[boox909]

Hey gang! 

While lurking at the local comics shop, I found a copy of Thunderbunny #4 (Warp Graphics, Dec. 1985) in the quarter-bin (btw, you know you've made it when you end up in the quarter-bin).

In this issue, Thunderbunny (whom I would say is a send up to Hoppy the Marvel Bunny) teams up with Golden Man (formerly Golden Lad) to force The Clown (old Magno & Davey villian) to find the location of The Keeper (aka the Crypt Keeper), who has been running a service to keep superheroes on ice via suspended animation.

Various heroes are seen in their suspended animation cynlinders. On the cover I recognize "War Nurse", "Black Cat", "Skyman", "Cat-Man", "DareDevil", and "The Avenger". From interior shots I recognize "Mr. Monster", "The Owl" (Dell), "The Target", "Miss Victory", and "Magno".

While Thunderbunny and Golden Man are not able to rescue the frozen heroes, they do sorely vex The Keeper and send The Clown into a long-term retirement.

The issue is wonderful and represents the seeding spirit of Golden Age fandom! This seed, I would argue, led to the formation of the online Golden Age fan efforts of "Boucher, Nolan, and Rogers", which in turn birthed the energy that led to our wonderful GA-UK site (and obviously many others).

I lost my issues of Thunderbunny a long while back, so this issue brought back warm feelings for me. Now, I am resolved to track down the run, along with the various appearances of Thunderbunny.

This is going to be fun!!!
B. 

[phabox]

HA ! To bad I missed this one, sounds like a better plot than "Project Superpowers" mind you that not hard, pretty pictures but IMO a rambling plotline that seems to be going nowhere fast !

Also I feel that some liberties are being taking with a number of the characters.

I Was buying this series from my local comic book shop but have now CANCELLED my order !

Not to say I might not still D/L the odd new edition from time to time 

-Nigel

[boox909]

HA ! To bad I missed this one, sounds like a better plot than "Project Superpowers" mind you that not hard, pretty pictures but IMO a rambling plotline that seems to be going nowhere fast !

Also I feel that some liberties are being taking with a number of the characters.

I Was buying this series from my local comic book shop but have now CANCELLED my order !


-Nigel

That is the crux of Superpowers for me, there is no 'love of fandom' in its pages in my opinion. Call me whiny, but at least Roy Thomas' material for DC and Marvel had a sense of 'love of fandom' in it. All-Star Squadron did much to introduce people to the old characters, and The Invaders is still such a classic 'must read' that Marvel has placed it into their Essentials series. Memo to DC: Give All-Star Squadron the Showcase treatment please.

I truly believe that Superpowers will fade into the footnotes of comics history with little lament, except from those who purchased it thinking they could place it in their retirement portfolio (remember the poor folks who "invested" in Valiant -- OY!).

B.

[rez]

remember the poor folks who "invested" in Valiant -- OY!).

or Image or Defiant  :o0

[boox909]

remember the poor folks who "invested" in Valiant -- OY!).

or Image or Defiant  :o0

I never thought much of investing in Image -- I mean, how can you sanely invest in contemporary comics that were posting numbers hovering around one million? Defiant -- I enjoyed Dark Dominion, but never in a zillion years would I invest in any comic book put out after 1964.

[rez]

I dunno, just think if you'd bought a stack of Amz Spiderman 129s or Incred. Hulk 180s off the racks and stashed them away.

Be a happy camper right about now.

remember the poor folks who "invested" in Valiant -- OY!).

or Image or Defiant  :o0

I never thought much of investing in Image -- I mean, how can you sanely invest in contemporary comics that were posting numbers hovering around one million? Defiant -- I enjoyed Dark Dominion, but never in a zillion years would I invest in any comic book put out after 1964.

[boox909]

I dunno, just think if you'd bought a stack of Amz Spiderman 129s or Incred. Hulk 180s off the racks and stashed them away.

Be a happy camper right about now.

remember the poor folks who "invested" in Valiant -- OY!).

or Image or Defiant  :o0

I never thought much of investing in Image -- I mean, how can you sanely invest in contemporary comics that were posting numbers hovering around one million? Defiant -- I enjoyed Dark Dominion, but never in a zillion years would I invest in any comic book put out after 1964.

I of course stand corrected!!! 

B. 

[John C]

I dunno, just think if you'd bought a stack of Amz Spiderman 129s or Incred. Hulk 180s off the racks and stashed them away.
Be a happy camper right about now.

