condition than name-dropping, an Invincible #1 Con Edition signed by Robert Kirkman and a Glamourpuss #1 Comics Industry Preview signed by Dave Sim, both certified 9.9.
So let’s look at Secret Invasion offerings on the DigiGallery. Leading off is a lithe and linear Spawn by Todd McFarlane, a Wolverine profile by Marc Silvestri and a bizarrely hilarious Batman / Joker reprise of Crime Superstores #22 by Doug Mahnke. A pensive Cap and Thor are penned on separate covers by Ivan Reis and two fantastic fantasy femmes are realized by Arthur “I don’t always draw zombies for money” Suydam and Mar Omega (what a great name for an artist!). Michael Avon Oehming does Marvel’s rascally Rocket Raccoon, Herb Trimpe displays nifty pencils on Hulk, Bob Layton adroitly spots his blacks on Black Panther and Evan Dorkin sketches Milk & Cheese, all of these in Skrull style. And finally a skull, not a Skrull: Ghost Rider by Mark Texiera and Michael Lily. My choice, though … Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Maus, drawn in Marvel style … I think.
Select pedigrees (well, they’re all select, really) this edition include Wow Comics #5 (Crowley), Zoot Comics (what a great name for a comic book!) #8 (Ohio), Flying Saucers #1 (Bethlehem), Detective Comics #110 and Brave and the Bold #22 (Big Apple), Thor #129 and Atom #26 (Boston), Superman #64 (Aurora), Captain Midnight #21 (Okajima), Adventures Into the Unknown #15 (Northford), House of Mystery #6 (River City), Sheldon Mayer’s Scribbly #1 and Catman #30 (Davis Crippen), Strange Tales #s 106 and 109 (Pacific Coast), Crackajack Funnies #32 (Lost Valley), Mystical Tales #1 (White Mountain) and Beyond #1 (Windy City). Avengers #s 31, 33 and 48 come from the Curator Collection. Mile Highs include Pep Comics #50, More Fun Comics #89, America’s Greatest Comics #8 and the very scarce Phantom Stranger #4.
Casper the Friendly Ghost #1 (and several other Casper #1s); First Love Illustrated #14; Love Lessons #s 3 and 4; and that favorite funny book of psychotically obsessive kids of all ages, Little Dot #s 34, 40, 41, 43 and 48, are among new Harvey File copies on exhibit. Gaines File Copies include Tales From the Crypt #s 21, 27 and 31, Vault of Horror #s 14 and 15, the even more frightening Picture Stories from the Bible #3, Crime Suspenstories #11, Weird Fantasy #7 and six issues of Two-Fisted Tales between #s 29 and 40.
Bureau of Statistical Inevitability: Well, no surprise here this month, as Locke and Key #s 4 and 5 went 10.0 and 9.9, respectively, joining copies of #s 1–3 in that exclusive company. Multiples seem to be a theme in the Bureau. Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse: Calamari Rising #s 3 and 4, RRP editions, both hit 9.9. Transformers: The Reign of Starscream #1, Apocalypse Comics Edition (10.0), #1 RRP (9.9), #2 RRP hit 9.9 for both covers; and Transformers: Spotlight: Cyclonus #1 RRP (9.9). Also achieving the celebrated nine-nine plateau were Wizard Ace Edition Avengers #4; Ultimate Spider-Man #100 Project #nn; Secret Invasion #3 Variant; Silent Hill: Dead / Alive #3; She-Hulk #29; Marvel Authentix Amazing Spider-Man #1; Haunt of Horror: Lovecraft #1; Dead, She Said #1 RRP; Gen 13 Limited Series #1; Fantastic Four #240; and Angel: After the Fall #1 Wedding Edition. Certified ten-Os also include Ghost Whisperer #3 RRP and Star Trek: Assignment: Earth #1 RRP.
Cool number-one issues this month include Zap Comics (Charles Plymell Edition), Aquaman, Captain Marvel Jr., X-Men, Challengers of the Unknown, Spy Smasher, Catman (and hard-to-find issues 2, 3, 6 and 14), Strange Adventures, Jackie Gleason (St. John), Choice Comics (Two dudes rue the roos! Roos rule!), How Boys and Girls Can Help Win the War, All Great Comics, Four Color #386 (Uncle Scrooge #1), All New Comics, Tales of the Unexpected #40 (the first Space Ranger in the title … so lame the poor slob didn’t even get the cover), Amazing Adventure Funnies, Romantic Love, Patsy and Hedy, Our Love, Movietown’s Animal Antics #24 (#1), Flippity and Flop, Falling in Love, Dodo and the Frog #80 (#1), scarce in any grade Phantom Stranger and World’s Finest #2 (#1 was titled World’s Best, remember?).
Other fun stuff we added to the DigiGallery: Uncanny X-Men #s 150, 152 and Giant-Size X-Men #1, all from the estate of Dave Cockrum. How ’bout Roly Poly Comics #14 with its classic decapitation cover? It’s a cut above the others. Look for dazzling runs of Superboy between #s 93 and 100, Jimmy Olsen between #s 41 and 57, nine lovely new Green Lanterns between #s 9 and 43, and a seldom-seen Quality run of Plastic Man between #s 44 and 63. We also added a few terrific Warren magazines to the collection, including Eerie #25, Famous Monsters of Filmland #nn (1970), Screen Thrills #8 and Spacemen Yearbook #nn.
My favorite this month is, yeah, another Harvey File Copy, Tuff Ghosts Starring Spooky #28. Spooky is the yin to Casper, the Friendly Ghost’s yang. While the milquetoast, self-delusional Casper always laments that he scares people (after all, he is A. a ghost, and B. really, really dead), Spooky embodies an acute self-awareness and secure sense of self. He loves to scare the living crap out of anything and anybody. Clearly, the Spookster is a guy comfortable in his own protoplasm. Which brings us to issue #28. Spooky has so frightened the main course that the fish’s skeletal bones and gape-mouthed severed head tear loose from his filleted and grilled body, flopping across the dinner table, leaving his headless, prostrate meat behind. Why the hell are YOU scared?! Dude, you been cooked! It’s OK to die! Dude, stay out of the damn peas! Now if I’m at Spooky’s dinner table, queasily witnessing this sickening spectacle, I’m not scared … no, I’m preparing to blow barf over the appetizers. I’m thinking about the new meaning for the phrase, “you’re salad is coming right up!”
Don’t think I’d eat for a week. EC couldn’t have done it better!
Comments and questions regarding the gallery? We’re fans, too. We enjoy hearing from you. You can contact me at mmcfadden@cgccomics.com. Thank you for your time and do remember — be good to yourself. Be CGC-ing you!
