Saturday, December 3, 2011

Covers

A friend of Flint's and I, Spock, recently put up a link on Facebook that showcased some comic book covers that had been animated.
Sure, it's a good idea, and the covers are some good choices, but I wonder why this person started with these particular choices.
Well, that was their choice, and if I had any fucking idea how they did it, I'd put up my own.
The least favourite one was from the Justice League, which had the heroes strapped down on a huge wheel of chance. Ho hum.
Another cover was from Iron Man #128, featuring Tony Stark in the midst of an alcoholic seizure, or something. I remember Tony's addiction sneaking up on me in the midst of a series of well told tales. His alcoholism was dispatched fairly soon, but returned with a vengeance later on.
My second favourite was from the Dark Knight series by Frank Miller. Effectively done, but my absolute favourite of the covers was from The Amazing Spider-Man #33. It shows Spidey trapped under a huge piece of machinery with water from various places streaming down upon him.
The caption reads "The Final Chapter!" and I always remembered it from my youth as being one of my favourites. At that time, I was becoming aware of Marvel Comics' continuing storylines, which differed from DC's self-contained stories. You didn't have to worry about coming up with money for the next part with DC the way you did with Marvel.
The cover of Spider-Man #33 exemplified this for me. It was the third part of a storyline that pitted our hero against his arch-nemesis Doctor Octopus.
Marvel storylines always ended with a caption that read "Next: blahblahblah." Frustrating for a kid who got a dime for an allowance. Comics cost 12 cents in those days. Whenever I asked my mom for a couple of pennies to go with that dime, she would say, "You're not buying any more comics!"
Of course, now that old comics are going for such high prices nowadays, I get shit for not having copies of Action Comics #1 in my collection. (Recently sold for over $2,000,000.00)
Sigh.
I had a fairly good collection of Spider-Man at one time. I had all but #1 and Amazing Fantasy #15, but the real world intruded, as it always does.
I was living with my brother for a while, and we were behind on the rent. I decided to sell my collection of Spider-Man comics in order to get us ahead. I'd probably have... well, not millions, but thousands if I hadn't sold them. Ah well, there's no use in crying about it now.
Except every time a comic sells for millions I get shit from my family for not having it in my collection.
Pffff.