Our Grand Tour, Part 7: In Search of BD

While in Paris, we toured the Eiffel Tower, took a cruise down the Seine, visited Versailles, the Louvre, Musée D’Orsay, and the Legion of Honor. We also attended a fantastic after hours light show at Napoleon’s Tomb.

But priorities—I also visited comic book stores! 

In preparation, I Google mapped comics shops and bookmarked them before our trip. During that search, I came across the well known Forbidden Planet London Megastore and two stores in Paris’s Latin Quarter (which apparently is essentially a Frankified college town): Album Comics and nearby Pulp Comics. (By the way, the Paris stores are also within a stone’s throw of the English-language bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, founded in 1951, which took its  name from the one founded in 1919 at another location on the Left Bank, which closed in 1941. We stopped by there as well.)

All three are fantastic comic book stores with diverse selections, but surprisingly very focused on American mainstream comics. At Forbidden Planet in London, they were  well stocked with perennials like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. And when I visited, Forbidden Planet was hopping! I was impressed by the number of young people there (both teens and young adults), often in groups, talking about comics they were reading. I also noticed parents with their children.

But I really wanted to check out the native country’s comics selections. At Album Comics, I did purchase some French language comics I found.

After leaving Album Comics, I then visited Pulp Comics only about a block away. Then as I left the latter store, across the street, I spotted by happenstance what turned out to be what I was truly looking for, a separate Album sister store that focused on French language comics: Momie BD! (BD stands for bande dessinee, the French name for comics. There is also a nearby Momie Manga store.) 

As you’ll see from my photos of my haul, I went a bit nuts there! My primary goal was to buy a Ric Hochet comics album—I posted about Ric Hochet awhile ago, originally a ‘60s-era world traveling journalist who encounters adventure and mystery, who also happens to coincidentally resemble my own lead character (or, rather, the other way around). New Ric Hochet adventures are being published, the first few being translated in English, which I purchased as Kindle books and loved. Sadly, they stopped issuing English editions only after a few issues, but I recently realized that I could use my iPhone’s native Translate app to read them (an app, I should add, came in handy on this trip).

Anyway, the other legacy comics series I picked up was a comics adaptation of Lupin (based on a Japanese manga and animated property that itself was partly inspired by an old French gentleman thief character) and Michel Vaillant, about the adventures of a race car driver that I also was familiar with. The rest were all new and unknown to me, but the art was terrific. (The draftsmanship and technical craft of European cartoonists are amazing.) In fact, after the first visit, I even returned the next day to buy more. Even my wife was impressed by the comics, and I purchased an album and some merch (a Tintin pin) that interested her.

On my second visit, I also realized that just next door was a small shop that specialized in vintage and collectible comics albums, called Aaapoum Bapoum—though American comics were well represented, they were all French language. (You’ll see a Will Eisner/Spirit section in the photos.) I asked if they carried any Terry and the Pirates, which the shopkeeper then pulled off a bookshelf for me to look at, which you'll also see in the photos.

As an aside, I initially planned to bring some of my own comics just to share with the stores. However, when I looked into it, there were some custom laws that I found a little daunting, particularly in England, that seemed to technically require me to declare that I was carrying commercial goods that might be subject to VAT tax. At the end of the day, although I believe I was below the taxable thresholds, I decided not to risk any trouble with customs. All that said, when we arrived in London and Paris, aside from normal security checks, we encountered no checks whatsoever entering the countries. In fact, having gone through TSA at LAX, there was no security check when we stepped off the plane in the U.K.—all us passengers were just waved through. I only planned to bring two or three copies of each of my trades and some issues; in retrospect, I probably could have done so without a problem. I did bring along some promotional postcards and business cards, and shared them at Momie BD.

Tijuana Bibles

Happy Batman Day!

Jean Girard (Moebius) Mini-Documentary

Below is the documentary referenced in the post above:

Happy Birthday to The King!

The "King" at the Skirball

The DC Comics Work of Alex Toth

My Comics Stash (3)

As mentioned in recent posts, I’ve been sorting through and re-organizing my comics collection. Though I don't buy as many, I still had boxes of comics going back years (and, yes, decades) that I haphazardly threw my purchases into.

