Welcome to a brief set of book reviews covering a relatively new publishing imprint, Pilum Press. Pilum is a venture started by Neal Durando who has experience in the old world of Big Six Five Four “Lumber Mill” publishing. He clearly wanted to bring back Adventure to the world of books. His observed solution: re-ignite…
Author: Man-of-the-Atom
Attack of the Silents: When Was the “Realism” Poison Injected into DC Comics’ Superheroes?
Post 01 Post 02 Post 03 Post 04 Post 05 Post 06 As discussed in the previous articles in this series, Marvel Comics’ deterioration began in 1968 after its sale to a corporate raider, and was exacerbated by the departure of Stan Lee from editorial and writing duties in 1972. The premier of Star Wars in 1977 and Jim Shooter’s…
What’s Gone Missing from US Comic Books and When Did It Go Away
Post 01 Post 02 Post 03 Post 04 Post 05 Post 06 To start this fifth post on comic book history and the search for “Marvel Magic”, we first return to Jim Shooter discussing his duties as Editor-in-Chief at Marvel Comics in 1978: “The comics business went into a steep decline in the ’50s and early ’60s. During that time…
Commercial Art, Not Cheating the Reader, and Dissecting the Superhero Trope
Post 01 Post 02 Post 03 Post 04 Post 05 Post 06 In this fourth post, I will tie off the distribution discussion by addressing two points that arose in discussion with commenters on Brian Niemeier’s blog and with some folks on other forums. The first point was an question about the range of impacts of the Thor Power decision….
Comic Book Distribution; Putting a Stop to ‘Characters Writing Themselves’
Post 01 Post 02 Post 03 Post 04 Post 05 Post 06 The Comic Book Distribution Story: Some Highlights and Lowlifes After spending over three days reading, re-reading, and making notes, it has become clear to me that Jim Shooter’s articles on distribution really can’t be effectively summarized. His three-post series is a concise and complete story of his experiences…
Comic Book Continuity, Timelines, and Verisimilitude
Post 01 Post 02 Post 03 Post 04 Post 05 Post 06 NOTE: While I didn’t mention it at the beginning of my first post, I want to make something clear about my posts on comic books: I do not strive to be either academically rigorous nor authoritative in my analysis. Other authors have spent a great deal of time…