I was, once upon a time, a huge Marvel fan. This was before comics were accepted as a legitimate art form. They were the complete antithesis of cool. Reading them was a form of social suicide.
I had a large collection, and my favorite was Fantastic Four. I also liked Spider-Man, The Avengers, and really, all the comics Marvel published.
This was back in the early seventies, somewhere between the Silver and Bronze ages of comic history. It was a lot of fun, but I don’t have the nostalgia I feel toward my later years of reading science fiction, or watching monster movies. I certainly don’t feel the emotional tug I get when I think back to the days when I discovered the dark wonders of horror fiction.
I moved on fairly early and I wanted to get rid of my collection. I read an ad in a comic about a guy who purchased collections. I wrote to him and we worked out a deal for all my comics. Three or four years of intense collecting, with many early issues of the big mags. The deal was simple. I send the comics, he’d approve of the deal, then send me a check.
I wanted the money very badly for something. I can’t even remember what it was now, but I was anxious to receive it. I waited. And waited. And waited.
Nothing. No check, no further communication. I wrote the guy. I wrote him again. My parents tried to help and we contacted the Better Business Bureau and the US Postal Inspection Service and reported mail fraud.
It all came to exactly nothing. The asshole got my collection and all I got was rage and tears in return. It was a powerful lesson for me. One, not everyone who acts like a fan is an honorable individual. Two, the powers-that-be in America favor those with money and the little guy usually gets the shaft.
I later heard of a lot of this kind of thing going on. The truth is, there are a lot of toxic people involved in the comics industry.
Cut to many decades later. A friend of mine died. This wasn’t a local buddy. He lived several states away. This guy had a huge comic collection. I’m talking full runs of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and other titles. I don’t know what all he had, but I am positive it was worth a mint.
My friend died suddenly, leaving his widow to deal with his belongings. Time passed and she contacted me, asking about his horror book collection. In our conversations she told me someone bought the comic collection. Get this: He paid her four hundred dollars. This was in the twenty-teens, not the seventies. The collection had to be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Even now, when I think about it, I want to punch something. But, hey, ripping off little kids and grieving widows is simply good business. Make America Great. Again.
I’m sure there are decent people in the comics trade. Writers and artists who care about their craft. Publishers who strive to get great work to the people. Fans who have simple, joyous, unfettered love for the medium. I’ve also heard innumerable stories about ripoffs, con games, discrimination, and bullying in the field.
Maybe all this is part of my abhorrence of comics and comic-themed movies. Bad association and fetid memories.
I watched a few Marvel movies. I liked the first Spider-Man movie, directed by Sam Raimi. I took my kids to the first two X-Men features. I was already getting sick of it, but Spider-Man 2 cured me of Marvel movies. Not so much the movie itself, but the audience was one of the worst, rudest, most despicable groups I’ve ever had the displeasure of sharing a theater auditorium with.
Due to pressure from various members of my old message board, I tried to watch Iron Man. I thought it was well made, for what it is, but I turned it off around halfway through the movie. No interest.
This is a problem with some people. They say I am missing out. Missing out? We’re all missing out. No one can watch everything. Plus, I choke on the idea of someone who’s never seen a Bergman film, never seen a Kurosawa, never even watched Breathless, telling me I am missing out. It's as absurd as if I tried to get a superhero fan to watch a mumblecore movie like Hannah Takes the Stairs.
It’s hard to believe today that Marvel was once represented by the disastrous Howard the Duck adaptation and Albert Pyun’s ludicrous Captain America.
Back in 1989 a Marvel property called The Punisher was made into a low-budget movie starring Dolph Lundgren. This Punisher is a lot closer to something starring Sylvester Styallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Chuck Norris than what we now think of as the MCU. In fact, good old Dolph seemed like he was channeling Stallone in Cobra.
I liked The Punsher quite a bit back when I rented the videotape. It’s been all these years since I watched it, but I figured I’d go back and see where comic movies and my head were nearly forty years ago.
Things were beginning to change. Eighty-nine also saw the release of Tim Burton’s Batman, and comic movies would never be the same. Comics were no longer considered trash for delinquent kids. They could be big money properties.
The Punisher is a fun little exploitation movie. I don’t see why Lundgren didn’t make it bigger in Hollywood. He’s at least as bad as Jason Stratham.
This is a vigilante story, rather like something Charles Bronson might have made had he been younger. The Punisher is busy ridding the world of criminal scum and he winds up embroiled in a war between an American mob and the Japanese Yakuza.
Oh, it’s plenty violent. There are innumerable shootings, stabbings, hangings, explosions. The Punisher is like something I’d have seen in the final gasping breaths of our last local drive-in theater. It’s cheap, fast, and entertaining. If you have a taste for this kind of thing.
I like The Punisher precisely because it’s an outsider movie. I largely avoid the mainstream and spent my movie time vigorously pursuing art films and exploitation fare.
The Punisher was directed by Mark Goldblatt, whose previous picture was the middling zombie cop farce, Dead Heat. He started in the biz like so many others, working for Roger Corman. Goldblatt did editorial work on a number of New World Pictures classics, including Hollywood Boulevard. Later, Goldbaltt became one of the most sought-after editors in the industry.
It was a simpler time. Batman and Terminator 2, the latter of which Mark Goldblatt co-edited, changed everything.
It all grew too big for my liking. The movies, the comics industry, and the world of fandom.
The same thing is happening in the horror fiction field. I’ve never seen so much popularity, which is cool in some ways, but growth also breeds opportunists and corruption. I was happier when the scene was smaller. Back when it meant something to be a fan. Before quasi-experts started showing up like a flea infestation on a mangy dog. Look no further than the plethora of controversies currently surrounding the Horror Writers Association and you'll see my point.
