comix

Comix Zone
$79.00
To me, this is one of the best beat em up games of all time, not to mention you can get it for a pretty cheap price. The whole comic book theme is very fun to go through, with different panels and pages. They even have those dialogue bubbles when they talk, and (sometimes) the evil guy draws the enemies you have to defeat. People actually think this game is repetitive-are you kidding me? There are so many different enemies that I never got bored playing it. I haven't played too many of these side-scrolling (more like panel-jumping) punch kick games, but I had a very good time playing this one. If you have a Genesis, just go out and get it. If you don't, get a Genesis for maybe $20-40, because there is an abundance of good title on the Genesis, and get this game along with all of the Sonic the Hedgehog ones. There's only one bad thing about this game, and I don't think this one thing should stop you from getting this awesome game. It is just VERY challenging, and I mean it's challenging. Sometimes it's a fun challenge, other times you'll feel like never playing the game again. This only means the levels take a while to master, and I think they should have made the health gauge a tad bit longer. You only get one health gauge, and it is VERY hard to keep it up most of the time. Other than that, this game is very fun, and you don't have to be willing to sit through it to play it-you only have to be willing to have fun. I think this should have been named a classic, because it's almost as good as Street Fighter 2 (the Genesis version)but maybe it wasn't named a classic because it wasn't too well recognized. Get it, play it, enjoy it.

COMIX: A HISTORY OF COMIC BOOKS IN AMERICA BY LES DANIELS
$8.00
I am still amazed that my small town library had a copy of Comix: a History of Comic Books in America back in the 1970's. At that time I was about 10 or 12 years old and this book was fascinating, lurid, and felt somehow naughty to a kid who read Marvel superheroes and DC war comics. Looking at the book now, I realize it was one of the earliest books to take a serious look at the American comic book.

This book features reprints of complete stories by most the medium's greats. The ones that made the biggest impression on me were Harvey Kurtzman's "Big If" from Frontline Combat, and George Tuska's "Baby Face Nelson vs. the U.S.A." from Crime Does Not Pay. Just the reprints from Warren Publishing line of horror magazines made this book a terrifying treat from my young eyes: "The Success Story," Archie Goodwin's and Al Williamson's classic tale of comic strip artist makes a few too many compromises to meet those deadlines, Goodwin and Joe Orlando's graphic Vietnam war tale "Landscape," and Wally Wood's "The Curse." Yes, Wood's art in that is a step down from his 1950's heyday, but it shines nonetheless. I think the naked girl cavorting through the story appealed to me too. The final page page of Reed Crandall's "The Squaw" gave me nightmares. There was also a chapter on undergrounds that was my first exposure to Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton.

Another standout that freaked my out was Jim Steranko's masterwork "At the Stroke of Midnight" (from Marvel's Tower of Shadows #1). This book also supplied my first (knowing)exposure to Carl Barks with a great story about Uncle Scrooge and his money bin.

All the stories in Daniels' just whetted my appetite for more of these. But back in 1973-1975 I wasn't even aware of comic fandom or the back issue trade. They didn't carry any of this stuff at the local 7-11. Later on, when Russ Cochran's EC Library volumes became available and I discovered a comic shop with back issues of Creepy and Eerie I was able to glut my appetite for this stuff. But until then, this was heady stuff for a 12 year old kid, and I'm grateful to the librarian who ordered this book and put it on the shelf where I could get to it.

Comics, Comix & Graphic Novels: A History Of Comic Art
$29.95
I had this book for a class a little while ago and I have to agree with my professor that this book skips over a lot of important stuff in the "history of Comic Art". There is not nearly enough info about main stream publishers (Marvel and DC) and yet there are pages upon pages of independent works from the 70's. Don't get me wrong it's valuable information, BUT it's not balanced. It's like this book was written in the early 80's and written based on personal experiences and comic book tastes rather than hard research.

Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution
$34.99
I've seen several of these books and I think this is the best of the lot. I was very impressed with the total vision of the book.