The long lost days of the comic book exchange

I’ve spoken about the world of buying comics in those days before the direct market but I’ve only touched upon the glorious world of the comic book exchange which is outlined from an American viewpoint in this lovely piece here.

An exchange is exactly as it sounds. You’d take your comics there and exchange them for more comics. As a child in the 70s there were two I went to, one on Maryhill Road and the other tucked away near the entrance of Partick Subway station. Both were inhabited mainly by older men thumbing through the magazines I was never allowed to go near as a child but I was allowed to go through the boxes of comics on the floor which were a mixed bag to say the least. Made up of British and American comics, as well as new and older comics from the 1960s and earlier so I’m talking comics like this.

I remember picking up Silver Age comics in abundance for a few pence each, or if they had a stamp on them from that particular shop, you could exchange them for other comics. This is why you’ll find comics from that era with stamps of bookshops on them so you can pick up Silver and Bronze Age books which were once in shops ranging from Paisley to Poplar. True, the 5p (or whatever price) on them is nowhere near what these books are worth now but for years this was one of the main ways people could buy, and collect comics in the years before the direct market came together in the 1970s.

The direct market and gentrification were two of the main things which wiped out so many exchanges during the 80s as after all, why spend all that time raking through unsorted boxes of comics on the chance of getting a bargain when there was a speciality shop where you could get new and old comics at the same time? Sure, some collectors did that but hunting down comics is a tiresome job. Then there were the areas where these shops were being modernised, which often meant gentrified so these places were either knocked down or replaced by something appealing to an entirely different market. In the 21st Century the likes of eBay not to mention most people think any comic is worth a fortune (reality is most comics aren’t) the idea that one could walk into a strangely smelling shop and pick up anything for 10p or less is insane but for a few decades there we could do that and it was wonderful…

Visit To A Comic Book Exchange: St. Louis, 1946

Some quick words about Miracleman

Marvel’s latest big one-shot that opens up the future of the Marvel Universe is Timeless #1.

Most of it is routine stuff but the big news is that it teases not just the return of Miracleman but his forthcoming entry to the 616 Marvel Universe.

Miracleman is joining the 616 Marvel Universe, or at least that’s a pretty big assumption thanks to what Marvel are hinting from their promo material. This leaves some large questions but some answers are finally answered with this reveal. First up is the use of the Miracle/Marvelman logo which Gary Leach designed 40 years ago for Warrior #1. That’s been an issue for years yet there it is for all to see. The next answer is what Marvel intended to do with the character which is get him into the 616 universe, which I understand was something they wanted to do years ago but couldn’t.

We don’t know if the Neil Gaiman/Mark Buckingham story will finally be completed but again, the story is Mark’s been working away on it for over a year. It seems Gaiman has given him plots to work from so old Marvel method apparently. Neither are rumoured with the 616 version however Donny Cates is, mainly as he’s one of the few writers Marvel have left who can bring a huge readership of his own and drive commercial and critical successes. I can’t imagine Marvel giving this to one of the many writers they have who are borderline inept. There’s an omnibus edition of the Alan Moore material coming in the summer so at a guess, I’d put new material coming out later in the summer to the autumn.

What is depressing is that it is 40 years since Warrior #1 which means the Marvelman story we’ve been waiting on to finish has taken up most of my life which is just grim. 2022 may be the year where that story ends, but I do find it as grim that Marvelman will end up fighting, I dunno, Thor or something and just blends into Marvel’s vast catalogue of characters and be ultimately owned by Disney as they eat up all of fiction.

Still, we shall see…

A quick word about Spider Man: No Way Home

The Tom Holland Spider-Man films are at best a mixed bag. The first one, Homecoming, is a decent film with some excellent moments, while Far From Home is appalling with a terrible script, that effectively removes Peter Parker/Spider-Man as far away from the character and his roots as possible. Making the character an extension of Tony Stark/Iron Man while ripping him away from New York for a trip across Europe seemed more to do with marketing not to mention which countries would throw Disney/Marvel a tax break for filming there than actual storytelling.

