Taking Sides: First vs Eclipse!!!!! AKA...

Eclipse is best remembered for bringing Miracleman to the US, as well as printing up some interesting horror/fantasy stuff from the likes of Bruce Jones, Mike Dringenberg, and some of the classic Studio artists. But that doesn't make 'em more of a giant than Comico in my eyes.

I saw Antietam open for Yo La Tengo recently and my first thought was "So that's what Cat Yronwode's been up to lately..."

Last I've seen of BM is some pinups he did for Jinx. I always confuse him w/ the Pander Bros.; no, I don't know why.

First-wise: Flagg, of course, esp. the first year, but am I the only person who totally loved Whisper? ("I'm NOT a ninja! I don't even know what a ninja IS!")

Eclipse-wise: don't forget Cap'n Quick And a Foozle, which I always suspected there was some kind of bizarre story behind. Also: the early appearances of Steve Ditko's completely batshit Static.

.. and better remembered for keeping him there :)

Did the Gaiman issues of Miracleman actually come out in the UK at all, or not?

First adapted almost all of Moorcock's Elric but Eclipse had Larry (Image) Marder's Tales of the Beanworld. Which is like comparing apples and oranges but the idea was they weren't Super-apples or Spider-oranges, if that makes any sense.

re-reading a bunch of my old Eclipse comics (Zot! etc.) and man what an odd period this was for comics. You really get a sense of how small the community was. I mean there were letters page celebrities like T.M. Maple, Cat Yronwode writing columns consisting entirely of personal tidbits readers had sent in etc. A bunch of these Eclipse comics are p shitty and I barely remember most of them, and then notice that something significant somehow popped out, like Chris Ware's first comic.

also thank u thread for reminding me of Comico's Elementals, which was never really v good but man was I entranced by the artwork

Bill Willingham, didn't he do a bunch of AD&D/role playing art too?

And porn.

Yeah, in the D&D stuff I just gave away there were a bunch of early game modules with Willingham art. Comico had a decent hit rate -- The Jam, Elementals, Grendel.

I like that initial run of Mage a lot, that was the only Comico thing I've held onto

First was a pretty solid company but then DC pretty much picked their talent away wholesale and they didn't have a second run of series or the ability to do back list sales to keep the line going like they do now. Nexus, American Flagg! and GrimJack were some of my favorite comics as a teenager.

Thing is that many of those titles sold crazy numbers compared to now. I seem to recall finding some tidbit in a mid-run version of Mr. Monster talking about how sales for like #4 or #3 was over 30000. That would be a sick number by today's standards but this was on a mid-line Eclipse comic back in the 80s.

Aztec Ace on Eclipse was a neat Moench time travel thing.

I loooved cap'n quick and a foozle #1

Willingham didn't rly do porn, and definitely not in the '80s

DC pretty much picked their talent away wholesale

iirc DC taking over their distro was the biggest kiss of death

"oh hey turns out we made you print nine times as many copies as before but no one even ordered 3 copies? Oops. Bye."