80-Pagecast 16: October Vest

The boys are back for a slightly spoopy October episode. We read Afterlife with Archie #1, Ode to Kirihito, Marvel Knights Spider-Man #1, and Astonishing X-men #68. Because of all the news that's fit to chat about from New York Comic Con there is no topic this week. Just lots of our standard wandering off topic. Also we all really want a plushie Rocket Raccoon.

80-Pagecast Episode 15: Critics of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The gangs all here to talk about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Well almost, Australia still hasn't aired it yet. We talk about it anyway and what other comicbooks we would like to see turned into a tv series. Comicbooks we read this week include really old issues of Thundercats & Silverhawks, Transformers Regeneration One #0, Transformers: More Than meets the Eye #21, Clayface #1 and Killer Croc #1. Also the Breaking Bad comic.

In the Twinkling of an Eye

As an American, I have had only select exposure to comic magazines originating from the United Kingdom. Though I’m aware of such stalwarts as 2000AD and The Beano, my primary interests mean that I’m far more familiar with the country’s licensed titles (mostly Marvel’s Transformers and Action Force), plus a small smattering of material from that time in the ’90s when Marvel’s US branch tried to foist Marvel UK’s original output onto US soil as The Next Big Thing. (SPOILERS: it wasn’t, because that output consisted of titles like Gun Runner, Gene Dogs, and Death’s Head II… and Death Wreck, Die-Cut, and Death Metal, and… anyway, you get the idea.)

Given this limited sampling, imagine my genuine surprise when I encountered a stack of vintage My Little Pony tie-in comics for sale at a dealer’s booth at the 2012 My Little Pony Convention and Fair - comics from a publisher I had never heard of, in a story format I had never before experienced. These magazines - printed by Egmont under their “London Editions” imprint - are slightly taller than the licensed Marvel UK books I own, and each issue contains a mix of comics and illustrated text stories. What really makes these stand out to me, however, is the way the comic stories are laid out: with their art and narrative captions on separate planes, they’re more like storybooks, which is a construction I have never encountered in a traditional American comic.

As for the stories themselves, most of them are prosaic (so far as yarns about magic pastel ponies go)… but every now and again, I have encountered tales that are on the cusp of madness. The story reprinted here is one of those!


Read that? No? Well, in summary:

Applejack feels bad about being clumsy, so decides to go see if a friendly witch can help her. On her way over, she knocks down a pixie laundry line, and gets so scared she runs until she’s in the mountains… where a boulder moves, and suddenly Applejack finds herself in the lair of the evil Jewel Wizard! The Jewel Wizard has enslaved some Ponies, who have worked in his mines for so long that they can’t see in real light anymore. Applejack tries to go for help, but ends up shattering the Jewel Wizard’s crystalline throne - and throwing him into the bowels of the earth! The flying crystal shards from the throne embed themselves in the other Ponies’ eyes, which, amazingly, restores their sight… and, it just so happens, turns them into the Twinkle-Eyed Ponies!

So... this story of Applejack KILLING A WIZARD to END FORCED PONY ENSLAVEMENT that includes EYE-LACERATION BY GEMSTONES was written to sell a sparkly-eye toy gimmick.

That... that is amazing. That is GENUINELY AMAZING.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

"Applejack’s Amazing Adventure," from issue 11 of the London Editions/Egmont Magazines My Little Pony comic. No credited writer or artist.

80-Pagecast 14: Editorial Interference - Threat or Menace?

The 80-Pagecast returns, sadly bereft of a double-X chromosome once more!  David Henion, Rob London, and Andrew Sorohan are back, and they're talking about the evil (and good) that editors do.  Sometimes they are also singing.  Listen at your own risk.  Show notes after the jump.

80-Pagecast 13: Secret Origins.

Well the gang's all here this time, so we're going to tell you how we all got into comics! (Spoilers: all the stories involve us at some point reading comics.)
 

Looks good to you? Looks good to me!

Thugs can't tell it's not bacon.

Seriously, don't.

You guys remember the Punisher Armory, right?  Ten issues of loving descriptions of every firearm, edged weapon, and explosive device in the Punisher's arsenal.  Jeez, ten issues.  People sure loved the Punisher in the '90s.  But even that exhaustive tome didn't cover one of the most devastating weapons in Frank Castle's one-man war on crime. Read on to learn more.

80-Pagecast 12: World Shaking Events.

Sandwitches to begin! Anyway, here's the latest podcast:

Soundwave is BLUE?

This is a little piece of ephemera that's not going to be of any surprise to most people, but which will hurt other people's brains a little bit. You see in the Marvel Transformers comic books Soundwave (one of the more famous Transformers) wasn't blue, he was purple.

At least in the American Marvel Transformers comic.

In the UK comic he was purple for the reprints they did of American stories, but for UK-originated stories they made him blue! Just like the cartoon.

And the toy.

Except... One time they did redeco him from his original American colouring:

Wow! That hurts my brain.

80-Pagecast 11: The Gang's All Here.

Hey hey! It's 80 Page-Cast's first ever 4-person podcast! Don't expect these every week! (Mostly the Australian is probably going to be lazy and not show up.)
 


This week we talked about Bear Cancer, 2000AD, robot feels and of course our main topic, "Everything you knew about them was WRONG!!" Oh, and there was that thing at the end where we look at an obscure Marvel character.

Field Guide after the jump, including some important visual links.

Creepin' Creeps

"Meet the Men Behind the Creeper," a text piece from 1968’s Showcase #73, the issue that introduced DC’s jester of justice himself - the Creeper! As usual, Steve Ditko is ridiculously tight-lipped about his personal life, so instead we get an in-depth look at Creeper’s co-creator, Don Segall. So far as I have discerned, “The Coming of the Creeper" and a single Inferior Five story were Segall’s only work at DC, with the rest of his time in comics spent at Tower and Dell (where he wrote about half of Kona, Monarch of Monster Isle, and may have created Dell’s bizarre superheroic versions of Dracula and Frankenstein).

After the initial Creeper story, Segall apparently left comics for television writing. Sadly, he passed away in 1994, but master comics historian Mark Evanier has a lovely write-up on him here.