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Five For Friday #29—Wallowing in Nostalgia
posted May 13, 2005
 

Name Five Things You Miss About Comics

1. Magazine-sized alternative comic books.
2. The prominence of art "portfolios" from fan favorite artists.
3. Oversized, Spined "Summer Special"-style comic books
4. Amazing Heroes Preview Specials
5. "Blood and Thunder" in the Comic Books

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Jason Ragle

1) Prices under two dollars.
2) Spinner racks in 7-11.
3) Creative teams that stay on a book for more than 12 issues.
4) Not knowing what is going to happen in a given book three months in advance.
5) Having fewer than a baker's dozen Batman, Superman, Spiderman, X-Men, related books.

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Russ Maheras

-- Low prices
-- Stories that don't have multiple issue arcs
-- Stories where the reader does not have to be a continuity expert on the subject matter to enjoy it
-- Annuals or specials
-- Companies like Harvey and Dell

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Alan David Doane

1. Superhero art one-one-hundredth as dynamic and engaging as that in Byrne and Austin's Uncanny X-Men or Miller and Janson's Daredevil.
2. Amazing Heroes.
3. FantaCo, the Albany shop and publisher I got my books at in the 1980s.
4. Spinner racks. The ones in comics shops don't count, they make it worse.
5. Raoul Vezina, Wallace Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby and Gil Kane, among too many others.

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Sean T. Collins

I didn't really read comics as a kid and don't have much attachment to most of the things I read when I *did* start reading them in high school, so my nostalgia is mostly of a more recent vintage.

1. Highwater Books
2. The old NuMarvel
3. ¡Journalista!
4. The capacity to believe that things like Bruce Wayne's back getting broken were actually permanent changes.
5. The ability to read THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS or WATCHMEN or JIMMY CORRIGAN for the first time.

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Cole Odell

1. Ads for things other than video games
2. Tabloid treasury editions
3. Newsprint
4. DC 3-packs in plastic bags on the bottom shelf of the meager little toy aisle at J.J. Newbury's department store
5. Being young enough to enjoy superhero comics without wallowing in nostalgia

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Benjamin Bayless

Low prices
the thrill of discovering: "HEY! This is issue 200, that means there's 200 issues I have to track down and read."
"Grit" Ads (or similar sell 1000 units, get a bike ads)
newspaper paper, including the touch and smell of it.
My first comics shop in the front foyer of the owner's house. (later expanded to include the living room.)

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Pierce Askegren

1. The b/w magazine format horror/sf anthologies -- Warren, Skywald, etc.
2. Body lettering that stressed clarity over decorative or artistic qualities (not that those aren't great, too).
3. The wider distribution that carried with it the idea that comics were a class of magazines, rather than a specialty item like greeting cards or collectors' bisques.
4. The relentless clockwork scheduling that all too often produced crap, but which also enabeled innovation and opportunity for new talent when an editor needed something, anything, to fill a book.
5. Letter columns & text pages that were at least intermittently a bit more than advertising tools

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Peter MacDonald

1) newsprint
2) Giant-Size Marvels
3) black-and-white magazines (Bizarre Adventures, Savage Sword of Conan, Creepy)
4) one title per character/team
5) prices under $1.00

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Andrew Mansell

1. The Soapbox/News/ Checklists Page from Marvel in the 60s.
2. The Gold Key Disney/Golden Digests
3. The Annual JLA/JSA team ups
4. Menomenee (sp) Falls Gazette
5. The Comic READER

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