That was Peter Parker The Spectacular Spider-Man. As fas as I can tell, the original 1968 Spectacular Spider-Man didn't work out commercially. Something similar happened in late 1971 when Marvel started replacing their normal 32-page 15 cents comics with 48-page 25 cents comics, and then cancelled the plan after just one month. After this they reverted to 32-page comics costing 20 cents.
I remember when DC 'annuals' were 80 pages for 25 cents! Marvel broke the mold by making their annuals 72 pages for a quarter. And back then they were treated as special events with pin-ups, diagrams, how-to drawings, they weren't just reprints! It felt like you were getting something of value for yr hard-earned quarter!
U.S. publishers really wanted to see magazine and other thicker formats succeed because the profit margin per item was more and retailers would treat higher priced magazines with some respect, whereas the smaller color comics were distributed a bit like interchangeable bales some of which would never even be opened. They tried a color-coding sale of date block on the top pages to guide retailers in when to rotate them (black one week, blue another, red another) but not all sellers of comic books could be bothered. In England you could reserve your favorite comic magazines but rarely was that an option in North America, you mostly went between a bunch of corner shops if you lived in a decent sized town at least, hoping to find the titles you wanted... and still sometimes failing. E.C. comics were the first to have a older readership and they tried to move to magazines not just with Mad but with some Picto-fiction comics, to a) be free of the comics code authority which had severely restricted and cancelled their color comics titles, b) be more attractive to an older readership, and c) that higher profit margin per item (B&W interiors although on better paper). They ended up being just Mad magazine for decades where they'd had a full line of horror, crime, war, adventure and science-fiction. Those first two categories were totally killed off by the association code which only Dell seemed able to ignore and still get full distribution. Jack Kirby like many had an eye out for a higher-quality format that would work commercially and connect with older readers. There were even original paperback format comics tried with longer on sale periods, but they never got a foothold like the paperbacks of comic strip reprints. DC didn't go in for larger-sized magazines but kept trying thicker higher-priced comics like the 80 and 100 pagers and the Dollar Comics titles, plus those over-sized tabloid comics that started in the early '70s at $1 and soon increased to $2 and up. Marvel joined in on the tabloid format releases but for a shorter period.
DC upped the ante in the '70s with their Dollar Comics format, basically revving up existing titles like Adventure Comics and House of Mystery with more pages, more content, and folding in Batman Family and Superman Family (etc.). Yes, they felt like events, long before the term "event" elicited a grin, not an eyeroll!
Does anyone remember the Spider-Man super villain contest? Where you send in a drawing and a short backstory? And which bad guy won?
I've got complete runs of Tomb of Dracula and Ghost rider. Don't hear much about them. Colan did some good stuff.
I love those runs! Tomb of Dracula is legendary with the above-forty set, but more younger collectors are discovering it. Gene Colan's art is on another plane.
I agree. I wasn't a fan of Kirby's art but I only really saw his work at DC. Based on what I've seen here his earlier work looks better than his later work. Another artist whose art style significantly changed is Keith Giffin. His early on "Legion of Super-Heroes" was among the best. However, his art style changed so much he looked like a completely different artist.
Giffen's art on LoSH was awesome. That was a great book in the Eighties. Giffen could do a mean Kirby emulation, too. I haven't kept up with his output in recent years.
There was a contest for a new Spider-Man costume. The winner drew a black costume similar to the one Spider-Man wore starting in the 80s, after the Secret Wars series: Symbiote Costume
If this was The Punisher, that character was a blatant copy of Don Pendelton's pulp fiction character, The Executioner (Mack Bolan). There are rumors that Pendelton and Marvel came to some kind of legal/financial arrangement over it, with both parties agreeing not to discuss the arrangement publicly (which makes it hard to verify if the story is true). I'm not aware of a contest being part of this, unless you are referring to another character.
I absolutely loved The Eternals and Devil Dinosaur, TO ME it wasn't hideous at all. With the Eternals Kirby came back to Marvel and gave them yet again some of their greatest characters, especially the Celestials. When I say Comics have never been second rate I'm speaking of the Art form. Not how people treated it or looked at it, but the actual art form that always had some fantastic writers and artists. Masterful creators have always been there.
