Pocket-Money Comics: Look-In

Look-In Publisher: ITP / IPC First issue: 9 Jan 1971 Last issue: 12 March 1994 Issues: 1210 In print for EXACTLY two decades, two years, two months and two days -- and another day, and another year -- Look-In was a hybrid of magazine and comic, quite unusual for its time, though not entirely unique. …

Rusty Staples: Year Two

Blimey, it hardly seems like a year since we last looked back at the first year of Rusty Staples, and yet it is. Year Two of Rusty's life started slowly, with only one post per month in April, May and June of 2019, and then nothing at all until October. This was thanks to work …

The Eagle Timeline

The Eagle Family Tree was one of the first major posts on this blog, back in May 2018, but it's always bothered me a little that I did it the lazy way, showing only the hierarchical relationships between the comics and not a proper time-line. Plus, unlike some of the later timelines on this blog …

Oddities: Superman’s Boots

When I was younger (which doesn't narrow things down much: until now I've always been younger) I used to draw -- or rather colour -- Superman's boots with a yellow stripe around the top, the same yellow as his belt and the blobs on his chest's S-symbol. The angle of the top of the boots …

Noncomics: Superheroes, edited by Michel Parry

From a time before it was common to encounter superheroes in prose fiction comes this intriguing anthology of superhero-themed short stories. Editor Michel Parry introduces the book, and he does seem to know his stuff: he's dedicated it to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (creators of Superman) and Stan Lee (of whom I'm pretty sure …

Most Popular Posts of 2019!

I'm happy to announce that Rusty Staples' sophomore year ("sophomore" is American high-school slang for "second") was even more successful than its first, even despite the four-month drought in the summer when I was too busy to post anything (due to a heavy workload, a week's holiday in London, the World Science Fiction Convention in …

Oddities #20191108

Today's oddity comes from the June 1979 issue of the American SF magazine Fantastic Films, which features a brief interview with top comics artist Geof Darrow back when he was only at the start of his career. In an era packed with SF movie mags -- mostly sparked by the unprecedented and unexpected popularity of …