No Way Home effectively reboots the MCU Spider-Man wiping clean the massive error which was the second one, and putting Peter Parker/Spider-Man in a space he should be which is a tortured soul trying to do better instead of being popular and successful all the time. Sure there’s problems with the script and Marvel’s style of storytelling means some things remain unresolved as it probably will in a film or TV series a year or two down the line. The positives outnumber this though, and a much improved script means some quite wonderful performances from Tom Holland and Willem Dafoe especially.

There is a load of fan service which is fine done right, and yes, it’s a marketing stunt designed to pander to people’s nostalgia, normally to sell crap to them (hi Ghostbusters: Afterlife) and while the main talking point of this film will eventually do this a lot of credit has to go to Sony/Marvel for going to extraordinary ends to attempt to preserve it as much as they did. Overall though this is a deeply satisfying blockbuster that does good things and cleans up the vast mistakes Marvel/Sony made with the character and reboots it so it does become closer to Ditko and Lee’s creation than it has been since Marvel got a say in the films.

That first Spider-Man trailer

Back in those pre 9/11 times at the turn of the millennium, the superhero film wasn’t a big deal. Sure the first X Men film had done very well, but the forthcoming Spider-Man film was a real event, especially for fans of the time as director Sam Raimi was a fan of the Steve Ditko run which still remain wonderful comics. That first film was a real event, though for me, the first sequel is as perfect a Spider-Man film as there ever will be.

The first trailer though had an insane response both in cinemas and the then growing internet where it took an hour to download it on dial-up. Now it’s only a link away on YouTube…

A word of praise for George Perez

By now the comics world is aware that George Perez has a terminal diagnosis of cancer with six months to live. This is appalling news as not only is Perez one of these figures in comics everyone loves, but he played a major part of me falling for superhero comics as a kid partly thanks to glorious wonderful stuff like this.

Or this.

Or this gem

Or any of the dozens of comics he did which did at a time when if you picked up a comic with Perez or John Byrne art you’d be guaranteed a bloody good time. Perez’s art had everything from great figurework, to storytelling (something many artists today can learn from) but it was overall exciting and dynamic.

Had a project which featured dozens of characters? Get Perez.

Six months is not long at all but I hope the next few months are filled with joy for him as fans pour out their appreciation for one of the true greats.

There’s unlikely ever to be another George Perez so let’s appreciate him now and let him soak up how much people love his work and him in these final months.

Do MCU fans like the comics their favourite films are baed on?

We’re a few weeks away from The Eternals coming out. Now The Eternals was not one of Jack Kirby’s greatest creations but it was a great attempt to forge a science fiction epic which was typical late era Kirby in that it was big, bold, colourful and directly influenced by the Chariots of the Gods stuff which was a huge thing in the mid 70’s. It has improved incredibly well over the years as one of Kirby’s works.

But the first clips paint this huge world of Kirby’s shit grey, or brown and what colour there is has been muted as The Eternals become a low rent Justice League fighting ultra generic CGI monsters.

It just looks dreary compared to the source material yet for a generation the source material is ‘too loud’, ‘blocky’, and worse as if they’d rather have blandness over celebrating the source material. and it isn’t as if Marvel haven’t completely embraced Kirby like they did with Thor: Ragnarok, which as we know was a massive financial and critical success for a studio becoming increasingly obsessed with the larger plot over individual stories.

Now it could be because these people grew up on sparsely drawn manga, or they’re not used to the multiple languages of comics, or even if they’re away that Kirby created or co-created 90% of the characters they obsess over but to see so many dismiss Kirby’s work is depressing as without that work they’d have nothing to obsess over unless Kevin Fiege had decided to create a multi-billon dollar Rawhide Kid film.

Come to Glasgow this weekend to buy lots of lovely comics from me

This weekend Glasgow has it’s first comics event for over two years!

The location for this is nice and central at the RSS Centre/Renfield Centre, 260 Bath Street. Glasgow, G2 4JP, and it’s also spitting distance from where I live so no ridiculously early rise for me. This is the first chance to give customers a good chance at my back issues (oo err) as the marts I’ve been doing in shopping centres are a much scaled down operation.

So come spend money and help make some room so I can get more comics to sell you lovely people!

Here’s some tasters…

And literally thousands more…

Giving Steve Ditko credit.

