Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Super Adventure Album #1: A bumper issue of vintage DC comics


I don’t know how I missed this issue the first time around. I can pretty much recall owning most of the Super Adventure issues immediately before and after this issue, but not this one.

I was certainly familiar with the ‘new’ Super Adventure logo, which had been appearing on Planet Comics issues for a few years by the time this first issue of Super Adventure Album hit the stands in 1976.

And I doubt the transition from Super Adventure Comic to Super Adventure (3 issues) to Super Adventure Album would have caused much of a continuity blip as far as my antenna was concerned at the time. After all, the Justice League of America cover feature was still present and accounted for.

If anything, the cover image should have attracted my attention, being a reformatted version of the Planet Comics advertisement which was everywhere in these comics at the time (sourced from 80-Page Giant Magazine G-8, March 1965).

All I know is that I didn’t see a copy of this issue until the last five years or so, and it may as well have been an ‘unseen’ pre-decimal issue.

Which is not as much an exaggeration as it seems, for this issue is a bumper issue of vintage DC comics, featuring Superman from 1946, The Flash from 1947, The Justice Society of America from 1948, Green Arrow from 1952 – and, to top it all off, a Silver Age classic - the origin of The Justice League of America from 1962.

Of course each of these reprints reflects contemporary sources, and you can check all the nitty-gritty details here on James’ site.

All in all it’s a great example of how the Murray crew could contrive a new issue from miscellaneous material, complete with a homemade cover, and end up with a standout issue.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Tracking I, Vampire.


Late last year I briefly noted a one-shot issue titled Villain of the Supernatural which mainly contained reprints of the I, Vampire series originally published in House of Mystery #’s 305-310.

The I, Vampire series originally began in House of Mystery #290 and, with a few breaks in between, continued through to #321.

The first instalments of this series - House of Mystery #’s 290-291, 293, 295, 297, 299 and 302-304 – were reprinted by K.G. Murray in the one-shot magazine-sized I…The Cursed.

So in terms of tracking the series of I, Vampire reprints in the K.G Murray titles, I…The Cursed is ‘Volume 1’; Villain of the Supernatural is ‘Volume 2’; and ‘Volume 3’ is… well, assuming it exists, I’ll let you know as soon as I find out!