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Post by dlw66 on Nov 3, 2008 11:34:04 GMT -5
I believe it will set you back about $32 if you get it on Amazon, and free S&H, too! The DC Vault is about the same price from them as well.
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Post by Tana Nile on Nov 3, 2008 22:45:23 GMT -5
I took a look at the Chronicle over on Amazon. They have some sample pages, and it looks like it's right up my alley! I'll definitely be getting this one!
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Post by dlw66 on Nov 4, 2008 11:31:23 GMT -5
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Post by dlw66 on Nov 7, 2008 21:29:12 GMT -5
Hi, kids --
I received a mailer from the Science Fiction Book Club two days ago -- enrollment deal was 7 books for a buck, buy 4 over the next 2 years. So I found my handy-dandy code, went on their website (www.sfbc.com) and scored $250 worth of very cool stuff for my hard-earned dollar plus about $15 S&H. Here's my haul:
Marvel Chronicle Avengers: The Ultimate Guide from D/K Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier Bat-Manga (new book by Chip Kidd about Batman comics in Japan during the time of the tv show) Conan: The Ultimate Guide from D/K and authored by Roy Thomas The DC Comics Encyclopedia - updated and expanded edition The Marvel Encyclopedia
How's that?? I'll bet that box weighs about 15 pounds when it arrives! Happy reading to me! ;D
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Post by Dr. Hank Pym on Nov 8, 2008 18:38:45 GMT -5
How's that?! Not fair, says I. I want these books!
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Post by dlw66 on Nov 17, 2008 23:30:05 GMT -5
Hi, kids -- I received a mailer from the Science Fiction Book Club two days ago -- enrollment deal was 7 books for a buck, buy 4 over the next 2 years. So I found my handy-dandy code, went on their website (www.sfbc.com) and scored $250 worth of very cool stuff for my hard-earned dollar plus about $15 S&H. Here's my haul: Marvel Chronicle Avengers: The Ultimate Guide from D/K Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier Bat-Manga (new book by Chip Kidd about Batman comics in Japan during the time of the tv show) Conan: The Ultimate Guide from D/K and authored by Roy Thomas The DC Comics Encyclopedia - updated and expanded edition The Marvel Encyclopedia How's that?? I'll bet that box weighs about 15 pounds when it arrives! Happy reading to me! ;D Some musings on my haul of books (and yes, the box was QUITE heavy!): 1st -- because of the weight of the box, it was slightly damaged when it arrived. Consequently the books are dinged on the corners. Not a huge problem, but everything looks "used" instead of pristine. Just some quick thoughts -- Bat-Manga will probably be for reference only. It looks pretty weird. The Marvel and DC Encyclopedias will be good resources -- quick-glance stuff. I do have a problem in that both books use too many modern depictions of characters and often ignore the "classic" looks. For example: although Galactus' outfit has never changed, how does one publish a book with an illustrated entry about him and not include any images by Kirby or Buscema?? The entry for Immortus has him in a costume I've never seen. The High Evolutionary is in there, under some name I don't know, and is never referred to as "the High Evolutionary". I'm so old... The Avengers book's individual entries are laid out like an encyclopedia, but the characters are displayed in chronological order. Art used for this book is from all periods, although I'd say the large center pictures tend to be from the current era. The Conan book looks interesting -- lots and lots of different artists' work is depicted. I haven't seriously read Conan in many years, but I could see myself browsing through this from time-to-time. The Marvel Chronicle is the book I will spend the most time with. A note -- the sfbc.com edition is different from the mass market version in that it does not have the two plates inside the front cover (in fact the pocket isn't even there for them) nor is there a ribbon included. Maybe not a big deal to you, but worth a head's up. Evanier's Kirby book will be the second one I read. After having finished Tales to Astonish by Ronin Ro, I am looking forward to Evanier's take on events discussed (though not referenced) by Ro. So, it was a wonderful deal financially for me -- I am sure their online enrollment is similar to what I'd seen earlier, with 5 books for $5.
