Trevor

Thought a catch-all thread about these might get some discussion.

I've always been into all aspects of the hobby, not just reading the things; so books and magazine and newspapers about comic books have always had a pull for me.

I was a CBG subscriber on and off for maybe a decade; how many of you remember that newspaper?

Ironically, my collection of CBGs is pretty much the one thing I've thrown away in the last 30 years.

The Valeyard

Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book by Gerald Jones is MUST reading if you're a comic geek who wants to know more about the origins of the industry. I've read it several times over the years and will occasionally read passage from it when I'm bored. Jones wrote another book on the subject (The Comic Book Heroes) but I haven't read that one yet. Gotta track down a copy.

Comic Book History of Comics (aka Comic Book Comics) by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey is equally awesome. It covers virtually every subject matter in an entertaining fashion.

The Steranko History of Comics - Volumes 1 & 2 is the grand-daddy of them all. It was my first exposure to the history of the industry and the covers are extremely cool! I read them at a time when I started to realize that there were more companies than just DC and Marvel (I had just discovered Archie's Red Circle comics at the time). It opened my eyes to a larger world.

I picked this up from a used book store for a $1 over the weekend. Superhero Comics of the Golden Age - Number 4. Looks interesting.

brayzie

I started reading Wizard I think...No. Actually my I ordered a Spider-man action figure from an ad in a Marvel comic. I got a disappointingly non-Mattel Spider-man figure, the Toy Biz version. Later American Entertainment started sending me newsletters to order various comics and TPBs. It was pretty cool because it was my first exposure seeing The Rocketeer and Betty, and reading advertising descriptions about Days of Future Past. I only knew about comics from drug store racks so it was opening this whole new world to me.


^ I liked this magazine better than Wizard. It seemed more professional and "adult." I only had a couple issues though. It covered quite a bit of independent stuff and comic book movies.


Bought a few of these some years back. Had really good articles on comics of yesteryear, writers, artists, publishers. High production values on the magazine.


^ a decent rival to Wizard.

I think when Image Comics was serious competition for Marvel and DC, and it seemed like all the companies were relying on gimmicks to sell books (Death, backbreaking, going insane, gate fold covers, holograms, etc) magazines ABOUT comics were more interesting than actual comics. At least for me at the time.


^to a young comic reader and collector this thing was like the Bible. Had every comic listed, ever. The color ads were the best thing about it. There was one comic book store ad that had Flaming Carrot interacting with Bat-Mite. I thought those two characters were so cool but I could never find a Flaming Carrot comic when I was a kid.


Got this for Christmas. Probably the pinnacle of Marvel Comics reading for me. Got the history of the publisher and all the characters and comics.

PhantomStranger

When I was a kid the Overstreet Price Guide was just about the only book I would buy each year. I figured everything else could be had at the library. I loved leafing through it and dreaming about owning the older Silver Age issues.

I vaguely remember Hero Illustrated, I think it was started by former Wizard staffers.

brayzie

Same herem, except it was also the Golden Age issues I wanted to read as well. DC's Silver Age covers in those old books intrigued me the most though.



When I first saw this cover I actually wished I had been born earlier just to find out what happened and what the surprise ending was. I thought that the best stories must have came out back then.

I think the late 80s early 90s was a fun time to be into comics. A lot of magazines and books came out during that time and it was like entering a whole nother world.

I did like Wizard Magazine at the time, but in hindsight I don't think too fondly of it. It seemed like their magazine focused more on the speculator craze of that time period and I found myself only reading it to find out the latest "hot" comic would be and how much it could go up in value. I do remember buying the Image Comics issue with Spawn on the cover. That was like reading about a modern day revolution. I also liked their Death of Superman special because it covered the entire history of the character.

Lastdaysofrain

I loved Comics Scene and had a subscription (it helped that I was also a diehard Gorezone and Fangoria reader).

Now I read Back Issue every month, love it.

