More 50 cent finds
by Frank Santoro
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
This is a wild one. Originally created as a syndicated strip for a European anthology, Cat Claw had this Romita/Buscema Marvel house style style. That was cool for 1981 when it first appeared. But it didn’t get collected here in the States until 1989 so it looked really weird and old school by the time I saw it. Funny how that can happen in less than a decade. The best part about picking this run of issues up was seeing how the covers for issue six and eight are nearly identical in terms of layout! “Yeah, the kids liked that one, just do it again and sex it up a little”. Who drew it all? Bane Kerac.
Labels: comics conventions, John Buscema, John Romita Sr., Kerac
AWESOME. So where are all the good 50 cent bins in LA? I’m gettin the shakes for some between the cracks commicky-book action. I’m almost done with rereading the entire run of Nth Man my roommate scored!
da interweb. or take a road trip. Yah, it sux. Even at cons in NYC there are no 50 cent bins cuz the convention tables are too expensive. Everyone sells their expensive comics and they don’t bring their cheap books.
Gotta come to Pittsburgh!
Damn it, I can’t stay silent.
in Minnesota we have a huge and ever growing convention called fall con. this year, it’s 20th year, it was held at the state fair grounds.
which when closed up in October gave the place a creepy abandoned desolate future feeling. it is pretty much thing you are describing above.
tons and tons of 50 cent old comics,from the 60’s onward. lots of old elderly silver age dealers with hunch backs and names like “Uncle Sven” who’ve had comic shops in Minneapolis for 30-40 years.
and there is cheap hot dogs sold out front. it’s great. and I love it. us in the local cartoonist scene really want it to expand at least to the level where at least one publisher is willing to come out for it. then maybe more till it’s eventually a thing worth going to that’s not on either coast.
APE, MOCCA, SPX, and San Diego are fine conventions to attend if you live a days drive from the places. can’t say I’ve ever gone to space, maybe I’ll try it some day.
but for us in the Midwest,to go to any of the big cons we got to buy a plane ticket/get hotel/friend from school to free load at ect.
last time I went to mocca we made $150. bucks off the table in total. after our expenses at end of the weekend it was still money down the drain. wizard world in Chicago basically is hostile to everyone but video game/bootleg dvd/t shirt/ and action figure dealers. in 03 in St.Louis they tried this new St.Louis con at the city museum, Gary Panter and Charles Burns and Chris Ware came, but no one else did so no one made any money and it never happened again. anyways I’m just trying to get the word out to the coasts that us in the Midwest are trying to cultivate something worth going to, and if you like the format of a more down home old school comic con that’s all about comic books. the kind of place where you can fill in the missing gaps in your “fast willie jackson” run at the right price. that’s what we got.
well said. For what it’s worth I’m going on tour in the spring with my car full of alterna-art cold heat comix and my own stash of 50 cent boxes for everyone to enjoy.
Bane Kerac was sort of a comic superstar in my country in early eighties. Cat Claw was indeed influenced by Romita school and had great pop appeal, stories were really fast paced and hilarious, with lots of fourth wall breaking and easter eggs. I wonder if it translated well to English, but those were fun comics! Also, you are right – by the end of eighties they lost their appeal as “realistic” superheroes came in fashion.