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Post by sharkar on Nov 20, 2008 22:34:17 GMT -5
Evanier's Kirby book will be the second one I read. I actually picked this up about a month ago but have not had much time to do anything but flip through it. From what I've seen it is FANTASTIC. I'd previously thought it didn't have enough Silver Age work but I now think I was being too narrow-minded: Kirby's work from the Golden Age and his post-Silver work are glorious. Anyone who wants to know about American comic book history should get this volume. Also, from the little bit I have read so far, it seems Evanier is taking great pains to be fair and impartial when it comes to Stan as well as (of course) Jack. I can't wait until I can really sit down and tackle this book. I should add I paid FIVE dollars (and change) for the Kirby book, since I used a Borders discount card I'd recently received from one of my Rewards credit card, plus Borders was having a sale anyway (30%). ;D
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Post by Shiryu on Nov 21, 2008 8:31:40 GMT -5
Hi, kids -- I received a mailer from the Science Fiction Book Club two days ago -- enrollment deal was 7 books for a buck, buy 4 over the next 2 years. So I found my handy-dandy code, went on their website (www.sfbc.com) and scored $250 worth of very cool stuff for my hard-earned dollar plus about $15 S&H. Here's my haul: Marvel Chronicle Avengers: The Ultimate Guide from D/K Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier Bat-Manga (new book by Chip Kidd about Batman comics in Japan during the time of the tv show) Conan: The Ultimate Guide from D/K and authored by Roy Thomas The DC Comics Encyclopedia - updated and expanded edition The Marvel Encyclopedia How's that?? I'll bet that box weighs about 15 pounds when it arrives! Happy reading to me! ;D So, it was a wonderful deal financially for me -- I am sure their online enrollment is similar to what I'd seen earlier, with 5 books for $5. Sorry, I'm not sure I understood it correctly. Do you mean that by enrolling with them you can buy the 7 books above only for a dollar each? If so, how much is the enrollment, and do you know if they accept foreign members? ;D
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Post by dlw66 on Nov 21, 2008 11:35:40 GMT -5
Sorry, I'm not sure I understood it correctly. Do you mean that by enrolling with them you can buy the 7 books above only for a dollar each? If so, how much is the enrollment, and do you know if they accept foreign members? ;D Not a dollar each, my friend -- all for one dollar! Plus shipping and handling, of course. I don't know if they ship internationally, but I would think that they do. www.sfbc.com
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Post by Shiryu on Nov 21, 2008 12:59:10 GMT -5
They don't! I suppose they sell to not members too, but combining the real price and the shipping it would end up more or less the same as buying them here.
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Post by Dr. Hank Pym on Nov 21, 2008 19:49:59 GMT -5
So, is Kirby's book worth biting the $40 bullet, like my local Barnes & Nobles says it's worth?
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Post by sharkar on Nov 21, 2008 20:11:04 GMT -5
So, is Kirby's book worth biting the $40 bullet, like my local Barnes & Nobles says it's worth? I say yes...it's worth that price. However B&N stores usually discount oversized books after a while, so you may want to wait a bit. Or order from Amazon or B&N online, it's discounted on both sites.
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Post by Tana Nile on Nov 24, 2008 13:10:12 GMT -5
I got the Marvel Chronicle book this weekend and thought I would share my first impressions:
-It's a huge heavy book! You will need a little space to lay it out and really enjoy the artwork throughout the book. There are a number of double-page spreads that reprint comics pages.
-I like the historical context sidebars for each year. These sidebars list different events that occured during that year, including popular films. It's kind of nice to be able to reference what was actually happening in the 'real world', to put things in perspective. I read the sections from 1960 to 1965 and was struck by how the growing civil rights movement was somewhat reflected by events in the comics.
- The book is quite through and it was great to be able to connect the dots and discover what was going on in Spider-Man and Thor the same month that Galactus invaded the Earth, for example. Sometimes its been unclear to me who came first, or what happened first, and this book really helps to straighten those things out.
