Thursday, March 06, 2014

More Old Comics!

Recent additions to my comic book collection. It's been nice to add a few books after not being very active in the hobby for several months.

Fantastic Four #29. I now only need #20 to complete my run of the 20s numbering. This is a nice issue featuring the appearance of The Watcher, one of Jack Kirby's most fascinating creations. The ink work during this stretch was by Chic Stone. Some folk love his work, while others are not impressed. I was always generally happy with his inks, but I have always felt that he never really understood what Ben Grimm was all about, nor how to handle inking the character.

Tower Comics was a relatively short-lived company. But they had some of the best talent around, with Wally Wood leading not only their artist stable, but standing in as the man who was putting the company together. Wood had left Marvel after disputes with blowhard Stan Lee and took this opportunity to create some truly amazing superhero comics. I've often wondered what kinds of superhero comic EC might have produced if they'd not been driven out of business by the Comics Code Authority. I reckon Tower Comics is largely the answer to that question.

Wood's covers were absolutely stunning.

2 comments:

  1. At 25 cents apiece, these Tower comics were of interest to flip through on the spinner rack, but out of my reach when it came to paying for. Each one represented two "normal" Marvel comics!

    I just never took them seriously.

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  2. I could always tell how well comics in our neck of the woods sold by how many used copies my dad would buy in his used bookstores. So Tower Comics must have sold well, indeed, because he had TONS of them. Many multiples of every issue until the later numbers of THUNDER AGENTS.

    I suspect older people were buying them. Not the youngest kids, but teenagers and 20-something geeks who could afford the 25-cent price.

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