That might be true, but I bet you'd be a happier camper if you regularly sold something at a smaller profit but more regularly than once every fifty years.  Not only would you be able to "get out" at any time without taking a loss, but you'd have actual revenue and wouldn't need to worry if Major Inapak will strike and reveal an entire warehouse filled to the brim with old Spideys.

Collectables are generally a terrible way to invest, unless you bought them TO collect and are now trying to get rid of them.  In other words, you invest with hindsight, not foresight.  There's a reason that the only dealers who stay in business drive a hard bargain, after all.

In the meantime, though, I'll have to see if I can track down a copy of the Thunderbunny issue.  Sounds like fun, which has been sorely lacking in comics for quite a while.

[rez]

Comicdom will never be the same after collectoritus hit in the 80s with all the wannabe dealers suddenly showing up wanting a piece of the action as they did with baseball cards. They couldn't care less for collecting on their own but were soley involved only for the dollars.

That ship flew straight up and crashed down just as fast but the damage of attention had been done. Then later when CGC and others hit the field with the encasement grading system and highgrade comics came into great demand among investors alot is all over except the shouting.

Personally, I fully expect to see paper reading go the way of the 8track and cassette eventually being treated more as a novelty as more technical fields of presentation for the stories continue to be thrust into the media.

Who knows if there will be download subscriptions for new comics or monthly dvd style recordings sent out of your favorite characters. There's a new world cresting the horizon.

[Yoc]

But there still is same problem as always with reading digital scans Rez.
How can you do it with something easy to use, that has a screen large enough to read a full page of a comic on it, and has a battery life longer than 30mins.  Oh, and is under 3 lbs?
I've tried reading on a notebook and it wasn't much fun!  That 'eInk' seems close to what we want but so far it's only in b&w.  But otherwise it's everything I ever wanted in a reader.
Fingers crossed they bring out a four-colour version one day!
Until then there's just no denying there's something special about reading a Real book or Comic!

[rez]

I was thinking more along the lines of pen and ink being replaced with a digital graphics compilation via disk, downloads or whatever. Technology's advancements are so amazing in the film media that it makes one wonder where it will end.

Seeing the quality and popularity of the new superhero films one can know this is never going to end, catching the attention of the bygone era readers and introducing the wonderment of the comic heroes to whole new generations many times that involved in intial comicdom.

I mean I love paper and ink and hope it never vanishes into a specialty secondary limbo, but how can it contend with the modernday presentation of the past regenerated into the massive juggernaut it is morphing into?

"Hey Joey, did you see this month's FF video yet?"

But there still is same problem as always with reading digital scans Rez.
How can you do it with something easy to use, that has a screen large enough to read a full page of a comic on it, and has a battery life longer than 30mins.  Oh, and is under 3 lbs?
I've tried reading on a notebook and it wasn't much fun!  That 'eInk' seems close to what we want but so far it's only in b&w.  But otherwise it's everything I ever wanted in a reader.
Fingers crossed they bring out a four-colour version one day!
Until then there's just no denying there's something special about reading a Real book or Comic!

[John C]

How can you do it with something easy to use, that has a screen large enough to read a full page of a comic on it, and has a battery life longer than 30mins.  Oh, and is under 3 lbs?

I'll plug the One Laptop Per Child "XO Laptop" again, because those are almost precisely the specifications.  I don't think it'll solve world hunger to give starving farmer kids an opportunity to play Tetris or even download classic literature, but if you can envision reading a comic off a screen that's about the size of a mass market paperback novel and don't mind learning a little Linux work to install software, I'd recommend it for reading, at least.

It's just about three pounds, rugged (I've knocked mine onto tile floor more than once), and the battery lasts for about three or four hours with a surprisingly fast recharge.  And the screen is one the niftiest things I've ever seen, sunlight-readable in black and white.

Finding them might be a problem, just now, but I believe I read that they're going to redo the "Give One Get One" program later this month to raise donations.  I'm probably going to get a spare so I can mess around with the mesh network, personally.

"Hey Joey, did you see this month's FF video yet?"

Heh.  I dare you to watch the Watchmen "Motion Comic" (on iTunes, I believe) and remain that excited about the possibilities...

More seriously, as I've said elsewhere, I've outlived the death of the printed word, only to wake up in Harry Potter's America, where kids carry around books that outweigh them and debate thematic nuances and continuity minutiae.  I also outlived the death of radio and woke up in the land of XM and Sirius.

Comics may have to change distribution to remain profitable, it's true, but I doubt there'll be a wholesale transition to video, if only because comics are far cheaper to produce and thus represent a smaller risk to the company.

