Look, the laws of physics just work differently in pre-Code horror-revenge stories, okay? (from “Symphony in Death” in Menace #11, January 1954; art by Joe Maneely, other credits as yet unknown) Recommended listening:

All those PSAs and parental lecture were right — peer pressure can make a person do the darndest thing. I can hear my mom’s voice now: “If Mike Sterling bought some original comics art, would you buy some, too?” Well, yeah, mom. Mike is the coolest cat in the funnybook blogging scene, and that would […]

I’m still in the process of sorting out the first “real” installment of the Crisis feature, so let’s take a gander at an ancillary project which showed up on my doorstep this past weekend. Who’s Who in the DC Universe has been on my short list of projects since I got onto the whole custom […]

“When I finally get around to my Crisis on Infinite Earths post..” What began as a mixture of threat and promise has become something of a personal in-joke over the past few years, lofty ambitions colliding with the reality of my protracted disengagement with this site. Between you and me, writing is something I do […]

The goal of my ongoing binding project was to create durable and easier-to-shelve collections of funnybooks which, for various reasons, haven’t and most likely wouldn’t see an official trade paperback or hardcover release. Most of these fall into one or two year runs from a single title — Atari Force, Young Heroes in Love, the […]

Apparently today marks thirty-four years since the debut issue of the post-Legends “Bwah Ha Ha” incarnation of the Justice League. It’s a day I remember well, though for more personal reasons than its significance within funnybook history. My paternal grandmother had moved out of our house the month before, returning us to nuclear family status […]

One of the perks of taking an extended hiatus is having actually new developments to talk about upon returning — — things such as the above object of beauty. The collection is not a hoax or imaginary story. Nor, I regret to inform you, is it the product of DC’s trade collections department coming to […]

Up until 1983, the vast majority of the comics I read were back issues or bundled remainders picked up via flea markets or in polybagged three-packs sold at the supermarket checkout aisle. The few new releases that filtered down to me were wild card outliers passed on as gifts or picked up in trades with […]

The Mighty Mike Sterling recently fielded a reader question about the Legion of Super-Heroes’ decline from a fan favorite franchise to its current state of sad irrelevance. Mike did a great job breaking down the Legion’s tragic cycle of reboots and diminishing returns, which has been on my mind since I revisited those funnybooks recently. […]