-Although overall I am really happy with the book, it is not without mistakes. I have noted a few already, such as listing Charlton Heston as the star of Spartacus, or saying that Wanda and Pietro discovered Magneto was their father in Avengers 185. Some of the entries on characters give their later history and it can be confusing (for example, the first entry for Count Nefaria describes him as having superstrength, speed and laser powers, when that didn't actually occur for over 10 years). But for the most part it seems pretty accurate. Again, I've only read a small portion of it.
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Post by dlw66 on Nov 24, 2008 13:55:48 GMT -5
I would like to agree with Tana on all of the merits of this book, and correct a statement I'd made above in regard to the sfbc.com edition. There is a color plate inside the book, but not the b&w plate that also comes in the retail edition -- don't know if that matters to anyone or not.
I also feel that the historical connections to the "real world" really put the comics history in perspective, and the authors did a nice job of including important historical and pop culture events in the book to frame the comics. There is not much (at least of what I've read so far) in the way of company anecdotes -- this is pretty straightforward stuff. So, again from what I've seen, if you're looking for any type of "expose" material, this isn't it. But, if you want a nice linear history of Marvel Comics that is rich in graphics, then this is a "must have" for you!
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Post by sharkar on Nov 24, 2008 17:02:02 GMT -5
I-Although overall I am really happy with the book, it is not without mistakes. I have noted a few already, such as listing Charlton Heston as the star of Spartacus, or saying that Wanda and Pietro discovered Magneto was their father in Avengers 185. Some of the entries on characters give their later history and it can be confusing (for example, the first entry for Count Nefaria describes him as having superstrength, speed and laser powers, when that didn't actually occur for over 10 years). Ugh. That drives me crazy. It's a reason why I'm not enamored of (for example) the DK books; they're handsome books, but they're filled with mistakes- -at least the ones I own, the FF and Avengers books, are...and when I've looked through DK's Marvel Encyclopedia (in the bookstore) it's not exactly accurate either. I know the errors are for the most part minor, but if they can't get the small things right then I have to doubt the accuracy of the rest of their information.
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Post by dlw66 on Dec 11, 2008 13:53:21 GMT -5
Reading the Marvel Chronicle, I'm into the 1960's now. I saw a huge error last night in regard to the Green Goblin and Ditko allegedly always lobbying for the Goblin to be Norman Osborn. No way -- that flies in the face of every account of Ditko's decision to leave the title.
Ditko wanted the Goblin to be a nobody -- the reveal was to be strictly for information and not shock value. As he and Stan had begun to argue over this issue, Stan decided to insert Spidey as a guest-star in DD's book. John Romita was the then-penciller of Daredevil, and Stan wanted to see how he would handle the Wall-crawler in case Stan needed to slide him over into the ASM book.
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Post by Tana Nile on Dec 11, 2008 16:40:41 GMT -5
Wait til you get to the entry on Gwen Stacy's death...completely inaccurate depiction of how she died. The sheer number of errors I've seen so far have caused me to drop my evaluation of this book - it's probably about a 3 out of 5 for me. Still fun, but I would never rely totally on it as a resource.
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Post by sharkar on Dec 11, 2008 18:28:07 GMT -5
Reading the Marvel Chronicle, I'm into the 1960's now. I saw a huge error last night in regard to the Green Goblin and Ditko allegedly always lobbying for the Goblin to be Norman Osborn. Wait til you get to the entry on Gwen Stacy's death...completely inaccurate depiction of how she died. Wow, you're not kidding about big mistakes! Unfortunately, this does not surprise me. As mentioned, from what I've seen in the past, DK books (about comics, anyway) typically have a lot of inaccuracies so I've learned not to rely on them for information. Too bad about this particular book, though, because there are people like Peter Sanderson are involved (well, I guess he was not reponsible for fact checking...) You know, I was going to wait until someone gave me Marvel Chronicle for Christmas...but now I don't know if I can wait that long, I want to see what other mistakes there are ;D! EDIT: added quote from Tana's post
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Post by dlw66 on Dec 11, 2008 22:04:57 GMT -5
As I progress through the Marvel Chronicle, I'd still like to recommend it. It is a fantastic summary of all things Marvel, from their books to the fan clubs to Martin Goodman's marketing strategies. The coloring is very nice -- vibrant but not too bright. The artists represented are a "who's who" of the Marvel Silver Age. The authors certainly give Stan the spotlight, but Kirby's and others' contributions are not slighted.
