Sunday, April 16, 2006

Of Amazons and Greeks

A day or so late, but here's some bits:

First of all, a cover from perhaps my all-time favorite series, Diana Prince as the New Wonder Woman:



There are resources aplenty on this phase of the Amazing Amazon's history, during which she was a Diana Rigg/Emma Peel clone for a few years. It has become just another almost-forgotten episode of an increasinging disjointed retcon-tinuity, and when I have something new and insightful to say about it, I will do so. In the meantime, looking through the issues I have from this period, I thought this might be of interest:



Of course, the letters page is cool in that retro, weren't-fans-so-cute- before-the-internet way, but it is the Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation that I really liked. Not only is is just totally old school (I don't think DC should ever have changed its name from National Periodical Publications) but look at the sales figures and consider this:

This lame title, in the midst of an ill-considered (and ultimately failed) experiment that tinkered with one of the top three iconic figures of the publisher, in the middle of disruptive changes to its creative and editorial teams, in a time (1971) before direct markets and with only a nascent "fandom" community, was selling more copies than Infinite Crisis, arguably the most hyped, covered, and discussed comic book ever, is selling now.

I'm just saying.

On a sort of related note, although it is hard for me to imagine that anyone regularly visits here who does not read the Absorbascon, but in case there is, go read Scipio's post on Age of Bronze, to which I can only add, "Yeah, what he said!"

PS: Observant visitors may have noticed some little changes to the site. Of late, I am in the middle of preparing to teach a class in the rhetoric of comics; I have worked on a pilot for that class in a library presentation on How to Read a Graphic Novel; I have, in addition to my research and lesson planning, recently read Men of Tomorrow and Kavalier & Clay; and I have recently subscribed to a listserv for comics scholars. All of this has made me a little ambiguous (and ambivalent) about my relationship with comix right now, so aome things may change around here as a result.

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