I began by separating them out into groups by publisher and/or series, like DC, Marvel, Image, Dark Horse, Fantagraphics, as well as some key runs and characters like The Spirit, American Flagg, Batman, etc.—indie comics are also a separate category. I’ve often found issues of both longterm and limited runs scattered among different boxes, so it’s been satisfying to consolidate some of these runs together, though I still have missing issues—I never considered myself a serious “collector," often just picking up whatever fancied my interest, so many of these gaps are simply comics I didn't purchase.

It’s been fun finding out what I have in my collection, even discovering that some items have some value. I must admit my long term goal is to unload some of this collection at some point—and to be honest, my primary goal is to shrink my collection, not to milk as much profit as I can. My preference would be to sell my collection in lots with the key issues as part of the mix, rather than simply sell individual key issues—otherwise, I’d just be left with comics nobody might otherwise want.

Years ago I began using a website, StashMyComics, to inventory and index my comics. It allows you to easily find a series and check off the issues you have, then save them in user-defined categories—in my case, I assigned each of my boxes a code number and use that number as the category in my account to identify the box where each item is stored. Though this data is saved in the user's account, it can also be downloaded as a spreadsheet, so the user can have their own backup copy. Though the website is still active, I recently learned that the website actually hasn't been updated with more recent comics. (Indeed, our of curiosity, I checked to see if Rob Hanes Adventures is in the system—I found that it is, but only up to issue 14!) This generally has worked out fine for me since many of my comics are older. 

There are some comics—mostly small obscure indies and publishers—so I keep a separate spreadsheet list of those, using the StashMyComics spreadsheet as a template so that I can combine it with the master spreadsheet to create one single spreadsheet of my collection.

I actually plan to take a break since because this project has been extremely time consuming the past few weeks, and I need to attend to other priorities. I actually still have a few boxes to get through, but getting a good portion of my collection sorted out, seeing what I have on hand, and placing them into boxes in a more organized fashion has been gratifying.

For more photos and past posts, visit my Comic Book Collecting tag.

My Comics Stash (2)

Part two of an ongoing series...

 

My Comics Stash (1)

Since I have a little downtime between issues and the lead up to the San Diego Comic-Con, I've decided to return to an ongoing, longstanding project to re-sort and organize my comic book collection. Here's

 the first in a series...

 

Midtown Comics Times Square

As a funny addendum to this story, shortly after my visit, Midtown Comics posted on Twitter that actor/comedian Brian Posehn showed up at the store as well that same day!

A post from Posehn's Facebook account then showed up on my feed with this accompanying photo—which suddenly made sense why he partly may have been in town: to see the play, "Glengarry Glen Ross," with his Mr. Show with Bob and David castmate, which we saw Thursday night ourselves!.

Spotted in the Wild in NYC...

Yes, almost immediately after WonderCon ended, we are off to New York City!

WonderCon 2025 is a Wrap!

The Comics That Made Me, Pt. 2

The Comics That Made Me, Pt. 1

Pictured at right is Our Army at War (Sgt. Rock) #267, cover dated April 1974—story by Robert Kanigher/interior art by John Severin/cover by Joe Kubert.

When I was growing up and getting into comics in the early 1970s, comic book stores had really not taken off yet. There were certainly none near me, and though some school friends read comics, I was completely unaware of the fan community. So like most kids in that era, I got my comics simply from what was available on the spinner rack at a local drugstore.

Though I remember owning some random comics when I was younger—including a Dennis the Menace comic book that I really loved, a Tarzan comic, and a Marvel Fantastic Four, as well as a Peanuts paperback collection—this was the first comic book I recall consciously purchasing, which made me a collector. Being a war history and film nut at the time, this was right up my alley for 12-year-old me. As such, it became the first comic book series I collected, dutifully going down to that drugstore every month to pick up the next issue. 

This was before comic book stores had really taken off—there were none near me that I was aware of, so like most kids my age, I bought them off the spinner rack at my local drugstore, which was down by the train station. And it’s not like the store carried everything (I don’t recall any Marvel Comics on that display), but fortunately they carried this series pretty regularly. I also remember excitedly coming across issue 269, a 100 page special, at a news vendor at the Staten Island Ferry terminal, right before boarding a boat—which my mom kindly got me for a whopping 60¢! A little while later, I discovered a neighborhood kid had several issues that immediately preceded this one, which allowed me to add to my collection. 

