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With Further Ado #264: Look. Up in the Sky. It’s Off-Model!

With Further Ado #264: Look. Up in the Sky. It’s Off-Model!

Posted on by Ed Catto

We went to the Great New York State Fair this weekend and enjoyed every minute of it. It was kind of like San Diego Comic Con without all the superheroes. Check that – there were plenty of superheroes there.

So many T-shirts, inflatables and toys all adorned with Batman, The Avengers, Captain America and Spider-Man characters and/or logos. Many licensed products were on sale and many unlicensed products were too.

The New York State Fair, like many state fairs, I suppose, had buildings with 4-H club raised animals, homemade jams, jellies and baked goods and more -all competing for Blue Ribbons. But make no mistake, the Midway is where the action is. And on this midway, the most impressive, scariest ride was the Superman ride.

It was more like an overwhelming torture robot that Lex Luthor would have invented.* This ride would propel attendees into the stratosphere, and then whip them around a few times and spin them upside down.

I skewered my courage up and went on of a few these rides with my daughter Tess, but for this one …I just shook my head. I sheepishly muttered, “No way” and added “You are on your own for this one, Tess.” I felt like the Last Son of Krypton would have been disappointed by my lack of courage. Continue reading “With Further Ado #264: Look. Up in the Sky. It’s Off-Model!” →

With Further Ado #237: Start-Ups & Second Acts in Geek Culture

With Further Ado #237: Start-Ups & Second Acts in Geek Culture

Posted on by Ed Catto

One of the many great things about Geek Culture is the opportunity for “second acts”.

There’s an old gag that posits 97% of all comic fans want to work in comics, and the other 3% are lying. There’s probably a lot of truth in that.

I would guess the numbers aren’t as high for something like the music industry, for example. I love listening to music, but I have no talent and little aptitude to create music. I even hum off key.

This weekend, Saratoga Springs celebrated the annual Chowderfest. It’s an incredible time, as just about every restaurant and bar erects a Pop-Up to serve their own version of chowder. This annual event attracts so many locals as well as folks like us, who traveled there for the festivities. There were so many people enjoying this event. Along with so many tasty chowders. There were also long lines, more than a few hoisted beer mugs and lots of smiles. Continue reading “With Further Ado #237: Start-Ups & Second Acts in Geek Culture” →

With Further Ado #230: Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

With Further Ado #230: Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

Posted on by Ed Catto

Just like you (probably) did, I bought a few things for myself during the recent Yuletide Season. There’s this one antique shop that has old comic books on sale from time to time. Generally, they are wildly mispriced, but every once in a while you can find a treasure. And hey, who am I to say what’s the “real price” on any particular old comic? I’ll leave that to J.C. Vaughn, the guiding force behind Gemstone’s annual Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide.

Let’s focus a bit on romance comics. When I was a kid, we drew imaginary lines in the imaginary sand, and would never buy or read “girls’ comics”. Forget it! We were men.

[Except when we went to the Orthodontist. They had tons of Archie comics in the waiting rooms. (Back then, Archie offered an incredible subscription program to dentists’ offices). Somehow, we could shoehorn that exception into our rigid sense of self and burgeoning masculinity.]

Fast forward to today: I am always eager to snag a vintage romance comic! There are so many unexpected delights packed into each one. You never know if you’ll stumble across spectacular art (I’m a nut for Jay Scott Pike), oddball stories, or totally antiquated relationship advice to laugh at with my wife. Continue reading “With Further Ado #230: Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places” →

With Further Ado #177: Speeding into Christmas

With Further Ado #177: Speeding into Christmas

Posted on by Ed Catto

As we speed ahead towards Christmas Day, either from a religious or commercial POV, I sometimes find it hard to slow down and actually enjoy the many events along the way. Too often my mind races ahead, eager to check off that mental to-do list rather than focus on the here-and-now.

With that in mind, I rescued a wonderful Archie Comic issue from a comic shop’s bargain box!  Wonderland Comics in Rochester, NY, always has so many scrumptious treasures available.

