I love spending HOURS flipping through quarter bins (literally boxes of comics priced at a quarter) at comic shows and stores searching for books I need to fill runs or want just cause I've never heard of them or desire cause they're bum-popping INSANE. So, I'm gonna try and start this series of posts focusing on top-notch comics I've found in quarter bins that I recommend you look for, too! Hopefully I can keep it up with a few per post. No direct focus. Just good, cheap comics you should look for. Here goes:
GRIMM GROTTO GOODS
ORIGINALLY RELEASED: 2005
WRITER: CHAD WATERS & MATT ROSE
ARTIST: JIM MAHFOOD
COVER: MIKE HUDDLESTON
WHY IT’S WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
This first issue is the only one drawn by Mahfood in the short series, which spun out of an indie zombie film of the same name. The movie and comic focused on a Cops-like TV show following two officers in the P.M.A.C. (Post Mortem Animation Control), a special unit patrolling neighborhood streets for unruly werewolves, zombies and vampires, the presence of whom is wholly normal.
The premise keeps the monster-fighting very tongue-in-cheek and it’s fun to see Mahfood draw a full issue from someone else’s script - especially something that doesn’t include all of his normal trademarks like hip hop, tagging, skateboarders, weed, etc. Not that there’s anything wrong with his comics that DO include those things...
I believe future issues bounced around between publishers and the series eventually faded away, but this first installment is worth a look, for sure. Huddleston’s cover, alone, is gorgeous.
HEROES FOR HOPE: STARRING THE X-MEN #1
MARVEL
ORIGINALLY RELEASED: 1985
MARVEL
ORIGINALLY RELEASED: 1985
WRITER: VARIOUS
ARTIST: VARIOUS
COVER: ART ADAMS
WHY IT’S WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Aside from the Art Adams cover? This African famine relief benefit issue has dozens of writers and artists telling a single story plotted by then-regular X-Men writer Chris Claremont, then-regular X-Men editor Ann Nocenti, Berni Wrightson & Jim Starlin (who birthed the idea of the project) and then-EiC Jim Shooter. Each team’s involvement lasted at least a full page, but no more than 4 pages, and continues the larger story.
Writers include Stephen King, Alan Moore, Harlan Ellison, Deny O’Neil, and MANY more. Artists include John Romita Jr., Brian Bolland, Frank Miller (inked by Sienkiewicz!), Steve Rude, Howard Chaykin, Richard Corben and MANY more. The inkers, colorists and letterers are also a who’s who of top talent then and now. I can’t imagine the coordination that would’ve been needed to go into a thing like this, but that tremendous effort resulted in a singular comics experience that’s fairly easy to find on the cheap.
BATMAN/SCARFACE: A PSYCHODRAMA
DC COMICS
ORIGINALLY RELEASED: 2001
DC COMICS
ORIGINALLY RELEASED: 2001
WRITER: ALAN GRANT
ARTIST: CHARLIE ADLARD
COVER: BILL SIENKIEWICZ
WHY IT’S WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Adlard’s art took some getting used to for me when he first took over Walking Dead, but I’ve since come to LOVE his style’s calm creepiness and crystal clear storytelling. This pre-Walking Dead standalone story features all those tricks and more in a story that simplifies the body-strewn origin of Scarface and his connection to his Ventriloquist partner-in-crime. This may be the only time I’ve read a Scarface story and completely bought into the proposal of his threatening, terrifying persona. Prestige Format stories can be hit or miss and this is definitely a pop-pop-pop hit.
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