Volume 30, Number 12

Vol. 30, No. 12
December 2019

whole number 360
2019 pages 089-096 (8 pages)

Hy Eisman provides a seasonal cover from the Popeye comic strip for which he's long done the Sunday pages for as the latest successor to creator E.C. Segar.

Sheldon Mayer is represented as usual in the year-end issue, this time with a layout page and three script pages from the unfinished "Story of Jesus" comic.

Letters in Under The Gun by Joe Frank on Christmas comics and Gary Poole on Ditko's Konga and his own 1968 King Kong adaptation.

And the year finishes up with an index to all of Volume 30 of the newsletter

Volume 23, Number 1

Vol. 23, No. 1
January 2012
whole number 265
2012 pages 001-008 (8 pages)

A cover of Archie's STEEL STERLING from 1984 on the cover, idea by Robert Kanigher, art by Carmine Infantino and Eduardo Barreto.  Inside are some commentary by Kanigher on cover design from 1983, plus part 30 of the ongoing bibliography of Kanigher, "Mystery Of The Human Thunderbolt", looks at 1989 and 1990, which are mostly reprints, plus some commentary on his work by Mike Esposito and Joe Kubert.

Under The Gun this time marks the passing of Jack Adler, Gene Colan, Del Connell and Peter O'Donnell.

Letters of comment by Stan Goldberg, Stephen Bissette, Bob Heer, Michael Barrie, S. Bycko, D. Fenton, Joe Frank, Nick Caputo and Paul DeVinny.

Hy Eisman provides the back cover, a celebration of the new year courtesy of Popeye.

Volume 14, Number 8

Vol. 14, No. 8
August 2003
whole number 164
2003 pages 057-064

Steve Ditko is on the front and back covers of this issue with a late chapter of his long series "A Mini-History" on the creation of Spider-Man, 13. "Speculation".  He features a then-recent quote by Lee on national TV discussing his tired old "saw a fly on the wall" version of the creation of the character, which even Lee admits might be made up. This also leads to one of my favourite Ditko quotes on the matter:

"A leap from a fly to a spider is like from man to a cannibal." -- S. Ditko

He goes into detail on what aspects of the creation he's familiar with and some thoughts about what might have been and what "creation" and "co-creation" means.

Matt Murphy talks about working with the then-recently passed Helen Meyer, publisher of Dell back in their heydey. 

Part 12 of the Robert Kanigher bibliography "Riddle Of The Sphinx" looks at part of 1976, which includes Ragman, Tarzan and some unpublished work like Savage World and Sextet.  

Part 11 of Paul Newman's bibliography, "Just Imagine", is up to 1955 and has him working at Dell, Timely, Avon, ME and Trojan, and that's just the A to F titles.

Lots of discussion in "Under The Gun", Snyder on Al Capp, a handwritten note by Hy Eisman on his career, Mark McMurray and David Transue on Ditko's "Avenging Mind", Murray Ward on Helen Meyer, Nick Caputo on an earlier "Mini-History" chapter, Jim Amash on Les Zakarin, Gary Kato on Mr. Jigsaw, Mike Ambrose on Jerry Grandenetti