late 80's idependents Aircel, silverwolf, mirage etc

[BigLbo]

when i was a kid in about 87 i got my 1st taste of non-DC/marvel comics. they were mostly B&W books from Aircel, and Silverwolf aside from TMNT from Mirage.

some of my favorites

Aircel
DragonRing and then later DragonForce
Samurai
Gun Fury
Warlock 5

Silverwolf
Grips
Legion X-1

did anybody else read this stuff or other late 80's independents??
i loved it, just discovering all these new characters was so cool to me and the level of violence blew my mind. also the young dale keown and tim vigil art was awesome to me.

[FanboyStranger]

Love '80s Indies, but my tastes tend to go more towards First!, Eclipse, and Fantagraphics. I'll fight with anyone who says that the first year of American Flagg! isn't the single finest run in comics.

[MRP]

First and Eclipse for me as well, plus a bunch of stuff from Pacific. I remember the Aircel stuff as well, but I didn't pick up much of it. I also liked some of the early AC stuff-Nightveil, Bolt, etc.

I remember my lcs owner at the time even got in the black and white publishing boom, as he was a friend of Steve Woron and published an issue of Woron's comic the Survivors (I think that was the title) as Burnside Comics (his shop was located on Burnside Ave in East Hartford CT).

I've actually been picking up a bunch of this stuff again via quarter and dollar bins as I find it (plus as many issues of Amazing Heroes and Comics Interview from the time as I can come across).

-M

[BigLbo]

First and Eclipse for me as well, plus a bunch of stuff from Pacific. I remember the Aircel stuff as well, but I didn't pick up much of it. I also liked some of the early AC stuff-Nightveil, Bolt, etc.

I remember my lcs owner at the time even got in the black and white publishing boom, as he was a friend of Steve Woron and published an issue of Woron's comic the Survivors (I think that was the title) as Burnside Comics (his shop was located on Burnside Ave in East Hartford CT).

I've actually been picking up a bunch of this stuff again via quarter and dollar bins as I find it (plus as many issues of Amazing Heroes and Comics Interview from the time as I can come across).

-M

what titles?? we didn't even have a LCS where i lived, the spinner racks at the drugstores were the only place to get comics. i wasn't until i was visiting my mom in sunnyvale for the summer me and my brother found this shop called cosmic comics. i was in that shop like everyday for the next couple of summers.

another book i dug was Crow of the Bear Clan, can't remember what company that was from.

[victorxd1999]

what titles?? we didn't even have a LCS where i lived, the spinner racks at the drugstores were the only place to get comics. i wasn't until i was visiting my mom in sunnyvale for the summer me and my brother found this shop called cosmic comics. i was in that shop like everyday for the next couple of summers.

another book i dug was Crow of the Bear Clan, can't remember what company that was from.

First comics had an unbelievably strong line-up with some of the best creators in the industry. American Flagg! (Chaykin), Jon Sable (Grell), Nexus and Badger (Mike Baron), Grimjack (Ostrander), Starslayer (mostly Grell) and some more wee all top notch and some of the best works in the careers of the creators. Haven't read much from Eclipse or Pacific.

[BigLbo]

First comics had an unbelievably strong line-up with some of the best creators in the industry. American Flagg! (Chaykin), Jon Sable (Grell), Nexus and Badger (Mike Baron), Grimjack (Ostrander), Starslayer (mostly Grell) and some more wee all top notch and some of the best works in the careers of the creators. Haven't read much from Eclipse or Pacific.

i've never read any of that stuff, xcept some badger which was pretty cool and american flagg which to be honest didn't really grab me. might've been different if i had read it when it first came out. most of the stuff i listed isn't all that good but i loved it and enjoy it now because of the connection i have to it. Gun Fury is awesome though and is still great.

i was always curious about nexus and grimjack.

[ed2962]

I was sorta into First, Eclipse, and a couple random things from Pacific. Epic doesn't really count since it's Marvel, but I was into some of their creator own tiles.

[victorxd1999]

i've never read any of that stuff, xcept some badger which was pretty cool and american flagg which to be honest didn't really grab me. might've been different if i had read it when it first came out. most of the stuff i listed isn't all that good but i loved it and enjoy it now because of the connection i have to it. Gun Fury is awesome though and is still great.

i was always curious about nexus and grimjack.

American Flagg! is probably the most dated of the bunch. I discovered First last year and have really enjoyed their stuff. Nexus is still considered one of the best long running sci-fi ongoings by the fans and Grimjack, Starslayer and Jon Sable still rank as some of the best work of their creators even tough they made some great stuff later in their career. Very good stuff. And even if you don't like the writing there was some killer art in that era too (Young Mike Grell and Tim Truman are soooo good)

[Bri]

All the titles from first mentioned are really good (my favorite was Badger.) A lot of the Aircel stuff was really, really bad. Even around the ages of 11-13 I remember thinking much of their output as looking sub-standard. (The Keown books being an exception.)
Both Nexus and Grimjack have been reprinted in quality TPB's, Nexus from Dark Horse, Grimjack from IDW. You should be able to find these from CGN/IST/ebay etc.
Another of my favorite 80's indie book's, Airboy, is currently being reprinted by IDW. Great stories by Chuck Dixon with art by Stan Woch, Tom Yeats and many more. If you want some top notch action comics check 'em out.

[BigLbo]

American Flagg! is probably the most dated of the bunch. I discovered First last year and have really enjoyed their stuff. Nexus is still considered one of the best long running sci-fi ongoings by the fans and Grimjack, Starslayer and Jon Sable still rank as some of the best work of their creators even tough they made some great stuff later in their career. Very good stuff. And even if you don't like the writing there was some killer art in that era too (Young Mike Grell and Tim Truman are soooo good)

i'm going to have to check out nexus.