I don't think his mid-late 70s work was hideous, but it had evolved in a more experssionistic manner when the trend was for realism. I can't say I'm a fan of his work from that period, not of the DC work he was doing before he retured - save for the 2001 and Captain America Treasury Editions, the earlier Eternals and the odd Cap story. I appreciate it more now but at the time, the more cartoony it became and the more 'blocky' the figures were, the less I liked it
And some genuine important stories. Modern annuals just seem to have throwaway stories and often inferior art to the main books. they should be special, not something you can skip.
I thought Howard Chaykin created The Punisher... I can't claim to being an expert about the character, one of my least favorite, definitely seemed a copy of the paper backs character from what I did know of it, or Bronson's Death Wish guy a half year or so before that movie came out? I was sure he was never meant to be a 'hero' but then from the first Rambo movie I didn't think that guy a hero, yet a kiddies cartoon version and camo pajamas followed. I'd say the worst character creations in comics were Lobo and The Punisher as they seemed to have ushered in an age of extreme muscles and bizarrely sized guns and other things in general. You would feel much more foolish with some of those extreme over-the-top and violent '90s comics in your hands than with a '70s Devil Dinosaur or a Chip N' Dale. In the '70s comics I did have with Punisher appearing he was never meant to be a starring good guy but more a contrast to the main character(s). Maybe Kirby could've brought The Punisher back into line as a more amoral absolutist type and made it interesting and me like he character, like some of Steve Ditko's Randian anti-hero types are 'interesting', but it was created to work off of Spider-Man or superheroes in general, and never be one of them. I suppose Wolverine was the outer edge of the hero that might kill, and he at least originally caused a lot of reflection and reaction among the other characters, but eventually he got dumbed down much of the time too. I could imagine Punisher having a body count 20 to 1 over Wolverine, maybe later that wasn't the score? Wolverine had loads of other characters running interference for him and 'protecting' him you could say, whereas the solo Punisher became ridiculous in his not getting apprehended and taken off the streets (yeah, like all his bullets never once did any collateral damage... just too stupid really, sorry). I think Jack Kirby and some of the other older artists and writers who had been through a war couldn't have written some of the extreme b.s. that took over in comics and was sometimes downright embarrassing, but I think there was also a cynical pandering to the collector/fan that better creators would not have engaged in, even Stan Lee with upfront glad handing hype spiels. A product that could physically be too cheap (kids always seemed to be able to gather enough tenners for video games) and milking the fan (speculator) base once, twice, a hundred times too often? I think the Kirby comics are only going to increase in prestige and value among a lot of more insubstantial trendy things, and few if any made as much genuine and lasting 'history' as he did in the form.
I buy new comics very rarely but I was intrigued enough to buy special recent anniversary issues of The Flash and Aquaman (albeit with retro style covers) and going by those two and the ads in some more recent Marvel reprints under a True Believers banner I'd say the art is looking very accomplished, as well as in a variety of styles. All the writing in the two DC books with multiple stories in them was understandable to myself with little knowledge of current continuity and didn't seem terrible nor inept.
All this talk of annuals brought up an ancient memory for me! As a kid my family was going from NY to PR by plane! My mom bought me a few books but the only one that sticks out was FF annual #1, featuring Kirby in his zone, at his peak, portraying Namor as King of long lost Atlantis (adhering to his fascination of Godlike civilizations)! Had pin-ups of their rogues gallery! The 1st coupla Marvel annuals were great books, the 1st Spider-man (The Sinister Six!), the 2nd (Dr. Strange), the 2nd FF (Wedding of Reed and Sue)! I was so young I didn't realize Kirby drew Thor, until I saw the familiar Colletta inks (I think he only inked the Thor panels!). Good time to be a comicbook reading kid!
I think that's the key thing. I took a break for decade or so and jumped back in as was so disappointed with what I found. Really struggled to find titles worth keeping up with. Think you probably got lucky.
Fantastic Four Annual #3 was an event... a wedding! Not sure but might've been the first wedding of two superheroes (as opposed to simply stated as married somewhere along the line)? That'd be another Kirby first. The guest list was part of the fun.
I mistakenly called the wedding in annual #2, so I checked to see what #2 featured (Dr. Doom, I had it!). So while I'm checking I start to look at the pages of the wedding issue, been decades since I've seen the book, and lo and behold, Vinnie Colaiuta was the inker for the whole tale.. I've mentioned how I liked VC on Thor but.....I'm looking at the pages and there's so many pages of blank backgrounds, Colaiuta's trademark. It left me wondering about how Kirby's original work must've looked like!
