 Alter Ego #75/ pp.96/ now $5.91 (15% off cover price)/published by Twomorrows Publishing/various writers and artists/
Alter Ego is a periodical mostly about the history of super-hero comic book titles with a sprinkling of information on comic strips. I love this magazine and not because I have written stuff for it. It is generally packed from glossy cover to cover with art, photographs, and new information on the world’s most popular artform starting in the early ‘30s.
The cover of the 75th issue is a montage of the art styles used on Fawcett Publication’s Captain Marvel, Superman’s only serious contender for the title of the best selling superhero of all time.
Shazam!! About half of the issue is dedicated to the interpretation of the “Big Red Cheese” by many different writers and artists for more than 50 years. Features in the rest of the issue include articles on artists and writers probably unknown to most readers. That’s because, for the most part, creators did not get bylines on their stories published in the first 25 years of comic books.
As an example, Maxwell Elkan is a man unknown even to most hardcore comics fans. Yet this talented artist produced a substantial amount of outstanding comics work in multiple genres for 20 years. Recognition of his talent and of his role in the formative years of comics is no longer overdue.
This issue also offers a delightful 2008 calendar featuring famous movie actresses as super-heroines from the ‘30s and ‘40s. What comics fan could resist Jane Russell as Phantom Lady or Esther Williams as Rocketgirl? Hubba, hubba!
If the preceding sounds like Alter Ego is not a magazine for causal comics readers, you have good ears. Alter Ego is highly recommended for die-hard comics fans. And for those who already have read issue #75, issue #80 is due out August 2008.
Review by Michael Vance
Check out Dark Corridor #1 for two Michael Vance short stories here.
Interested in the exciting Oklahoma Cartoonists Collection and Toy and Action Figure Museum? Go here.
For previous reviews of other comic books put "Suspended Animation" in the search box on the Joplin Independent homepage.
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