It’s Laugh #203 from February 1968, which means it was probably on sale around Christmas of 1967.  Veronica, Betty and Mr. Lodge are admiring a retailer’s window, which features paper dresses. This was a short-lived fad, popular from ’66 to ’68.  Current movie fans may have revisited this craze in the stylish new movie Last Night in Soho. It’s a brilliant movie and highly recommended.

Cover 4

Back when magazines were a big deal, advertising executives called the back cover “Cover 4”.  It was usually the most expensive ad page. The thought process was that readers had a 50-50 chance of seeing the front cover or the back cover.

Cover 4 for this issue features a wonderful Christmas Ad. It’s curious to readers today but certainly was “normal” back in the day.  Kids loved their bicycles a generation or two ago.  Bike ads, and ads for bike related items (tires, brakes, speedometers, etc.).

This ad, from the Stewart-Warner Instrument Division (obviously not named in hopes of creating Christmas “must-haves” for kids) for their Cadet Speedometer.  It’s a special speedometer that kids would put on their bikes.

Today, of course, bikers like me just use the Strava app.  Yes, there’s now an app that has replaced this product.

This wonderful ad has the Mad Men feel to it. It’s clever and upbeat. It’s not particularly inclusive to consumers who don’t celebrate Christmas, either. The copy [the words in the ad] were thoughtfully written and creatively designed, with an alternating placement, as if two speakers were “talking” (or singing?) to the reader.  And back in 1968, it was assumed that kids were going READ the damn ad. It wasn’t about one big graphic image and a logo; instead, it was about romancing the consumer with a conversation.

There’s no focus on product benefits here. This ad isn’t about the joy a bike rider can experience when she’s whooshing down a steep hill at top speed.  This ad is all about the product features instead. Continue reading “With Further Ado #177: Speeding into Christmas” →

With Further Ado #132: Uncovered Delights

With Further Ado #132: Uncovered Delights

Posted on by Ed Catto

I find that as fans get deeper and deeper into comics, we often develop a slavish respect for the comic books themselves. While originally designed to be a cheap, disposable medium, the standard comic book becomes a thing of awe.

For example, I recently purchased a 1950s issue of Boy Comics for my dad as a Christmas gift. When I read it before I gave it to him (‘natch), I carefully placed the book on my drafting table. I gingerly turned the pages, keeping the book as flat as possible. I kept my coffee far away to avoid any clumsy spills. When I was done I put the comic into a new Golden Age comic bag with a new acid free backing board.

When my dad read it, he sat in his favorite chair, snacked a little and bent back the cover. “That was great,” he told me. He clearly enjoyed it, and he did it without that collector’s mentality. There was a time when I would have scolded him and explained things like “condition”, spine-roll and “collectability”. Now I’m envious of the way he enjoys it all and kind of think, “that’s the way to do it.”

Maybe that’s why I enjoy coverless comics so much. In the old days, the newsstands would buy a bunch of comics and then return the ones that weren’t sold.  Over time, everyone realized it would be easier, and shipping would be less costly, to  just to rip off the covers, return those and destroy the leftovers. (Sometimes they just ripped off the top third, with the logo.)  But newsstand owners often would pass along the coverless comics, or even sell them at a discount.

A comic shop in Cortland, NY, Heroes and Villains, is “a little shop that could.” It’s run by a hard-working husband and wife team. They just acquired a stash of coverless comics and are now selling them for 50 cents each.

I scooped up a small stack and reading them is joyous. Because they are coverless, and essentially non-collectible, there’s no carefulness to the reading. I still can’t bring myself to curl back the pages, but the reading process is very casual for 50 year old comics.  And I’ll probably put most of them into my Halloween Giveaway Comics Box, in fact. Continue reading “With Further Ado #132: Uncovered Delights” →

With Further Ado #80: Digging for Treasure

With Further Ado #80: Digging for Treasure

Posted on by Ed Catto

I’m all about buried treasure lately. Next week I’ll tell you about my wild ride that led to the PIRATES book, soon to be published by Clover Press & Yoe Books.  But this week, I want to write about my travels to the exotic and mystical land called New Jersey, and my adventures in three comic shops and the treasures I found.

