The material presented here is believed under fair use, since it presents tiny sections of material for illustrative purposes. If you think otherwise, contact me and I'll remove it.
Who?
Search
I have a plethora of other new potential scans to put up soon - they're piling up on top of my scanner as we speak - but here's something fun from a 1993 issue of Marvel in-house promo comic Marvel Age which relates to both comics and video games.
Specifically, it's a two page article about how Marvel's comic book characters were flowing freely (often without much quality control!) onto the Sega Genesis, Nintendo Game Boy and SNES, and even the Sega Game Gear back in the early '90s - but it starts off with pre-release info on Capcom's 'Punisher/Nick Fury coin-op video game' for arcades.
There's a couple of interesting points for extreme video game geeks here - not least that the CPS2 title was eventually released as The Punisher, even though it still has Nick Fury in it too - presumably the name was changed to focus on the one, more famous character. You can also see the full, larger version of the Henry Flint art used for the arcade machine's header title art.
On the second page, there's discussion of the "rapidly expanding CD-ROM field", with pictures from The Amazing Spider-Man Vs. The Kingpin for Sega CD, which was indeed released: "The game also added two new levels, extra combat moves, the ability to collect reproductions of famous Spider-Man comic books issues, and an original musical score by the Mr. Big rock band." Woo!
There's also mention of an Acclaim version of Spider-Man for the Game Boy (which may be 'Invasion Of The Spider-Slayers on the Wikipedia list, I think?), and the U.S. Gold iteration of The Incredible Hulk for the Genesis - both of which were typically mundane cartridge-based superhero titles, I'm afraid. Still, The Punisher is pretty good!
Oop, sorry for the delay - quite a bit of overseas travel and further cataloging of the comic collection (stuck in early '90s superhero hell right now!) has meant some slowness in finding good new artifacts.
But here's one - First Amendment Publishing's two separate covers to He Said/She Said Comics Presents 'The Bill Clinton Story', from 1993 or so. This one's a bit of a doozy - there's a color centerfold picture of Hillary Clinton with a large battleaxe in a bikini standing in front of the White House, captioned 'Hilla The Hun'. In fact, it looks like this He Said/She Said thing was a bit of a running gag for the company - there's at least 6 issues done in that format, including a Woody Allen/Mia Farrow one which I sadly don't have.
So the 'He Said/She Said' comic series has two front covers to detail the dual views to the story, and does actually list a bunch of reasons why Flowers might not be telling the truth. But for all its obvious attempts to be a bit tawdry in telling the story of the alleged affair (this is all far before Monica Lewinsky, don't forget!), it's most interested in nailing Clinton on his policy failings.
In fact, the last page of the Gennifer Flowers side lists quotes from Clinton about tax relief, the Haitians, and homosexuals in the military, and has Flowers saying: "He said all the right things. But a man who will cheat on his wife... will lie to the American public." Strong stuff - but evidently not resonant enough, because I don't think First Amendment Publishing was around for a lot longer after this.
One of the boxes of comics I picked up recently had a whole collection of Marvel Age comics, which was Marvel's in-house promo comic in the '80s and early '90s, essentially - listing off upcoming series, interviews with creators, etc.
There's plenty of hilarity in the mag in general (like Stan Lee hyping about Spider-Man the movie, about 10 years before it actually happened!), but here's something neat - a mini-preview in 1991-ish for Epic's Sam & Max comic, which talks to the saintly Steve Purcell:
Looks like the comic reprinted on the page is actually from the Lucasfilm Games newsletter, since it stars the duo inside X-Wing Fighters and the like - lots of good quotes in there, sorry the scan is a little tricky to read in places - this is both for fair use and not-hi-res-enough-scanning reasons.
And you'll notice Purcell's good taste for co-creators, even back when Mike Mignola and Arthur Adams weren't quite so well known as they are now. Looks like at least one or two issues of the Epic comic came out, according to a handy Wikipedia entry - were there any more than that?
Some more retro comic book fun, perhaps, with Marvel's Star Trek comic book Issue #5 from 1980 - with the wonderfully sensationalist cover 'Dr McCoy... Killer?', and Mr. Spock yelling: 'Shoot the girl... or the Enterprise dies!' Can spaceships die? Odd.
[The Wikipedia page for Star Trek spinoffs notes: "Marvel's series of Star Trek comics began in 1979 with an adaptation of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and continued for another year... Marvel's license from Paramount prohibited them from utilizing concepts introduced in the original series, being restricted to only using the characters and concepts as they appeared in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The series lasted a total of 18 issues, ending in 1981."]
Of course, the other scan is a couple of panels from the final page of the book, which was written by Mike W. Barr and illustrated by Dave Cockrum and Klaus Janson, and including some awesome McCoy badinage to Spock: "Your pointy-eared Vulcan hide saved by primitive human emotions... it's somehow fitting!"
Another thing I've been doing recently is picking up boxes of comics on eBay. I was never really a comic book reader when I was a kid, and have got into it a little in recent years, partly for research on a superhero video game I worked on, but have only really picked up TPBs and focused on the Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Vertigo-type nexus until very recently.
Thus, these random short and long boxes I've grabbed over the past few weeks have included a few surprises (or, at least, surprises to me!), and I'll be featuring snippets here - starting with Batman Issue #447 from May 1990, titled 'When the Earth Dies! Chapter Three'.
As the synopsis explains: "The NKVDemon continues his murder spree, and before long there is only one name left on his list: President Gorbachev himself, who will be attacked on Earth Day."
This was just after the Berlin Wall fell and Communism was starting to disintegrate in Russia, so it's fascinating to see a Batman story set in Russia and featuring a Soviet government superhero who agonizes over West/East unification ("Now we permit that empire to flee us and rush toward the decadent West"). Oh, and it's an awesome Brian Bolland cover. See, superheroes can be relevant after all?