Now the HOWEVER... As has been stated above, the historical innacuracies and now the grammar gaffes leave me wanting. Shalla Bal was not the Empress of Zenn-La. And it's "spinal cord", not "spinal chord" -- pretty sure that's not a musical part of the body.
Like Tana said, another distraction is the modern events stuck toward the end of character introductions (ie her mention of Count Nefaria). In a book that includes events all the way up through "Brand New Day", it's hardly necessary to mention those types of things in the 1960's entries.
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Post by Shiryu on Dec 12, 2008 18:32:27 GMT -5
And it's "spinal cord", not "spinal chord" -- pretty sure that's not a musical part of the body. Nice one ^^ Next time, I'll tell my patients they have sciatica due to a trapped string ;D
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Post by Tana Nile on Dec 16, 2008 10:13:51 GMT -5
Not to keep harping on this but I saw one glaring error the other day, which should be apparent even to someone who has never read comics. The write-up on the first appearance of the Punisher says Amazing Spider-Man #130, but right next to it is the cover of that issue, which is clearly 129! I can see this error being made in the initial drafts, but surely it should have been caught before production. It's just an example of the sloppiness that unfortunately pervades the book.
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Post by dlw66 on Dec 16, 2008 17:04:05 GMT -5
Sloppiness would be correct. There are some heavy hitters listed as authors of this tome, among them Mr. Marvel History -- Peter Sanderson! I simply cannot excuse these errors. To be honest, there shouldn't be ANY mistakes -- editorial should see to that. But the vast number of mistakes, and of major historical events is just terrible.
But it's still a good book! But (again), I feel badly for the reader who is not well-versed in Marvel history and these gaffes just fly right by them. Can you see arguments coming in the next generation?? "Yeah, I wanna get that Spider-Man 130 to see how the Punisher started." "No, ya doofus -- he started in 129! Duh!"
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Post by Shiryu on Dec 16, 2008 19:12:15 GMT -5
To be fair, having written a similar sort of book just 3 months ago, I can tell you that the process of proofreading is nightmare-ish For example, we triple and quadrichecked, then there would be a graphics change and all of a sudden they would use a old version of the file, or do something wrong during the copy and paste, or decide to fix things alone to save time, and a new list of mistakes would appear. You correct those and they do some further changes to the graphics, adding a new picture or shifting things around, and still new mistakes pop up. Then word decides to change the auto-correct to a different language, or Xpress (the pagination software) splits/deletes/edits words by its own accord. The editorial proof-reading is usually done on the plain text from word file, hence before the graphics is added and several of these mistakes occurr. Then after checking it 3 or 4 times, it becomes difficult to proofread again focus on each individual word, and more mistakes go unnoticed. Obviously, given the value and type of book, there still should't be many or any, but having been on the other side of book writing, I can now tell what a frustrating process the proof-reading is.
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Post by dlw66 on Jan 20, 2009 13:15:33 GMT -5
I finished the Marvel Chronicle last night. For those of you who are also reading it, I'd like to pose this thought -- find the point in Marvel history where Marvel ceased to be about its characters and stories and all about the almighty dollar and creator' egos. I think it's somewhat clear cut, but especially since the Bill Jemas/Joe Quesada reign began. Let me know what you think.
EDIT: general grammar clean-up (unlike the proofreaders of the Marvel Chronicle!)