Written by Mark Sieber
I had a large collection, and my favorite was Fantastic Four. I also liked Spider-Man, The Avengers, and really, all the comics Marvel published.
This was back in the early seventies, somewhere between the Silver and Bronze ages of comic history. It was a lot of fun, but I don’t have the nostalgia I feel toward my later years of reading science fiction, or watching monster movies. I certainly don’t feel the emotional tug I get when I think back to the days when I discovered the dark wonders of horror fiction.
I moved on fairly early and I wanted to get rid of my collection. I read an ad in a comic about a guy who purchased collections. I wrote to him and we worked out a deal for all my comics. Three or four years of intense collecting, with many early issues of the big mags. The deal was simple. I send the comics, he’d approve of the deal, then send me a check.
I wanted the money very badly for something. I can’t even remember what it was now, but I was anxious to receive it. I waited. And waited. And waited.
Nothing. No check, no further communication. I wrote the guy. I wrote him again. My parents tried to help and we contacted the Better Business Bureau and the US Postal Inspection Service and reported mail fraud.
It all came to exactly nothing. The asshole got my collection and all I got was rage and tears in return. It was a powerful lesson for me. One, not everyone who acts like a fan is an honorable individual. Two, the powers-that-be in America favor those with money and the little guy usually gets the shaft.
I later heard of a lot of this kind of thing going on. The truth is, there are a lot of toxic people involved in the comics industry.
Cut to many decades later. A friend of mine died. This wasn’t a local buddy. He lived several states away. This guy had a huge comic collection. I’m talking full runs of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and other titles. I don’t know what all he had, but I am positive it was worth a mint.
My friend died suddenly, leaving his widow to deal with his belongings. Time passed and she contacted me, asking about his horror book collection. In our conversations she told me someone bought the comic collection. Get this: He paid her four hundred dollars. This was in the twenty-teens, not the seventies. The collection had to be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Even now, when I think about it, I want to punch something. But, hey, ripping off little kids and grieving widows is simply good business. Make America Great. Again.
I’m sure there are decent people in the comics trade. Writers and artists who care about their craft. Publishers who strive to get great work to the people. Fans who have simple, joyous, unfettered love for the medium. I’ve also heard innumerable stories about ripoffs, con games, discrimination, and bullying in the field.
Maybe all this is part of my abhorrence of comics and comic-themed movies. Bad association and fetid memories.
I watched a few Marvel movies. I liked the first Spider-Man movie, directed by Sam Raimi. I took my kids to the first two X-Men features. I was already getting sick of it, but Spider-Man 2 cured me of Marvel movies. Not so much the movie itself, but the audience was one of the worst, rudest, most despicable groups I’ve ever had the displeasure of sharing a theater auditorium with.
Due to pressure from various members of my old message board, I tried to watch Iron Man. I thought it was well made, for what it is, but I turned it off around halfway through the movie. No interest.
This is a problem with some people. They say I am missing out. Missing out? We’re all missing out. No one can watch everything. Plus, I choke on the idea of someone who’s never seen a Bergman film, never seen a Kurosawa, never even watched Breathless, telling me I am missing out. It's as absurd as if I tried to get a superhero fan to watch a mumblecore movie like Hannah Takes the Stairs.
It’s hard to believe today that Marvel was once represented by the disastrous Howard the Duck adaptation and Albert Pyun’s ludicrous Captain America.
Back in 1989 a Marvel property called The Punisher was made into a low-budget movie starring Dolph Lundgren. This Punisher is a lot closer to something starring Sylvester Styallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Chuck Norris than what we now think of as the MCU. In fact, good old Dolph seemed like he was channeling Stallone in Cobra.
I liked The Punsher quite a bit back when I rented the videotape. It’s been all these years since I watched it, but I figured I’d go back and see where comic movies and my head were nearly forty years ago.
Things were beginning to change. Eighty-nine also saw the release of Tim Burton’s Batman, and comic movies would never be the same. Comics were no longer considered trash for delinquent kids. They could be big money properties.
The Punisher is a fun little exploitation movie. I don’t see why Lundgren didn’t make it bigger in Hollywood. He’s at least as bad as Jason Stratham.
This is a vigilante story, rather like something Charles Bronson might have made had he been younger. The Punisher is busy ridding the world of criminal scum and he winds up embroiled in a war between an American mob and the Japanese Yakuza.
Oh, it’s plenty violent. There are innumerable shootings, stabbings, hangings, explosions. The Punisher is like something I’d have seen in the final gasping breaths of our last local drive-in theater. It’s cheap, fast, and entertaining. If you have a taste for this kind of thing.
I like The Punisher precisely because it’s an outsider movie. I largely avoid the mainstream and spent my movie time vigorously pursuing art films and exploitation fare.
The Punisher was directed by Mark Goldblatt, whose previous picture was the middling zombie cop farce, Dead Heat. He started in the biz like so many others, working for Roger Corman. Goldblatt did editorial work on a number of New World Pictures classics, including Hollywood Boulevard. Later, Goldbaltt became one of the most sought-after editors in the industry.
It was a simpler time. Batman and Terminator 2, the latter of which Mark Goldblatt co-edited, changed everything.
It all grew too big for my liking. The movies, the comics industry, and the world of fandom.
The same thing is happening in the horror fiction field. I’ve never seen so much popularity, which is cool in some ways, but growth also breeds opportunists and corruption. I was happier when the scene was smaller. Back when it meant something to be a fan. Before quasi-experts started showing up like a flea infestation on a mangy dog. Look no further than the plethora of controversies currently surrounding the Horror Writers Association and you'll see my point.
Written by Mark Sieber
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