COMICS
- TheGO2 Geeks
- Silver-Aged Dave
- AFTA Comics
- Regie Simmons IFBB Pro
- DS Comics
- Earl Grey
- Comics with Bueller
- Wallace Ryan
- ComicTom 101
- Pop Culture Philosophers
- SleepyReader666
- Professor Thorgi
- Metarog
- Chycho
- ETA Nick
- Nighttiger
- Comichyjinx
- LeeKirbyDitko
- CurtisCamron
- Farley’s Nerdcave
- Rwheatley0206
- Saddle City Comics
- Forest City Coins and Comics
- BargainHuntersThrift
- Area 51
- Arkham Comics las Vegas
- Comic Buying
- Tony Sanders
- Tony Tothe
- Tom Ryan
- DrVonChilla
- CaptainStrangeLife
- Simon Comics
- UltimateChance
- Thugie1
- Comic Book Ninja
- ComicHero77
- Comic News Network
- Gotham Comics
- HeroHunter81
- Longshanks_78
- Master X
- Lord Tatman
- Symphonic-Elk
- Knights_of_Old
- Jerno’s Comics
- YicketyYackety
- TJ Watson
- WhatCulture
- Wiebes TV
- Windy City Comic
- Yanni Gogolak
- Islord 372
- Batzman’s Classic Cars & Comics
- Mercenaut
I will be speaking on all these channels in more detail, regarding why they made my 2018 best of List.
I am going to start with the last on this list MERCENAUT and work my way up.
https://www.youtube.com/user/mercenaut
Mercenaut is on this list, not for being a White Supremacist or Black Activist ( inside joke, watch his channel) but for a single show he did in 2018, where he showed off a copy of CAPTAIN BRITAIN #8. With that episode, this guy along with the Epic Marvel Podcast and Afta Comics, started my hunt and love for Herb Trimpe covers in 2018. The CAPTAIN BRITAIN mag sported a STUNNING Herb Trimpe cover which is shown below.
Prior to that while i remember Herb Trimpe, I never really paid attention to how great of a cover artist he was. Between MERCENAUT’s showing, and the brilliant Trimpe Western cover’s that AFTA Comics showed, this year has very much been the year of collecting Herb Trimpe and Larry Leiber comics. Some of Trimpe ones I picked up this year are:
As great as Trimpe’s Super Hero Covers are (With his work on the INCREDIBLE HULK being arguably his finest) his western work which I did not get exposed to until this year, I love even more. Just look how much storytelling he puts into those covers.
In an age where modern comic covers no longer tell a story, largely are just pinups having nothing to do with the content of the book, Herb Trimpe was able to tell a great story using just the cover.
Thank You Mercenaut, Afta Comics, and Epic MArvel Podcast for putting the late great Herb Trimpe on my radar!!
Okay quick rant on variant/multiple covers.
Darn you Variant Covers!!! You are diluting the medium. You can not have an ICONIC issue and multiple covers. Now again everything in moderation. A variant cover here or there is fine, but it has become the rule rather than the exception.
As a consumer, buy what you like. But as the publisher/producer of this content too much choice in a market can be as harming as too little, if it generates confusion, and stymies adoption by potential readers, in favor of courting speculators.
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And that is just what is happening in the market place. In an effort to milk a diminishing audience, the mainstream publishers resort to the skankery of pimping multiple covers (yes I did just coin the word skankery 🙂 ) to the speculator segment, which harms the iconic nature of a work as much as alternative endings, to those of us who actually think books should be read.
To be iconic a thing must live memorable, in the shared consciousness and memory of the audience.
A memorable cover, or a memorable line, or a memorable poster, or a memorable ending. You think of Exorcist you think of a singular poster, You think of Casablanca you think of that ending, you think of Citizen Kane you think of that beginning, if you think of the original UNCANNY X-MEN 138, you think of the classic cover of Cyclops walking way from the X-MEN and toward the reader. And the background framed by all these beautiful UNCANNY X-MEN covers tinged in purple. For my money the single most beautiful and poignant X-men cover of all time, by John Bryne, another great artist,
That… for an image, or line, or scene, to stay memorable not just in your memory, but in the memory of a generation,… is to be iconic. People my age have a shorthand, a shared pop-culture language, that makes us part of a shared conversation.
Unfortunately people growing up on comics today, have no such singular, iconic cover or image to define a moment or a book. Because that one clear vision is muddied and diminished by multiple covers so the publisher can try and milk the speculator market, rather than serve the longer and more far reaching nature of creating something singular and memorable.
It’s the same way mainstream publishers are diluting their most popular characters with these shoddy imitations/iterations that only help to eradicate what was unique about the original character. You have now 15 variations of wolverine running around, Including one that is part Hulk, part Wolverine. Really? This is fan-fic, being done by the publishers, with no real consideration beyond milking the speculator market. They have strip-mined their own effectiveness as a sequential platform.Â
That and the price point of Marvel and DC Comics is why I have stopped getting them in periodic format. There is no reason the mainstream publishers can not hold their price point at $2.50 or $2.99 cents, and make a profit and sell millions of copies at that price point.
The movies and video games have done the hard work of providing name recognition to the masses,the publishers inability to translate the billions these characters make in other mediums to even millions in the comic medium, comes down to mismanagement and an outdated vision/model from the comic publishers.
So these days if I need a monthly comic, I gravitate to the Independents. If I hear good things about a mainstream storyline, I pick it up in collected format or rent it from my library.
And if I really yearn for the days of great iconic covers, in mainstream comics, well thankfully there are always great Herb Trimpe comics to pick up in back issues!
Thanks for reading, feel free to leave your comments or send emails! I will be covering other channels in upcoming updates.
Excelsior!!!
Heroic Times 