A distraction of sorts

A friend just emailed me a link to this interesting Spidey cartoon, so I thought I’d share it with you.

Pretty cute, eh?

This Just in!

I just heard that my cousin David Gere is going to play a terrorist in Batman 3.

Seriously, how cool is that?

David has appeared in a number of small roles in a number of fig films, and is currently producing some very cool Indie films in the wilds of Central CT.

I have to say that I’m very proud of my cousin, and I wish him all the best in all of his endeavors.

Way to go, Dave!

Agent Coulson of SHIELD

This is why we think that Agent Coulson is so cool:



And this is is why we we totally love him (but in a man-crush kind of way):



Apparently, both of these clips are going to appear on the Thor Blu-Ray disc. Ain’t it cool?

The Avengers are coming

I saw an Avengers preview as a tag at the end of Captain America, but here is the official trailer:




Yeah, pretty cool, eh?

...And a Happy Bar Mitzvah to you!

OK, quick quiz, what do you think the coolest Bar Mitzvah gift ever would be? Well, you’re wrong, it is this:

This 1988 custom comic is considered among the rarest Superman comics ever produced -- so much so that many fans mistakenly believe it’s an urban legend. But it does exist -- a comic book commissioned by a British billionaire as a gift for his Superman fan son, in which the boy and some of his friends were written and drawn into a Superman adventure! It is believed that this book had a print run of LESS THAN 150 COPIES, because it was produced as a BAR MITZVAH PARTY FAVOR (and far fewer than that number are believed to remain in existence)!

According to the ebay posting about this recently sold comic ($1,677.00 U.S.).

Much about this book is unusual and unique. It was the first, and one of the few, comics writing jobs by DAVID LEVIN, who went on to a distinguished career in television, and both cover and interior pages feature one of the last Superman pencil jobs by the legendary CURT SWAN -- this one done three years after leaving the feature to John Byrne. It marks the only time Swan was inked by MAD magazine caricaturist ANGELO TORRES, hired by editor Joe Orlando to “plus” the likeness of the Bradman boy. You can find more details about the content and provenance -- AS WELL AS IMAGES OF INTERIOR PAGES -- since I’ve elected not to scan the interiors because I didn’t want to remove the book from the bag -- at David Levin’s blog, here.

Yep, this is a very cool comic!

Superheroes go better with Baseball

...or perhaps that's the other way around. No matter Just recently I came across a pair of Marvel specialty comics that were produced in association with Major League Baseball.

Now, before I go too far, let me digress for just a moment. Marvel Comics — on occasion — will license out its characters to different corporations and companies for “Specialty Comics.” These comics will promote either a product (Peter Pan Peanut Butter, Pizza Hut) or a pro-social idea or agenda (American Cancer Society, literacy, stopping abuse against children). Over the years, the company has produced quite a number of them, making them among the coolest of collectibles for funnybook fans like your’s truly.

Anyways, as I started to say, I recently came across a bunch of comics that Marvel produced in association with Major League Baseball in both 2007 & 2008. These comics were apparently distributed in the 29 Triple-A ball clubs around the U.S. (and one in Canada). Many (if not all) of the ball clubs had variant covers produced for their own club, making well, some 60 comics produced over the two-year period. (Rumor has it that there might have been additional comics produced in subsequent years, but we’ve, as yet, been able to discover them.)

In both years, the stories revolve around several of the Marvel Superheroes attending a Triple-A ball game in their civilian identities, and then having to stop some sort of incident as their Superhero self. Naturally enough the heroes include the usual suspects (The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Spider-Man, The Hulk, and others).

In the first year (2007) Sandman started an incident that set off Bruce “The Hulk” Banner, causing to become his green angry self, necessitating Tony “Iron Man” Stark, Peter “Spider-Man” Parker and others to stop Hulk from ruining everyone’s game. Issue #2 (2008), it is The Mole Man who is angry that MLB rejected his bid for an expansion team on Monster Island that would be staffed by his mole-creatures. Thankfully the FF, Spidey, and Iron Man are able to convince him that attending a Triple-A game is much more fun than destroying the fields (which is what he was planning on doing).

Needless to say, the comics are light, breezy, and well, just plain fun. Something that kids of all ages, baseball fans, and funnybook aficionados alike would enjoy. So, if you were to camp out in the online auction sites, you’ll more than likely find them, and hopefully score some of your own.

Fair warning, they can get to be a bit pricey, so unless you are a total completest-geek, we’re going to suggest that you simply purchase one of each year (certainly try to get your favorite team), but know that, all 30 variants from each year, while the do sport different covers, the insides are the same for each respective year.

And ASM V2#25 makes it a full run

That's  right, kids, I now have a complete run of Amazing Spider-Man. Yes, that's including Spidey's first appearance in Amazing Fantasy # 15.

The really interesting thing (to me) is that the last couple of issues I needed to collect to complete my full run of this series were not the lower-numbered (earliest) issues, but the ones that came out in the mid-to-late '90s. In fact the final issue I needed (the one I received today) was actually Amazing Spider-Man Vol 2 #25. For some reason this single issue has proven to be harder to track down than some of the more "exotic" issues.

Near as I can figure (because there really is nothing extraordinarily special about it as far as I can tell), is that it came out at a time when Marvel was playing everything close to the vest and (quite literally) only printed what was ordered. Thus proving that scarcity coupled with demand is what determines pricing, not price guide guides or hype.

I've been looking for this particular issue for well over a year now, but most of the time that I saw it (when I could actually find it), the issue was priced well beyond, not only what I was willing to spend for it, but way beyond what the issues on either side of it were commanding.

Sure I wanted it, but no, I simply was not going to pay that much for the issue. As it turns out, I didn't have to (over)pay for it. Even as I searched for it at conventions, I stalked it online at auction sites. I did see it a couple of times priced lower (and missed the bid), but more often than not, I saw it much higher. Finally, the other day I saw it at a reasonable price (a touch higher than I was hoping to pay for it, but not so much so as to make acquiring it painful), so I snatched it up.

Now I just have to look over the other Spider-Titles to see what's missing and then set about filling in those holes as well.