As promised, I am dusting off this great thread. I do not have access to a scanner right now, so I used my camera to take some choice pictures.
First of all, Amazing Heroes was my Fanzine of choice back in the pre-internet days. It was published biweekly. It was published by Fantagraphics. I am tempted to say that it focused on the more mainstream readership than did the Comics Journal, but I think that would be misleading. There is plenty of coverage of what would be considered indy titles by the today's readers. Back then, indy comics were much further off the beaten path. The children of the 60's underground Comix movement. Maybe it is better to say that The Comics Journal took a more scholarly approach to its journalism while Amazing Heroes took a more pop-cultural casual approach to its journalism. I seem to be struggling here.... Anyway, my point is that this is the Fanzine that I bought and read religiously through the mid to late 80s (as well as Marvel Age, but that wasn't a fanzine).
Ladies and Gents, I give you Amazing Heroes #131. Cover date: December 15 (1987). Cover price $2.50.
Comico at 5 years
Steve Rude and Bernie Mireault sharing the cover (nice!).
The news starts out with the New Universe and The Pitt (yawn) but it then goes into info of a price increase! 9 Marvel books are jumping up to the $1.00 price point. Luckily, I on read 3 of these books (Amazing Spider-Man, The X-Men [which book you ask....the only one. No other X-Men titles back then {but there were other X books like...}] and X-Factor)
In other news....
Dark Horse Comics secures the Alien(s) license. Damn. These comics were good. What ever happened to Mark A. Nelson. Some of the best Alien(s) stories ever told. And get this
We then go on to 8 pages of solicits for Dec 1 to 15.
Let me scan for some highlights...
Puma Blues #14, Cerebus #105, Grendel; #15, Justice Machine # 12, Mr. Monster #1, Legion of Super Heroes #45 (30th anniversary issue)...I could go on and on, but its time to move on to the real meat of the issue.
"Honing the Potential Edge: The five year slow but sure upward climb of Comico into the top five."
This is a 10 page look at the past, present (circa 87) and future of Comico.
Here is a short list (not all inclusive) of the books discussed.
Primer, Evangeline, Elementals, The Macross/Robotech franchise, Mage (wonder if this one was any good
), Jonny Quest, Gumby's Summer Fun Special (Art Adams' art!!!!!), Grendel, Justice Machine, Space Ghost. The Jam, The Rocketeer!!!!!!.... the list goes on and on.
The next article is an artist spotlight on a new hot up and comer.
25 year old Todd McFarlane. What ever happened to this guy
After an impressive (but short) run on Infinity Inc, Detective Comics (Batman Year 2), and the Incredible Hulk, Todd was set to become a SUPERSTAR with his debut on The Amazing Spider-Man. It's an 8 page interview. One point I found interesting was Todd's criticism of the folks who were buying multiple copies of comics. He believed that it sent a (possibly) false message to Editorial that a book was good because it was selling high numbers. The whole exchange is kind of funny and prophetic when read 22 years later.
Next we have "Ten of a kind: Grudge Matches".
This is the kind of stuff we still see today on the internet comicbook sites. The top 10 grudge match fights of all time. I skimmed this. Not really my cup o tea.
This is followed by "The Cat Came Back" which traces the history of The Cat/Tigra/The Were Woman/Patsy Walker. I did not re-read this, but it is much more up my alley. I will have to read this essay soon.
There are a couple more articles and a section of reviews, but the real treat is yet to come.
Columnist Sidney Mellon answers his Fan (hate) mail.
Sidney supposed to be a teen aged columnist who was there to give the view of the typical 14 year old reader. He loved all things Super Hero (especially Mutant and John Byrne) and had not time for crazy Black and White indy books. I always new that Sidney was a parody, but I did not know , at the time, that he was (supposedly) the creation of Gerard Jones and Mark Waid (and possibly others). A lot of readers thought he was real and he pissed the hell out of them in an Andy Kaufmanesque way.
In one of my favorite letters, Gerard Jones writes to his alter ego to preach the worth of Love and Rockets. Sidney has stated that there is no hope for Los Brothers Hernandez at Marvel nor DC because they hove no concept of the "fight scene".
My favorite part of this whole issue is this panel.
"...about
real mutants and not mice like Maus".
22 years later and I believe I could still read this same quote on certain other web site-aramas.
That's about it. The last few pages are dedicated to letters to the editor and fan art. I was always a big supporter of the fan art pages. A few of my buddies got some Legion Of Super Heroes images published in an issue of Amazing Heroes from this same era. There is also "Don Rosa's Information Center". I assume that this is The Don Rosa who I believe if the 2nd most loved Scrooge McDuck/Donald illustrator behind Barks. The article is your basic answer-man fair (mind you, this was in the pre-wikipedia days where you could come up with the answer to any question in 5 seconds.)
We end the issue with an ad for the next one.
Chaykin on Blackhawk. Damn, I can't wait to dig this one up and check it out.
So, I hope I did not bore you all.
This was definitely a trip down memory lane for yours truly.
Happy reading.
Bean
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