Tag Archives: Saturday Comics

The Saturday Comics: More Little Nemo Homages

26 May

May 26, 2012

Some time back I featured Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay. Go ahead and click on this link, I’ll wait.

Towards the bottom I showed some modern homages to the classic strip:

Spongebob:

Sandman:

Since then I have come across a few more.

Here is one from Mutts, which is a modern classic and a strip you should check out, which you can by clicking this link.

Next up are two pages from  Superman Secret Files and Origins #1, which was published in 1998. Stuart Immonen did the honors here:

There are more pages but this gives you the flavor. If you don’t know Little Nemo, you are clearly missing out on a strip that casts a long shadow.

 

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The Saturday Comics: Marvel Photo Covers

12 May

May 12, 2012

As I’ve shown over the past weeks, back in the 1980’s it was good to be Marvel. From Generic Comic Books to weird Fumetti comics to a No-Prize book that consisted of nothing but reprinted panels, anything Marvel put out sold. Why? Well, their fans are called Marvel Zombies for a reason. And this phenomena was not just an 80’s thing; the 90’s brought, among other things, NFL Superpro.

However, I have saved the best  for last. These are comics with photo covers, regular issues of their series and not some odd one-off special. Nowadays I guess this would be called “value added.” Although they achieved varying degrees of success, they at least showed potential.

 

This is the best of the bunch, and it really works for me. Nicely composed, realistic, and it even reflects the interior story. Of all these issues this is the only one that remains in my collection. Like the rest of these it isn’t particularly valuable.

This is my favorite because it fails on a couple of levels. First, they (I believe) highlighted the webs on Spidey’s suit- compare it to the cover above- and it just stands out badly. Next, the guy in the Cap suit is too earnest, too obviously posed.  And lastly, look at their feet. The are clearly not on the roof, they have been inserted into that background. I had this comic once but somehow over the years it disappeared.

I never owned this but I do recall seeing it on the stands. Does Spider-Woman look sultry or slutty? That’s the story of this cover in a nutshell. Plus The Wasp’s wings look like cardboard..

I don’t think I ever saw this issue until I started to research this post. It is the worst of the lot. The concept is not bad but the execution is terrible. A back-lit woman holding her hands in front of a pair of spotlights just doesn’t cut it.

You have to give Marvel credit for trying. In the 1980’s they were big and bad and, for better or worse, pushing the boundaries of what their fans would buy.

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