The Joker’s Child

The Joker’s Child, a long-lived comic shop nestled in the northern part of New Jersey, used to be my hometown store when I lived there. I brought my daughters, the Catto Girls, there when they were little. They are all grown up  now, and I was back in town to help celebrate one daughter’s bridal shower.  Tempus Fugit!

Continue reading “With Further Ado #80: Digging for Treasure” →

With Further Ado #071: Rescued from the Bargain Box

With Further Ado #071: Rescued from the Bargain Box

Posted on by Ed Catto

Bargain Boxes! I love them!

My mom was quite the shopper. She’d always come home from the stores and provide a detailed account of the amazing price she paid for each and every item, detailing the sales she’d find and the arcane combinations of coupons she’d use. Looking back, I think she just wanted to my dad to say, at the conclusion of her sales presentations, “Gee Cassie, you convinced me – you couldn’t afford to not buy it!”

There is great love between the two of the them, and anything she wanted to do was just fine with my dad.

I think (worry?) I inherited some of this discount mania from my Mom.  And one way it translates is with Comic Shop Bargain Boxes.

In some ways, the jury is out on these boxes. Some stores don’t like them. One of my favorite shops, The Joker’s Child in Fairlawn, NJ has never had them, subscribing to the notion that they devalue the new, full-priced product that’s on sale.  Other stores, like Comics For Collectors, in Ithaca, NY, always has a few bargain boxes ( 5 comics for a dollar).  For them, it’s a great way to blow through old inventory, and provide an occasional treasure that adds to a customer’s in-store experience.  Continue reading “With Further Ado #071: Rescued from the Bargain Box” →

With Further Ado #60: On Target with Green Arrow

With Further Ado #60: On Target with Green Arrow

Posted on by Ed Catto

I was excited to read the announcement that DC is creating another oversize book to challenge the stamina of bookcases everywhere. The Green Arrow by Mike Grell Omnibus Volume #1 will be published next year. This collects a series that was a real favorite of mine.

It was the late ’80s, which somehow quickly turned into the early ’90s, and this series was such a breath of fresh air. The ever-brilliant Mike Gold (You are most certainly reading his columns here on Pop Culture Squad) was the editor who famously teased writer/artist Mike Grell with a pitch consisting of two words: “Urban Hunter”.  Gold knew that a more modern approach to the character would appeal to Grell.  For many years, the Green Arrow had been strange sort of a hero that mixed the best parts of Batman with Robin Hood. But those silly days were long gone.  Grell signed onboard, intrigued by Mike Gold’s vision, and the rest is history.

This series started with Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, a mini-series with story and art by Grell.   Fans barely had time to catch their collective breath when Oliver (Green Arrow) Queen’s story continued in the regular comic. Mike Grell was still the writer, and supplied many memorable covers, but the art chores were initially handled by Ed Hannigan.  Dick Giordano and Frank McLaughlin impressively inked it. Continue reading “With Further Ado #60: On Target with Green Arrow” →

With Further Ado #006: Back Issue Bin Diving

With Further Ado #006: Back Issue Bin Diving

Posted on by Ed Catto

Everyone loves a bargain, right? And like many comic fans, I love finding lost treasures in a comic shop’s back issue bargain box. While I’ve never found an issue of Action #1 in a bargain bin, or even a friendly neighborhood garage sale, I am delighted and amazed that comics I find in these long white boxes. Like forlorn playthings trapped on the Island of Misfit Toys, these comics just need to find the right person to enjoy and appreciate them.

Now let’s be realistic.  If we all only spent money on back issues bargains, every comic store would go out of business.  But for shops, the bargain bin can be a way to invite customers in, add to a customer’s purchase or just blow-out inventory. And those are all good things. 

So, in the spirit, this column is a celebration of the recent treasures that I’ve rescued from back issue bargain bins, along with a little shout-out to each comic shop too.   Continue reading “With Further Ado #006: Back Issue Bin Diving” →