Inside the indie comics box today, it’s Teknophage: a walking, talking, totally evil dinosaur who rules a world much like ours, only infinitely more terrible. Teknophage feeds on souls, which he extracts from helpless humans in the horrifying vats of his mobile city. He cruises his planet spreading misery every where he goes. Many have tried to overthrow him, only to have their souls ripped from their tortured bodies and consumed.
Rick Veitch created this evil bastard reptile for Tekno Comix, a Neil Gaiman venture. With artist Bryan Talbot, Veitch blends horror, science fiction, and a cynically hilarious social satire to make Teknophage a story you will never forget — assuming you survive!
Here is a preview of the pages where Teknophage recounts his earliest days as just another evil telepathic dinosaur, and how he discovered the multi-dimensional technology that made him master of the planet.
Collector’s Guide: From Teknophage #4-5; Tekno Comix, 1995.
What’s in the short-box of indie and small-press comics this week? It’s Rare Bit Fiends by Rick Veitch! Here to introduce the descent into the dreamworld is a strange and nameless beast who begins every issue of this unique series.
In Rare Bit Fiends, Rick Veitch made his dreams into pages of comic book art. Don’t look for traditional stories in Rare Bit Fiends. You’ll only find the psychedelic language of dreams and the weird workings of the inner mind. Veitch’s artwork is in top form.
Below is a sample of an illustrated dream whose narrative comes from a special-guest dreamer Neil Gaiman and rendered by Roarin’ Rick in ultra-cosmic perfection!
The title Rare Bit Fiends is a nod to the early 20th Century comic strip Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend by Winsor McCay, who created Little Nemo in Slumberland.
Just when I’d wrapped up a series of posts about the big box of free comics I got thanks to readers who used my affiliate links to find books at MyComicShop.com, another note from the retailer arrived to say I’d earned an additional $80 in store credit. That same week, I’d found a good deal on eBay to replace one of my favorite (and previously sold) action/crime series, DC/Vertigo’s The Losers, so I was left with very few holes in my collection. The Dark Horse Conan stories I’d like to read again were either too pricey or currently out of stock, so I dug around in my short boxes until it hit me: I still don’t have the complete original Miracleman series!
Over the years, I’d tracked down affordable copies in respectable condition of issues #1–20, and this quest was aided near the end by Marvel’s reprints of the original series. As Marvel made new, high-quality reprints available, the ridiculous prices for the original books decreased. Issue #15, one of the last gems to enter my collection, used to run from $150 up to several hundred bucks. Now I have a copy in wonderful, though not perfect, condition — and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg.
I didn’t worry too much about collecting issues #21–24 because Marvel reprinted #21 and 22 in their repackaging of Neil Gaiman’s Golden Age storyline, and it seemed that Gaiman was slated to finish the Silver Age story that ended with a cliffhanger and was never completed due to Eclipse Comics’ demise. But here we are, years later, and we still haven’t seen the end of that story. I’m glad for Gaiman’s recent success with American Gods, but it isn’t a project that interests me. The gods I want to read about have “Miracle” in their names!
So, armed with some store credit, I picked up issues #21-23 of the original series, leaving me with only the rare (and still a bit pricey) #24 on my wish list. I’ve read them all before, thanks to scans posted online, but it’s just a different and more satisfying experience to read the physical copies.
Those three books ate up most of my store credit, but I had just enough left over to pick up another story I’ve read before but was partially incomplete in my collection: The Price by Jim Starlin. Sure, I have the color “remastered” version that was the Dreadstar Annual, but I have never seen nor owned the original magazine-sized black-and-white edition, and I just love the black-and-white painted art of the original Metamorphosis Odyssey that appeared in Epic Illustrated and started the whole Dreadstar saga.
The original art reveals just how much the coloring/painting process enhanced the artwork’s mood and the story’s vibrancy. The original feels cold compared to the color version. It lacks the brilliant reds of the robes worn by members of the Church of the Instrumentality, the eye-popping colors that bring various cosmic and mystical energies to life on the page, and the powerful emotions suggested by the reprint’s color artwork.
However, the front and back-cover paintings are rendered in their original full-color and full-size glory, unlike in the reprint where they are shrunk and surrounded by additional cover elements that distract from their beauty—a complaint that at least one reader expressed in the original letters column of Dreadstar when the Annual was discussed.
I’m pleased to now have both versions of The Price in my Dreadstar collection, and the original was the one piece I’ve felt was missing over the years. How I assembled, lost, and re-assembled the entire original series fourtimes is a saga of collector triumph and tragedy, but I’m happy to now have every issue I ever wanted from one of my all-time favorite stories in any medium.
Now if we could just see the end of Miracleman, all would be right with the universe.
Thank you, readers and fans of sequential art for visiting this site and using it to find the books you want!
In 2012, Neil Gaiman won a long-standing court case recognizing his creator rights to the Angela character, sixteen years after her first appearance in Spawn #9. But we’re not here to dicuss the legal troubles of our favorite creators — just to celebrate their awesome work!
While we always enjoyed the artwork in Spawn, we were never huge fans of the book. Angela, however, struck a chord with us — and we were not alone. Fans dug her so much that she starred in her own three-issue limited series by Gaiman and artist Greg Capullo.
Today we’ll have a look at the first scene from the first issue of that series. It’s Angela’s hundred thousandth birthday. To celebrate, Heaven’s most ass-kicking huntress tracks down an alien dragon to put his fearsome head on her trophy wall.
Collector’s Guide: From Angela #1; Image, 1994. Reprinted in the Angela TPB.
Collector’s Notes: The Angela TPB does not include the first appearance of Angela by Gaiman and Todd McFarlane in Spawn #9 (reprinted in Spawn TPB #2.) Angela also appears in Curse of the Spawn #9-11 (reprinted in Curse of the Spawn TPB #3.) The Curse stories flashback to her origin.
Sandman #1 unforgettably introduced the modern-day mythology of Morpheus, the King of Dreams. The first story features the talents of New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman with art by Sam Kieth & Mike Dringenberg. Dave McKean did the covers for the series, a collection of art in their own right.
Today we look at the re-colored version from the Sandman Special Edition #1. Some cranky, power-mad codgers have kept Morpheus imprisoned for decades. This messes up the dreams of everyone on the planet, not to mention makes Morpheus increasingly angry.
All these guys have to do is not cross the magic circle that surrounds Morpheus’ cage. But watch where you roll that wheelchair! Let’s enjoy the scene where Morpheus breaks free and punishes his captor, kicking off Gaiman’s critically-acclaimed 75-issue epic, Sandman.
Mars Will Send No More 