1. The fact that there was once a Bizarro who wore a Jerry Lewis mask
2. Will Elder
3. Jack Kirby (especially KAMANDI and OMAC)
4. AMERICAN FLAGG!
5. “Foul Play!” (that EC story where they take the guy apart and play baseball with him)
6. Any Jimmy Olsen story
7. THE SPIRIT
8. Evan Dorkin, especially the “Eltingville” stories
9. HELLBOY
10. Betty Brant ala Steve Ditko
11. FLEX MENTALLO, especially the last issue
12. FINALS, HERO, AQUAMAN, etc. (They’re mine, so I’m grouping them.)
13. Chris Ware
14. NEXUS, especially when he briefly turned into the Fat Elvis
15. Christmas stories from DC’s Golden Age comics
16. Harvey Kurtzman
17. Alan Moore
18. LOVE AND ROCKETS, especially the Locas stories
19. PHOEBE ZEIT-GEIST by Michael O’Donoghue
and Frank Springer
20. Anything by Dan Clowes
21. This scene from V FOR VENDETTA (and plenty others)
22. Not so much Tijuana Bibles themselves, but more the fact that they actually existed
23. “Bringing Back Father!” by Kurtzman, Elder and Krigstein, from MAD
24. Matt Feazell
25. Ivan Brunetti
26. Those Mighty Comics heroes from the swingin’ ‘60s
27. The Composite Superman
28. JLA: EARTH 2 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
29. DC’s Go-Go checks
30. J. Jonah Jameson
31. DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN
32. The book collection WONDER WARTHOG AND THE NURDS OF NOVEMBER (if you ever see it, get it!)
33. “Murder, Morphine and Me!” by Jack Cole
34. POWERS, especially “Who Killed Retro Girl?”
35. Ace the Bat Hound
36. Mini comics
37. REID FLEMING and HEARTBREAK COMICS by David Boswell
38. Jim Aparo
39. The Fortress of Solitude
40. MAD LOVE by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm
"The Geafil Invasion," a comic by my little brother Matt, circa 1978
41. Any comic drawn by a little kid
42. WATCHMEN
43. Stan “The Man” Lee
44. Green Lantern’s oath
45. CAPTAIN KENTUCKY by Don Rosa
46. The comics of Jack T. Chick
47. Wally Wood, especially “Super-Duper Man!” and “Flesh Garden!," and the design of Power Girl's costume
48. The comics of Jay Geldhof, Mark Ricketts, Craig Russell, Rob Ullman and Galen Showman (my pals)
49. THE COWBOY WALLY SHOW by Kyle Baker
50. THE HECKLER by Keith Giffen and Co.
51. Jim Steranko’s NICK FURY, AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D.
52. “Ducks Yas Yas” by Robert Crumb
53. “Hippy House” and other Buddy Bradley
stories by Peter Bagge
54. Curt Swan
55. The Mid-Ohio Con
56. The NOT BRAND ECCH art of Marie Severin
57. Dick Sprang
58. “Pictopia” by Alan Moore, Don Simpson and Co.
59. ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN
60. Stilt Man (I mean, c'mon! How can you not love him?)
61. This comic from an old issue of LOOK MAGAZINE where Superman drags Hitler and Stalin in front of The League of Nations
62. HOWARD THE DUCK (the comic, for Pete’s sake – not the movie!)
63. JLA: WELCOME TO THE WORKING WEEK by Patton Oswalt and Patrick Gleason
64. Red Kryptonite
65. The 1950’s Batmobile
66. CEREBUS: HIGH SOCIETY by Dave Sim
67. Goody Rickels from Kirby’s JIMMY OLSEN run
68. FROM HELL, especially the “Tour of London” issue
69. Jay Stephens’ LAND OF NOD TREASURY
70. THE AMBUSH BUG STOCKING STUFFER
Cover of the Nov. 1994 Small Press Syndicate newsletter Rap Sheet by yours truly
71. Any use of a super-intelligent gorilla
72. "The Insult That Made a Man out of Mac” Charles Atlas ad
73. That big penny in the Bat Cave
74. “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”
75. SCARY GODMOTHER by Jill Thompson
76. The old video comics that Nickelodeon used to run in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s (Anyone remember these? Anyone?)
77. “The Man Who Couldn’t Stop” by Chester Brown
78. Those Superman commercials with Jerry Seinfeld
79. The original Flash’s helmet
80. MINIMUM WAGE by Bob Fingerman
81. This scene from Grant Morrison’s ANIMAL MAN
82. The final battle between Miracleman and Johnny Bates
83. THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN (again, the comic, not the movie)
84. Lois Lane becomes black (albeit briefly)
85. Krypto (and the whole Legion of Super-Pets)
86. Brian Bolland’s story in BATMAN: BLACK AND WHITE
87. Paul Pope
88. The book SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT, mostly for the breathtakingly evocative phrase “there are pictures within pictures for children who know how to look”
89. The Silver Age Superman Story “The Night of March 31st”
90. INVENTING COMICS by Scott McCloud
91. THE POOR BASTARD by Joe Matt
92. COMIC BOOK HEAVEN by Scott Saavedra (the magazine and the blog)
93. THE ROCKETEER (the comic…and, OK, the movie too)
94. Any scene in Spider-Man where Steve Ditko drew Spidey’s face on one-half and Peter Parker's on the other
95. Harvey Kurtzman’s JUNGLE BOOK
96. THE SHADOW by either O’Neill/Kaluta or Helfer/Baker
97. The sheer craziness of the Golden Age Spectre
98. Clark Kent
99. John Severin’s art in CRACKED MAGAZINE
100. Ads for X-Ray Spex (of course)
9 comments:
You forgot PRIMAL FORCE!
pretty great list there Will--and I'm delighted that you made an exception for the Rocketeer film...it's so great! and those schizo-spidey drawings would be right up there in my book too!
very nice to see a bit of Cerebus on there too--how far did you make it with the book?
Dave
I started reading CEREBUS in the early 30s, right around the "Moon Roach" era -- I was a big Moon Knight fan at the time, and Sim's satire was enough to lure me in. I caught up on the back issues with the phone books, then stuck around through both volumes of CHURCH AND STATE -- what's that? 100 or so? Kept meaning to go back and catch up, but I haven't so far.
And what can I say? I love Ditko's (and Stan's) Spider-Man. The perfect distillation of a super-hero comic, if you ask me.
Well played, Pfeifer.
Man, I loved those video comics when I was a kid! That's where I discovered SUGAR AND SPIKE and gained a true appreciation for Silver Age Adam Strange, Flash and Green Lantern stories.
What's funny is that my wife doesn't believe me that they existed. And I still think of them every time I hear "Ride of the Valkyries."
Holy moley, that Wertham quote is brilliant. In a different context it sounds like something Neil Gaiman would put in a fantasy story.
The sad thing is, the FIRST time I ever heard "Ride of the Valkyrie" was on those video comics. I still remember the way the announcer would really ham up everything -- "Weapons Watches of the Time Wise Guy" is a phrase that still sticks in my head!
Nice use of the old "Rap Sheet" cover, dawg! Ah, them was the days of wine and glory...
Those RAP SHEET days were fine days indeed. Every so often, I grab my stack of those old 'zines and give them a read. Fun stuff, and some of the most pure enjoyment I've ever had in comics.
Post a Comment