The Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-25 Facsimile Edition hits Wednesday! DC’s latest Facsimile Treasury Edition is out this week, and it’s a doozy — 1974’s Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-25, featuring Neal Adams’ classic red-background cover, and filled with exciting Golden, Silver and Bronze Age stories and features. 1975’s Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-37 — the “Special All-Villain Issue” — may be the best Batman treasury ever, but there’s an awful lot to recommend this one, which was the Caped Crusader’s first. Keep in mind, all the pages below will be a muscular 10″ x 13″. So, dig 13 THINGS TO LOVE ABOUT BATMAN’s FIRST 1970s TREASURY EDITION: — 1. The Cover. It’s a killer. The Neal Adams Batman image is a re-do from 1973’s Batman #251 (with utility belt this time), but it’s made all the more striking by that bright red background. (It will look so good in foil!) Now, there’s been some recent online speculation that perhaps Adams didn’t do this cover or that perhaps a second artist tweaked it, but Adams himself made no mention of that when I interviewed him about it back in 2016. Knowing Adams, he would have said something if that were the case. — 2. The Story Selection. There’s an eerie Joker story (“The Case of the Joker’s Crime Circus,” from 1941’s Batman #4), a Silver Age classic (“Hate of the Hooded Hangman,” from 1966’s Detective Comics #355), and a much-loved Denny O’Neil/Neal Adams collaboration that pays homage to Joe Kubert (“Ghost of the Killer Skies,” from 1970’s Detective Comics #404). And that’s just the half of it. — 3. It’s an Artists’ Spotlight. Each story has a different penciller, and the descriptions in the table of contents make it clear that was the intent. Oddly, though, the book isn’t billed as such, and even stranger, none of the writers are listed! Here they are for the record, in order: Bill Finger (Batman #4); Don C. Cameron (Batman #14, 1942); Cameron (Batman #24, 1944); John Broome (Detective #355); Mike Friedrich (Batman #221, 1970); O’Neil (Detective #404). By the way it’s actually “The Mayors of Yonville.” — 4. My Copy Has Two Dick Sprang Signatures. When I picked one up at a convention some years ago, I was delighted to find that Sprang had signed it twice — once on the table of contents,...
Columnist PAUL KUPPERBERG’s warm birthday remembrance of his late friend, writer Martin Pasko… — UPDATED 8/4/26: The late Martin “Pesky” Pasko was born 72 years ago. Perfect time to reprint this lovely piece by columnist PAUL KUPPERBERG, from when Pasko died in May 2020. Right on. — Dan — By PAUL KUPPERBERG We interrupt the regularly scheduled series of shameless plugs for my book Direct Comments: Comic Creators In Their Own Words for a tribute to my late friend, Martin Pasko (Aug. 4, 1954–May 10, 2020). Shortly after his birth in Montreal, Jean-Claude Rochefort was rocketed across the border to New Jersey where he was adopted by a kindly couple named Pasko who raised him as their own. Now known as Marty Pasko, the child grew to maturity, knowing he possessed talents and abilities far beyond those of mortal fans, to one day pen the adventures of that orphan from the stars, Superman. Not to mention hundreds of other heroes of comic books, animation and TV. I don’t remember the circumstances of our first meeting; in my memory, Marty was always in my life, like family. My guess is we first crossed paths at one of the very early-1970s New York Comic Art Conventions, although I knew his name from the many (many!) letters he had printed in the comics of the day, particularly those edited by Julie Schwartz. It was in those letter columns that Julie gave Marty the nickname “Pesky,” but I know for a fact from later talks with Julie that the crusty old editor loved getting intelligent letters from thoughtful fans and he often found Marty’s insights as useful as they were “pesky.” When we did finally get together, Marty and I bonded instantly. It didn’t hurt that I had the unfailing ability to make Marty laugh. He was the Jack Benny to my George Burns (look it up, youngsters!) and it cracked me up that I could crack him up, that I could lay him out on the floor, literally gasping for breath, with as little as a sincere recitation of “Direct dialing” or “Wankel rotary engine.” At the beginning of my career, which followed his by about two years, Marty became a sort of creative mentor to me. While he had only two years on me by the calendar, he was already about...
An ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL…
AN ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL…
A BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION of the celebrated Mr. K…
