Total Eclipse Of the Heart

Hey, look what I found buried in one of my long boxes:

So let's take a look at what solicited by Eclipse Comics for June of 1990, shall we?

Coup D'Etat: The Assassination of of John F. Kennedy Trading Cards (art by Bill Sienkiewicz!):

Eclipse put out a whole bunch of these sets--many with a decidedly liberal bent (Iran-Contra Scandal Trading Cards, Friendly Dictator Cards), some highly controversial (Serial Killers, True Crime Trading Cards), and many just plain interesting (Heroes of the Blues with art by Robert Crumb, Congressional Medal of Honor Trading Cards).

One thing that always bugged me, though...since most of these were sold as complete sets (e.g., Coup D'Etat was sold only as a complete set of 36 cards in a small box), how can you call them "trading cards?" Everyone who has them already has a complete set...what's to trade??

Zot! #32:

I love Zot! And I really miss the book. I'm not going to cry for Scott McCloud to start doing more Zot stories, because I don't know if there any more to tell. But that doesn't make me miss the book any less.

Good news department: This month, Harper Collins will be publishing a mammoth Zot! omnibus, collecting all the black and white run of the mag (#11-36), for the ridiculously low price of $24.95 list. Great chance for you poozers who haven't read these issues to find out why Zot! rocked so hard. Now if only somebody would get the first ten-issue color run back in print...

Orbit #2:

Comic adaptations of stories from Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction magazine. Along with Clive Barker's Tapping the Vein, Eclipse was a leader in trying to push comics adaptations of genre short stories. No one seems to be doing that anymore...it seems like a no-brainer to me. Hey, Dynamite, are you paying attention?!?! This seems like your cup of tea...

Winterworld:

A collection of a 1997 Chuck Dixon/Jorge Saffino miniseries. I mention this mainly because the solicit describes Dixon as "the Sam Peckinpah of comics," which just makes my head spin for several different reasons.

Update: Chuck Dixon is no longer employed in any capacity by Eclipse Comics.

The Death of Anti-Socialman:

OK, I know this might be hard to believe, but back in the late 80s/early 90s, if you self-published mini-comics consisting entirely of stick figures, well, you could get published by a "mainstream" indie. Seriously.

I always thought Cynicalman was funnier and more entertaining than Anti-Social Man. But ASM was funny, too.

Tales of the Beanworld #17:

Another much missed title. Silly yet deep at the same time. As I mentioned a couple of months ago, Larry Marder will be resuming the title in 2009 with Dark Horse, who will also be reprinting the original 21 issues in some format. Huzzah!!

You see, there's these beans...and Mr. Spook has this big fork...and a musical group called the Boom'r Band...

OK, some things just defy explanation...

Teenage Dope Slaves and Reform School Girls:

A B&W reprinting of some ridiculously camp comics (think Reefer Madness in panel form) from earlier decades, including a Harvey Kurtzman story about the perils of venereal disease!! At 128 pages for $9.95, this was a heckuva deal. Why didn't I buy it?

Miracleman #19:

Deep sigh.

The saddest part of the astonishing legal black hole that has swallowed up the Miracleman Family is that these comics, especially the early ones, are just completely unavailable to many readers, so we've got an entire generation of comic fans who've never read any Miracleman. Fortunately, I'm a million years old, and I own the floppies, so I think I'm going to go destroy their collectability a little bit more and re-read them again...

So, that was (most of) Eclipse, June 1990. They were a spunky little company, published a wide (and bewildering, at times) selection of books, gave a lot of creators their first breaks, published what is regarded by most as the first original graphic novel, and made the comics market a more diverse place until their collapse when everyone's bubble burst in 1994. I miss 'em.

And just think of the trading cards they could publish today...