Trevor

You've somehow picked 5 books that I've always wanted but haven't found yet. Searching ebay and Amazon for cheap copies now.....

Here's a gimmicky book that I probably enjoy more than I should. It is Stan Lee and Roy Thomas chronicling the history of Marvel in an easy to read brightly colored book with lots of comic panels and 68 audio samples of Stan discussing things.

fujishig

Yeah, TwoMorrow's output is pretty great, even though I pick and choose issues of Back Issue to read. But their Modern Masters series is awesome.

Trevor

All their Modern Masters stuff is 50% off right now.

PhantomStranger

The magazine did lose its focus when Wizard decided it had to be a promotional vehicle for the latest fads. The entire writing style shifted from being a witty fanzine in the beginning towards unrelenting sycophantism. Then Wizard decided somewhere along the line that the comics industry was too small for their circulation numbers and started covering movies more than comics.

I think Wizard is a big reason why superhero movies became more acceptable to mainstream audiences in this century, an entire generation of nerds grew up reading it.

fujishig

Even at their height, as you say it still only appealed to nerds and the mainstream audiences for superhero movies by design have to be much bigger than that.

I don't remember exactly when things went downhill, but I seem to remember them being kinda overextended by the conventions they were running. But they definitely were hot in the comic industry for a long time, with a lot of famous comic artists doing custom work for them (wasn't their first issue the one with the McFarland Spidey cover?)

PhantomStranger

Those nerds grew up to be the mainstream and actually make entertainment decisions, like Geoff Johns.

They did have some of the best cover art in comics. I always got the impression artists were doing better work for Wizard's covers than they did for Marvel and DC. I guess they were paying more money.

brayzie

To me Wizard Magazine in the early 90s was like all those Image comics #1's, flashy and collectible but not too memorable with regards to good reading. I mostly remember talk and features of "ashcan editions", offers for #0 and #1/2 issues, cards, etc. It was more about comic collecting than comic reading imo.

Amazing Heroes was a cool magazine that I only discovered through back issue bins.
Really fun magazine that had interviews and previews.

Marvel Age
This one place I went to as a kid ONLY had Marvel Age. It was disappointing not being able to a regular Marvel comic but when I was an adult I was given a stack of Marvel Age back issues. There was actually some good stuff in there. Fred Hembeck had a regularly featured strip in there, and there was art in there that wasn't in normal books. For example, there was page art and designs for Elektra Lives that never appeared in the Epic Comics' edition of the book. Pretty cool.

Preterite

I used to pick up Amazing Heroes now and then when it featured creators or series I liked. I would have picked it up regularly, but money was always really tight when I was a kid.

I had paperback copies of All in Color For a Dime and The Great Superman Triva Book growing up. One of my favorite books was Maurice Horn's two-volume World Encyclopedia of Comics; whenever we moved (which was a lot), one of the first things I did in my new neighborhood was check the local libraries to see if they had a copy. I learned a lot from these three titles.

I also spent hours over library copies of Michael Fleisher's Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman encyclopedias. These had a heavy focus on Golden Age and Silver Age entries and were fascinating to a Bronze Age kid. The list of forthcoming titles included entries on Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman; I got prepubescent blue-balls waiting for these never-released titles to come out.

These days, I get Back Issue pretty regularly. I also have several TwoMorrows books - Quality Comics, Thunder Agents, Blue Beetle, Warren. One of my favorite acquisitions in recent years has been Supermen!: The First Wave Of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941, which features a lot of crazy-ass stories featuring characters you've never heard of. This lead to me picking up the two collections of Fletch Hanks work, I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets! and You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!

davidh777

I think I'd really enjoy Back Issue, which makes me fearful of starting to dig into it.

When I got back into comics, I was pretty dazzled by Wizard, but it wasn't totally relevant for me since I was reading trades, not floppies, but I agree it was pretty hollow overall. I tend to be all Trevor-like with old magazines, but didn't mind recycling my old Wizards at all.