All the titles from first mentioned are really good (my favorite was Badger.) A lot of the Aircel stuff was really, really bad. Even around the ages of 11-13 I remember thinking much of their output as looking sub-standard. (The Keown books being an exception.)
Both Nexus and Grimjack have been reprinted in quality TPB's, Nexus from Dark Horse, Grimjack from IDW. You should be able to find these from CGN/IST/ebay etc.
Another of my favorite 80's indie book's, Airboy, is currently being reprinted by IDW. Great stories by Chuck Dixon with art by Stan Woch, Tom Yeats and many more. If you want some top notch action comics check 'em out.

i also like barry blair's stuff.
at the time i didn't realize it was going on but looking back it's pretty cool to realize i was partaking in the "B&W boom" of the 80's.

[victorxd1999]

here is a small eview to get you pumped
http://comicsalliance.com/mike-baron...ew-dark-horse/

[MRP]

I first went checked out First Comics when Starlin took Dreadstar there and then I started checking out a lot of their titles. Nexus was probably my favorite of those I discovered at the time. I started buying Comico stuff with Jonny Quest and then found Bill Willingham doing stuff there, who had been one of my favorite artists on the early 80s D&D stuff I had been into. What started Fantagraphics for me was the Doomsday Squad reprints of the John Byrne Doomsday +1 Charlton series but there I discovered Dalgoda and Usagi Yojimbo as back ups. That led me to Albedo and Critters. The Anything Goes anthology was a fundraiser books by the Comics Journal sported a George Perez cover on one of the issues and that lead me to buy it and sample a lot of different stuff. I also read Amazing Heroes fairly regularly for my comic news and that served as a gateway to the indies.

The biggest obstacle to reading indies at the time was price for me. I was in high school working part time and comics were only one thing I had to spend money on. Mainstream books were 75 cents and issue, but the average indy was $2 or so, so I had to really like it to get it at the cost of 2-3 mainstream titles. However, at the lcs I went to at the time, there wasn't a strong demand for those indies as back issues so he often put leftover copies in a bargain bin, where I snapped up a lot of them 6-8 months after they came out, but often led to holes in runs as not every issue made it to the bin, and he would cut orders if something consistently did not sell. But it was a great way to sample a lot of stuff.

I'm still chasing down issues of some of those series to read 25+ years later.

Some series I consider worth checking out from the time include:

Airboy (Dixon)
Albedo
Alien Encounters
American Flagg!
Anything Goes
Badger
Bold Adventure
Border Worlds
Brian Bolland's Black Book
Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers (Kirby)
Critters
Crossfire (Evanier)
Crossfire and Rainbow (Evanier)
Demon Dreams (Arthur Sudyam)
Destroyer Duck (Gerber, Kirby)
DNAgents (Evanier)
Echo of Future Past
Elementals (Willingham)
The Elric and other Moorcock adaptations (Hawkmoon, Corum, some feature early Migola work, some P. Craig Russell, and other interesting artists)
ESPers
Grendel (Wagner)
Grimjack (Ostrander)
John Law (Eisner 1-shot)
Jonny Quest
Jon Sable, Freelance (Grell)
Mage (Matt Wagner)
Mister X
Ms. Tree
New Wave (features some early Erik Larsen stuff)
Nexus (Baron/Rude)
Nightveil
Pacific Presents
Pathways to Fantasy
Rocketeer appearances/stories
Sabre (McGregor/Gulacy)
Scout (Tim Truman)
Silver Star (Kirby)
The Spirit material released by Kitchen Sink
Star*Reach
Starslayer
Tales of Terror
Thieves World OGN adaptations (featuring very early Tim Sale art)
Twisted Tales
Usagi Yojimbo
Vanguard Illustrated
Vortex
Whisper (Breyfogle)
Zot! (Scott McCloud)

and then you get into early Dark Horse stuff like Concrete, The American, Dark Horse Presents etc. that started around that time as well. There was a lot of early Epic material that fit this mold as well, and stuff that started at Marvel but went elsewhere (Dreadstar is first that comes to mind but Dave Cockrum's Futurians also fits the bill). There is a bunch of other stuff I am probably forgetting as well, plus the indy staples like Cerebus, Elfquest, Groo, etc. that were in their prime at this point as well.

There's probably a host of other worthwhile stuf fI am either forgetting or just haven't encountered yet. It was a great time for comic experimentation and standalone series, before indies tried to be mini big 2 publishers with shared universes and allowed creators to explore their visions, much like we are seeing a return to with the current Image output and stuff of that ilk.

-M

PS: a great way to check out if you might like some of these is to get your hands on one of the Amazing Heroes Preview Specials from the time-they included cover previews, synopsis, art samples, interviews with creators, etc. for 6 months of books at a time, or issue sof the regular book that had more articles but only did shout out previews for a couple of weeks worth of books at a time (the series was bi-weekly for most of its run). The big 2 get a lot of attention and cover space, but there is a a wealth of info and previews of indy stuff from the time as well.

You can also get a glimpse and info of some of this stuff at the GCD http://www.comics.org/
if there is a particular title you want to look up.

[BigLbo]

here is a small eview to get you pumped
http://comicsalliance.com/mike-baron...ew-dark-horse/

thanks. i didn't want to read too much of that though until after i've read some of the series. i want to get my own idea of what i think the series is 1st and then see if i agree with what's written there.