On The Shelves Today in 1988

The CBG I highlighted a few days ago included a Comics In Your Future section which listed the comic books that are expected to ship within the next month or so, along with the expected ship date.  Note the nice logo designed by Joe Staton.

Comics Buyer's Guide #738 (January 8, 1988) pg 20

Using that list, here are the comic books that probably were on the shelf at your local comic book shop this week.  Which ones did/would you pick up? (as usual, click on each for larger images)

Comico

DC

Eclipse

First

Harvey

Hero

Marvel

And a sampling of some more that I'm not sure if they were out this week, but were scheduled this month.

Comics Buyer's Guide Jan. 8, 1988

Comics Buyer's Guide #738,  Jan. 8, 1988

Dated today, in 1988, is a pretty standard issue of CBG except for things that didn't happen.  The first is this cover item for a new weekly or bi-weekly comic book series by Marvel Comics, titled Marvel Universe.   Now the comic book promoted in this article did come out, just not under that name.  It became Marvel Comics Presents.  The vote came down on the side of bi-weekly and the series lasted for 175 issues until March 1995.  Pretty good for an anthology title in the 1990s.

As you would expect, most of the stories were pretty forgettable, Except for the classic Wolverine origin Weapon X storyline that started with #72.

Marvel Comics Presents #72 (March 1991) [Marvel Comics]

There were other good series, like Coldblood from Paul Gulacy, and a lot of good artists contributed to stories.

The other item in CBG #738 that didn't happen was on page 1, the Marvel history book.

Well, it kind of did happen.  The 400 page book by Brad Elliott and Stan Lee titled The Story of Marvel Comics never came out, but a Marvel history book did come out.  There were some messy disagreements and even legal action (more here).  But eventually, the Les Daniels' book Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics came out in Sept. 1991.  Its too bad.  I think the original concept would have been better.

The highlighted comic book of the issue was Dinosaurs For Hire which came out in March 1988.

This was a fun concept and lasted through 1994 with 2 series and a few specials from Eternity/Malibu.  The second series had some really nice Mitch Byrd art.  An underrated artist in my mind.

This issue also had a great full page ad by underground comix publisher Rip Off Press.  An advertisement in the advertisement was a nice touch.

Rounding out the issue was an ad for the Watchmen role playing game from Mayfair Games.  The Watchmen series hadn't ended that long before, so its full impact had not yet been felt.

Comics' Buyer's Guide #733

Today we have the December 4, 1987 issue of the Comics' Buyer's Guide, #733.  The lead story is about Don Martin's acrimonious exit from Mad Magazine.  The other cover story is about 3 Marvel titles (Uncanny X-Men, Amazing Spider-Man, and G.I. Joe) going bi-weekly for the summer months of June thru August.   These stories are concluded on page three which I've included below so you can read the whole story.

This issue is only dated today, but really came out a couple of weeks earlier.  They are just following the lead set by comic books themselves. 

The actual first page of the newspaper has a story about the 1988 Marvel Annuals being part of a larger connected storyline.  This turned out to be the Evolutionary War crossover.  And the first of 5 years of similar crossover events in Marvel Annuals.

Also there is story about a 3,500 Golden Age comic book collection on page 1.  They were supposed to be in very nice condition, but I don't remember it ever getting a name like some famous collections discovered before.  But I could be wrong as I'm not a Golden Age collector.

Page three concludes the articles from the cover and previews MICRA #6 from Comics Interview.  MICRA only lasted one more issue (#7) that came out in the spring of 1988.  Though there was a graphic novel which I think reprinted #1-3.

One other interesting article in the issue was about the Playboy Channel showing a feature on Japanese manga on the May edition of Sexcetera: The News According To Playboy.  It of course focused on erotic comics, but also discussed the differences between our two societies.