[rez]

but I doubt there'll be a wholesale transition to video, if only because comics are far cheaper to produce and thus represent a smaller risk to the company.

Presently so, but with so many advancing changes happening continuously there has to be an epoxy elixer arriving sooner or later marrying the best of both worlds.

[John C]

I don't know about that.  Look at it this way:  For a comic book, you need to pay a writer, penciller, inker (everybody else is almost certainly a staffer or semi-automated, these days).  For a cartoon, you need all of those, plus multiple animators and voice talent.

The guys at the Blender Project have shown that a small team can produce a decent cartoon relatively cheaply ("Elephants Dream" and "Big Buck Bunny"--both recommended and available free, by the way), and Joss Whedon shocked everybody with the quality of the live action musical "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" (also recommended and available free through Hulu for the duration), but they were all designed from the start as low-budget and produced as semi-volunteer efforts.

Again, that's not to say that it can't (or shouldn't) happen, but...well, there's a reason that novels and textbooks haven't been replaced by audio dramatizations and the newspaper comic strips haven't become more complicated.  Unless you cut a lot of corners (which makes an inferior product or leaves people unpaid), you can never make video cheaper than a comic.

[rez]

you can never make video cheaper than a comic.

Yes, in the presentday but I'm directing my comments to the progression of time and techno advancements, not meaning it is going to happen next year or the next as much as saying I believe that is the direction comicdom seems to be heading.

Looking at how much change has taken place from the introduction of pong and space invaders comparing to today's advanced interaction gaming.

[DOC]

Hey gang! 

While lurking at the local comics shop, I found a copy of Thunderbunny #4 (Warp Graphics, Dec. 1985) in the quarter-bin (btw, you know you've made it when you end up in the quarter-bin).

In this issue, Thunderbunny (whom I would say is a send up to Hoppy the Marvel Bunny) teams up with Golden Man (formerly Golden Lad) to force The Clown (old Magno & Davey villian) to find the location of The Keeper (aka the Crypt Keeper), who has been running a service to keep superheroes on ice via suspended animation.

Various heroes are seen in their suspended animation cynlinders. On the cover I recognize "War Nurse", "Black Cat", "Skyman", "Cat-Man", "DareDevil", and "The Avenger". From interior shots I recognize "Mr. Monster", "The Owl" (Dell), "The Target", "Miss Victory", and "Magno".

While Thunderbunny and Golden Man are not able to rescue the frozen heroes, they do sorely vex The Keeper and send The Clown into a long-term retirement.

The issue is wonderful and represents the seeding spirit of Golden Age fandom! This seed, I would argue, led to the formation of the online Golden Age fan efforts of "Boucher, Nolan, and Rogers", which in turn birthed the energy that led to our wonderful GA-UK site (and obviously many others).

I lost my issues of Thunderbunny a long while back, so this issue brought back warm feelings for me. Now, I am resolved to track down the run, along with the various appearances of Thunderbunny.

This is going to be fun!!!
B. 

I have that issue, great stuff. Jerry Ordway worked on it at one point when he was in INTER-FAN.
Boucher? what was first name??? Oh Chris you kidder.
Yeah I only liked the SP due to the Ross art but don't kniow if I'll contine. The Twelve is kewl.
Yeah DC should do an All Star Squadron and possibly someday.

[DOC]

Found this:

[John C]

Boucher? what was first name???

Richard.  He shows up here, from time to time, but I believe he's been off working on a business venture of some sort.

[DOC]

Oh yes I saw him on one the Yahoo sites. Is he just a collector? Does he have his own site?

[John C]

I believe he runs a series of Yahoo groups, which he had been planning to centralize as a website.  Someone else might know better than I do, but if you plug "Boucher" into the search box at the top of the page and ignore the posts where you introduced yourself, you can probably pick up the trail.

[DOC]

Thank you sir! 

[BountyHunter]

Oooh.  Skyman is in this book.  Better go track down a copy right now.

[Yoc]

Richard B has had a series of very unpleasant health and employment issues since he started his Yahoo groups.
We all hope he can return to the fold but i wouldn't hold my breath on a site appearing unless he finds a capable web savy partner.

GL on everything Richard,
-Yoc

[DOC]

Richard B has had a series of very unpleasant health and employment issues since he started his Yahoo groups.
We all hope he can return to the fold but i wouldn't hold my breath on a site appearing unless he finds a capable web savy partner.

GL on everything Richard,
-Yoc

Hope things turn around for him, that seems to be a Boucher curse, as I have dealt with all that and still am on some levels.