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Post by spiderwasp on Jan 20, 2009 13:37:23 GMT -5
I finished the Marvel Chronicle last night. For those of you who are also reading it, I'd like to pose this thought -- find the point in Marvel history where Marve ceased to be about its characters and stories and all about the almighty dollar and creator egos. I think it's somewhat clear cut, but especially since the Bill Jemas/Joe Quesada reign began. Let me know what you think. I just finished rereading the entire run of Avengers through Disassebled (With the exception of the Heroes Reborn thing which I've never read) and it couldn't be more clear, to me anyway, at least where this title is concerned. As soon as Quesada took over, it became all about longer arcs that could be made into TPB, big events for the sake of having a big event, and character shakeups to keep things stirred up. Gone were the days of simply telling a good story which had a beginning, a middle, and an end.
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Post by dlw66 on Jan 20, 2009 13:57:58 GMT -5
As soon as Quesada took over, it became all about longer arcs that could be made into TPB, big events for the sake of having a big event, and character shakeups to keep things stirred up. Gone were the days of simply telling a good story which had a beginning, a middle, and an end. Funny you should mention that ! The MC just raves about these "innovations". It is obviously a book written by Marvel (although published by Dorling Kinnersley), as it is apologetic, sweeps lots of uglies under the rug (the bankruptcy filing is barely mentioned) and although it mentions fan discontent from time-to-time for the most part it glosses over whatever story caused said unrest. I would say the line between "keeping the fan first" and "manipulating the consumer" falls in Shooter's EIC tenure. Secret Wars seems to be the spark, and Marvel didn't take into account that it was a new idea -- the big crossover. Instead they continued to go to the well. I would suggest that the gluttony of the 90's is alive and well, and perhaps even flourishing.
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Post by Dr. Hank Pym on Jan 23, 2009 12:50:15 GMT -5
I have to agree with Doug, it all begins with the Secret Wars storyline. Around then is when more Marvel merchandise than ever came out, from action figures to T-shirts to even awesome NES games! I loved Captain America and the Avengers, and the arcade Avengers games was just awesome! But honestly, this, along with the popularity of Todd McFarlane, all led to when Marvel became less for the reader and more for the consumer, to me. When Todd got popular, everyone was buying everything that he did and eating it up with a spoon. I love Todd to death and all, but I feel that he helped contribute to the way things are, now.
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Post by Tana Nile on Feb 15, 2009 17:44:03 GMT -5
I've been thinking about it, and in general I would agree with you guys that what I see as the the edge of money over art began around the time of Secret Wars. Certainly by the 90s the greed was on full display with the multiple covers, the beginning of the mega-crossovers, and a flood of terrible books.
This reminds me of something that came up for a recent blog post between me, DLW, and Sharkar. We were discussing the absence of the Big Three from the Avengers for many years. This was due to Stan Lee's concern that their team appearances might potentially affect their solo books. Now does that sound like someone who's worried about making money? Wouldn't it have made more sense (financially) for Lee to include the Big Three in Avengers to insure strong sales? Sounds more like he was thinking about how to maintain continuity - certainly not something that bothers the heads at either DC or Marvel now.
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Post by Shiryu on Feb 15, 2009 18:07:27 GMT -5
That's a good point, even though it can be argued that he didn't want to weaken the Cap, IM and Thor books by making the characters regularly appear in Avengers. Otherwise, someone who wanted to see them and had limited finances could just buy one book instead of three. To be honest, I've always thought that Stan's main assett was his creativity and ability to interact with the reader. His marketing skills were a bit hit and miss at times ^^
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Post by dlw66 on Mar 17, 2009 12:56:21 GMT -5
Has anyone else been reading the Marvel Chronicle?
I've been reading "Stan's Soapbox" -- I would recommend it with some reservations. My negative criticism would be minor, in that the book does not do a complete job of placing Stan's columns in historical context (i.e. Marvel historical context). It might, however, be read alongside the Chronicle for enhancement.
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