That title had a permanent home on B&N/Borders-type clearance shelves, but I agree it's more interesting than one would suspect.

fujishig

I always thought of Geoff Johns as being a fan of the 70's and 80's, and not the Wizard generation. I mean he was largely responsible for bringing the JSA back to prominence, trying to unentangle Hawkman from continuity issues, bring back Hal and then bringing back Barry. I still don't think the new 52 coming out of Flashpoint was something he necessarily was itching to do without corporate mandate, given how connected he was to the past.

Trevor

I think I'll eventually reply to each and every post here so far, I love these things! But before I forget, I want to mention that I have extra copies of most of the first 21 or so issues of the best magazine in the history of the world, Back Issue. I also need issue 13 and a bunch of the issues in the 30-58 range. So if anyone has some of those they're willing to part with, or wants to work out a trade for my extras, let me know.

musick

still have this beast that I need to open sometime soon


http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/cata...ver_screen.htm

davidh777

Nuts, I made the mistake of going to the TwoMorrows site to look at the sale, and just from the covers and descriptions, I see that Back Issue has been stalking my life. There's no other way they could have cherry-picked these particular subjects and series to feature. I guess I'll be placing an order.

Anyway, I recently picked up this book. I'm generally not a fan of the "before you die" concept, but I flipped through this one and it covered a lot of classic comic strips we've been discussing in the other thread, so I couldn't resist. It was also at an independent bookstore (not a LCBS) owned by a friend so that made me feel virtuous.

Preterite

Just be warned - Back Issue will entice you into hunting down complete runs of obscure titles and forgotten story arcs! Luckily, most of them are so obscure and forgotten that finding reading copies for less than the cost of a new comic is a snap.

davidh777

robin2099

This popped up in my Amazon feed and it looks interesting. They start in the 60's and are up to the 80's.



I remember picking this up when Knightfall was happening and being absolutely fascinated by it. It's how I learned a lot about Batman's history.



This came out when Superman died obviously. Didn't like this as much as the Batman one though.









These books are serously amazing. They have history about the companies/characters with random pages that include a reproductions of some type of memorabilia. I'm confused why they don't have a Superman one though or X-Men one.





I bought both of these on clearance at one point in time. The book features a history of the characters, a reprint of their first appearance and a figure designed by Alex Ross. They had a Wonder Woman one too that I never bought which goes for a lot of money now. Grrr.



I got this from the library as a kid on a snow day once. I read it again one Christmas in High School and now read it again every Christmas as a tradition.





I bought both of these and they are very well worth it. The only negative is that they are so big and heavy you can't really read them easily.

I preferred Hero to Wizard but those magazines were really fun. I loved getting the trading cards and ash can's they included. I remember reading one where they compared a bunch of superheroes fighting and who would win, and another issue where they talked about a Youngblood animated pilot.

Hero also released a couple videos.

brayzie

I got the Tales of the Dark Knight book when the first Batman movie came out. THAT was a great read. The entire history of Batman was so intriguing.

All those glossy covers that they showed had my imagination running wild. Probably one of my favorite books. That's pretty cool that it's a Christmas tradition for you considering it has some pages from Batman's Christmas stories. I like the one where the kids steal present from the lady and open it to find it's a Batman action figure and end up returning it. And the cover that shows Batman dressed as Santa delivering gifts to the poor family.

PhantomStranger

My favorite all-time book about comics is Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross. The hardcover edition I have is gorgeous and it's always great to pick up and leaf through at random. It is still in print as a cheaper paperback. The full-bleed art is incredible and Ross provides a good deal of background.

They will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

http://amzn.com/0375423834

ytrez

This is an older book so understand that "From the Silver Age to the Present" is a bit dated. Still, a very good book about super-hero comics:



If you're into DC Comics then these books from Taschen are great (Note - only the golden and silver age volumes have been released so far):



And I'll second TwoMorrows American Comic Book Chronicles series as they are incredibly comprehensive and well done retrospectives.