Though Joe Kubert, who was most closely identified with the character, still drew the covers (as shown in the sample issues below), I was oblivious to his earlier work on the series, though I saw his work in collections. So in addition to Severin, the other artists I was exposed to on Sgt. Rock during that period included Russ Heath, George Evans and Frank Redondo for an extended run. I had no idea Redondo was Filipino, nor part of the wave of Filipino artists who entered the U.S. comics industry during the ‘70.)

This comic book started it all in another way—it inspired my own war comic, Sgt. Hanes and Hell Platoon—of which I drew 26 issues (the same milestone I’m about to hit this year with Rob Hanes Adventures!). Drawn on lined notebook paper with black pencil and colored pencils, each new issue was passed around my junior high school classroom—and, yes, I have most of those issues still! As readers of Rob Hanes Adventures know, I finally fulfilled a dream to bring that character into the series in issue 22 in a World War II flashback, and again in the last issue, #25.

Shortly after, I also began picking up Batman comics (both Batman and Detective Comics), being a fan of the character from the Adam West tv show which was in re-runs when I was a kid.

78 Years Ago Today...

As many people know, the comic strip that initially inspired my own work is Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates. Caniff created the strip for the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate and worked on the strip from 1934 until 1946. He left Terry to create a new adventure strip, Steve Canyon, for full ownership and creative control.

On this day, Dec. 29, in 1946 (a Sunday like today!), Caniff ran his final strip—reproduced below, it’s a beaut and an amazing culmination of his work on Terry. Caniff had announced that he was leaving Terry many months before, but made a point not to let up in the home stretch. (Canyon would debut on January 13, 1947.)

I’m partly running this because I missed the opportunity to mark the 60th anniversary of Terry's debut on October 22, 1934. Building on some groundbreaking work by others—most notably Roy Crane (Wash Tubbs) and Caniff’s studio-mate and friend, Noel Sickles (Scorchy Smith)—Caniff started a whole school of cartooning whose style influenced several generations of cartoonists.  I’ve included a strip from Caniff’s first year to demonstrate how much he had grown artistically. At the point of oversimplifying, much of it was based on the use of heavy black, chiaroscuro/impressionistic effect, rather than for decorative purposes.

In issue 25 of Rob Hanes Adventures, I paid homage to Caniff, as well as to Terry and Canyon, and to many of his peers and their characters, by having him travel back in time to the 1940s and team up with dopplegangers of the soldiers of fortune and other characters from the era. And I carried over this tribute in my recent holiday greeting where a sign in the image reads, “Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New” as Caniff cleverly did in the final panel he drew in the Terry strip on the eve of a new year. 

Cartoonist George Wunder picked up the reins on Terry and continued the strip to its end in 1973. Canyon ended its run with the passing of Caniff in 1988.

Comics at Amoeba

Batman in Hollywood

Happy Birthday, Frank Robbins

My Favorite Star Wars Comic

For this Star Wars celebration day, I thought I’d highlight one of my favorite single comic book issues of all time—Star Wars #38, drawn by the great Mike Golden and written by the legendary late Archie Goodwin.

Aside from the terrific art, I felt that Golden really cracked the code in drawing Star Wars. There already was great work in the series, but Golden’s work was less pulpish and more stylish and sleek—I especially dug the way he portrayed blaster fire and other crackle.

I know I’m not alone in admiring this issue—at WonderCon last month, when I went by Golden’s booth, this issue (bagged) was on display. I asked his assistant at the booth what it was going for—she said $100. I really don’t know the street value of the book, but I assume you’d get Golden’s signature on it too. I keep my copy of the issue sitting on a shelf nearby on its own (also bagged) just because I like having it closeby and readily accessible.

I recently re-read the issue for the first time in a long time. The story is a bit thin, though a solid science fiction tale. To be fair, however, it was literally a filler issue—I did not remember until I just re-read it that this issue was supposed to see the start of the adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back—but for some reason, Marvel had to delay it a month and published this one-off issue in place.

So the six-issue adaptation of Empire started next issue, drawn by the late Al Williamson (and adapted by Goodwin), who of course is considered one of the best and most definitive Star Wars artists—he’d go on to also draw the Star Wars syndicated comic strip and the adaptation of The Return of the Jedi as well.

May the 4th Be With You!