From: lf7z@ellis.uchicago.edu (glenn alan carnagey jr)
Subject: Re: Questions
Reply-To: lf7z@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 05:57:30 GMT

In article <9209301947.AA01010@deepthought.cs.utexas.edu> FURRJK@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU (Joel Furr) writes:
>
>1) What *did* happen to First Comics?   They were blithely publishing things
>   like Badger, Grimjack, Nexus, etc. etc., and then one day they VANISHED.
>   I've heard that their publisher went nuts and decided that the comics his
>   company was publishing weren't family oriented and thus he fired everyone
>   and went out of business.  Is this true?

What a friendly newsgroup, not one soul said RTFF ('course judging
from the date, no one answered, either).  As far as anyone knows, it
was purely financial, some bad financial decisions and too much debt.
When they finally folded, no one had been paid for a long while and
most of them were working solely because they loved the characters.
But their income was coming from elsewhere, which was why they were
going to try the three times a year thing.

>2) What's the story with Captain Marvel?  After the Legends miniseries, I
>   read that he would have a new monthly series... then it came out as a
>   four issue miniseries... then we had a short series within Action Comics.
>   Then NOTHING for a couple of years and then he showed up again in War of
>   the Gods and the Eclipso crossovers.  I've gotten some vague sense that
>   DC temporarily lost publishing rights back to Fawcett and then finally
>   bought the characters lock, stock, and barrel, but I really don't know
>   what the real answer is.  I heard that Jerry Ordway was going to be
>   drawing and writing a monthly series, then it turned into a Prestige
>   format mini-series, then it became a hardcover graphic novel.  Why isn't
>   DC publishing Captain Marvel comics?  (I know they can't use the name
>   because of Marvel's Captain Marvel, that's not what I'm asking.)  Why
>   do we get vague rumors year after year with nothing ever turning up?

>2) What's the story with Captain Marvel?

>   what the real answer is.  I heard that Jerry Ordway was going to be
>   drawing and writing a monthly series, then it turned into a Prestige
>   format mini-series, then it became a hardcover graphic novel.  Why isn't

The latter, except I'm not sure whether it'll be hard or soft, I think
hard (I say cover, that is).  I have seen a few pages of this, and
it's really gorgeous, fully and lovingly painted.  Couldn't say about
the story, except that an old friend of mine who used to hang with
Jerry when he lived in Milwaukee says that Jerry's wanted to do this
for a long time and that he wants to "stay true to the original".

They've had the rights all along, they've just never been able to make
it sell.  Karma, I'd say.  After all, it's DC's fault that he lost his
original series in the first place.

The first comic I ever read was one of those humongous Whiz Comics, my
mom gave it to me, little knowing what she'd start :^), and I've been
hooked on the Big Red Cheese ever since.  Personally, the only DC
incarnation I've thought was worth a damn was the first ten issues of
the 70's series and that's only 'cuz this cat named Beck was
involved...

Pax ex machina,
Glenn
......................................................................
"And though the partyers are from different races, universes,
     even reality levels, the reaction of the vast preponderance is
     ...... Hot damn!"
  --- Blaze Barlow
g-carnagey@uchicago.edu, if you must know
......................................................................