The family of Steve Ditko is pressing Disney to terminate the rights for Doctor Strange and Spider Man, both characters who are worth billions to Disney/Marvel. In return Marvel/Disney are fighting to ensure things stay with them, so the logical outcome will be it ends up like the Jack Kirby case where they came to an agreement with the family which is why Kirby now gets a very promenent credit on the Marvel film and TV series. Disney also have the original writers of Predator doing the same but at a more advanced phase.

Of course Ditko’s heirs should be recompensed, and Ditko’s credit should be made more important, and of course Disney will fight to keep every last penny they can. What shouldn’t be depressing in all of this are fans leaping to the defence of Disney/Marvel, both companies which have refused creators payment and credit for nearly a century and partially got away with it because fans put ‘product’ ahead of people or art. Even the thought the Ditko estate might deny ‘fans’ their fix has sent people into a feral rage.

Spider-Man will continue at Marvel, hopefully with the Ditko family a bit better off and Steve Ditko gets a better credit for his co-creation, and as for Doctor Strange, well, that one was pure Ditko so hopefully that gets more publicity than it does now. In the meantime ‘fans’ will shill for billion dollar industries who see them purely as breathing cash machines…

The horror of the second speculator era of comics

First of all here’s a nice video giving a basic rundown of the first big speculator era back in the 90s.

It was a glorious time for a while. Comics published a day or two ago would be hitting 50 quid and higher by the weekend. Massive amounts of money was spent by speculators and dealers, while publishers pumped out masses and masses of shite, much of it being utterly unreadable.Market went BOOM and overnight dealers and companies were dropping like flies.

Fast forward to 2021 and the market now is bloated with variant covers not to mention speculators pushing the prices of comics to the level where they’re unaffordable to most people. At least in the 90’s a ‘key book; would be expensive but you didn’t have to have a Swiss bank account to look at one. Added to the horror of slabbing comics it means vitally important, major comics will never, ever be read which destroys the purpose of what a comic is. It is to be read, and if you want, collected so you can read it again.

A mix of the Covid pandemic, a lack of conventions/marts and Youtube channels like Comictom101 are pushing this agenda at the expense of the medium. Speculation doesn’t help grow the medium or improve the quality of mainstream comics, or stop creators writing purely for their Netflix deal. It just creates a bubble and that bubble is unsustainable for collectors which is going to be dismal for the industry overall. But yet the bubble grows.

What worries me is the POP when the bubble bursts.The industry as a whole for your mainstream Marvel/DC title is not anywhere near as secure as the 90s, nor are there the same quality of creators, especially now Substack has signed consistantly selling Big Two creators leaving Marvel and DC with not an awful lot. So we shall see, but I dread the worst in a few years time once superhero fatigue kicks in.

The strange politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

I’m watching What If.. which is enormous fun as it takes the non-canon joy of the original 1970s run of comics and translates it to a new, younger audience. It’s the most fun Marvel have had since they went Emo in the few years around Endgame, and it is nice to see Marvel fully embrace the comics instead of keeping up with the idea they can ‘ground them in reality’ which is bollocks.

What If… is the latest example of the MCU’s exceptionally odd internal politics. For example, at the start of Falcon and Winter Soldier, Sam is working for the American armed forces rescuing soldiers who were doing something dubious in the Middle East but the rest of the series never comes back to that, so we never really deal with the fact that Sam has serious power in this world but yet his family is broke. Unless capitalism collapsed we’re to take this at face value?

Then there’s the Avengers who are essentially a fascist organisation, though they do good we see unchecked power. Now this is a subject Marvel did try to deal with but quickly dropped like a hot potato once it started getting complicated, as is making the likes of Loki a hero even though in the continuity of the TV series he’s got the blood of thousands of New Yorkers on his hands. This is the problem when you take kids power fantasies and throw them into the ‘real world’. You have to then deal with the massive contradictions of having these characters in our world mixed in with the politics of Disney which means everyone also has weird sexless relationships in worlds where even no matter what happens, there’s careful product placement.

What I’m basically saying the Marvel Cinematic Universe may be entertaining, but there’s some strange, sometimes dangerous takes on politics of all kinds and that’s mainly down to not embracing the silliness of the source material or having a studio owner willing to investigate the logical outcomes of this world.