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Via Four Realities

1 COMMENT

  1. And I remember being interviewed by Heidi for said publication, back when there was an Open Season and a Renegade Press.

  2. Would like to see a story about the return of Jon B. Cooke’s “Comic Book Artist” . I believe he released his first new issue in along time with the help of Top Shelf. And it’s got a Pete Bagge cover.

  3. I loved the Amazing Heroes Preview specials more than almost any comic I was reading at the time. They were HUGE and all-around awesome. I still pull them out and read them every now and then…

  4. Wait, really? Great news, Citizen Cliff! Do you have a link?

    Also, I would totally buy an Amazing Heroes compilation produced in the same style as the recently released Comics Interview omnibus.

  5. I remember having this issue and absolutely loving it. Worth keeping for the cover alone.

    One of these AH preview deals worried the hell out of me though, it had a bit about an upcoming Flash series that apparently wouldn’t star the then-freshly anointed Wally West. For some reason I remember Len Wein being involved with it somehow? From what I recall, the concept actually sounded pretty close to what ended up being the Tangent Comics version of Flash. Wish I could reread that bit and compare the two now!

  6. I’m calling shenanigans on the Peter Bagge issue of Comic Book Artist.

    I don’t think that CBA has published a new issue since the (2005?) Eisner tribute issue. The Top Shelf website had posted a Peter Bagge cover image for CBA #7 for a very long time, and they kept promising that CBA would return.

    However, currently Top Shelf *only* lists CBA backlist up to issue #6.

    http://www.topshelfcomix.com/catalog/comic-book-artist

  7. Ah…. the preview issues are great, but I have an adolescent fondness for the swimsuit/pinup issues!

  8. Those Specials shaped my comics reading. I picked up the previous years issue (Hernandez cover) when the most cutting edge book I read was Power Pack. After reading it from cover to cover dozens of times I had started my journey into a wider world. I lived for those issues. I miss that sense of discovery.

  9. @Torsten: Mike DeCarlo’s hilariously disturbing image of June Cleaver doing her ironing remains for me one of the most memorable pin-ups from the Swimsuit Specials.

  10. My first paid writing was for The Preview Special; I still have a copy of the check. I was the small press specialist, calling up a couple dozen publishers every six months. I really loved it.

  11. And we loved talking to you when you called, Edd.

    I agree with the comments above, absolutely. To me, the cool part was the unfinished art that would run with the features: Miller’s first Dark Knight sketches, or Art Adams’ pencils for the New Mutants’ special. Awesome stuff.

  12. Well, believe it or don’t, Mr. (Ms.?) Comicsatemybrain, but COMIC BOOK ARTIST will be revived this year and will again list Top Shelf Productions as publisher. Just finished the Bagge interview/update with Peter at MOCCA this weekend and am in contact with a zillion WEIRDO contributors for that special section.

    TSP will be updating soon. The plan is to release print and digital editions of CBA, and we need to work out timing and frequency. I’m going to be very pragmatic about setting any kind of schedule as yours truly needs to maintain a full-time regular day job to feed the starving kids, unnerstand.

    Look for CBA, along with my brother and my Will Eisner documentary, sharing convention tables with Cliff “Rat Bastard” Galbraith at East Coast shows this year.

    Don’t have the website set up yet — all in good time — but you can check out for updates on my Facebook page and the CBA fan page at same… Thanks!

  13. The first thing I always looked for in each of these specials was to see how they were going to report the schedule of Neal Adams’ Ms. Mystic. I think my favorite was “Published at often amazing intervals.”

  14. I enjoyed AH as well, and recently came across a bunch during some re-organizing. I did enjoy the magazine and think I had some art published in the magazine very early in its run.

    If I recall correctly, AH was founded as a “kinder and gentler” sister publication to the Comics Journal, enabling Fantagraphics to provide coverage of mainstream/superhero comics without the baggage that came with TCJ for allegedly being “elitist.”