Vampirella Flip Book

“Bugs” – October 1994

Vampirella’s costume is designed with one thing in mind: sex appeal. It does its job well and has helped the character endure for 40 years and even helped thrust (no pun intended) her prominently (no pun intended) into the forefront of the nineties bad girl craze. What amuses me the most about her costume, though, is how well it acts as a barometer for the sort of story you’re about to get: the skimpier the costume, the less the creators care about story and the more they care about boobies. Take this issue’s cover by Jim Balent, featuring a dental floss version of Vampirella’s traditional red one-piece that is very much in keeping with the overly sexualized stories and art featured in Balent’s work on Tarot. This cover suggests a nineties era boobs before plot mentality, but the interiors suggest something altogether different. Arthur Adams, who drew our feature, is also well known for rendering sexy, buxom babes, although with highly appealing artistic flair and talent for character acting that rivals Kevin Maguire’s. His Vampirella costume is more modest than Balent’s, actually covering most of her chest and giving her some small dignity. Adams is also a damn fine monster artist and he gets to put all of that on display in this story, which sees Vampi trying to save a group of innocent bug monsters from confused and bloodthirsty townspeople in a Kurt Busiek penned version of the well worn “the monsters are the good guys” horror trope.

Astro City #1

“Welcome to Astro City”

Cover Price: $2.50
Bargain Price: $0.25
Cover Date: September 1996

Kurt Busiek’s Astro City is always a joy. For the uninitiated, each issue of the series tells the story of a regular person living in a world filled with super-hero analogs. This particular issue deals with a single dad and his two daughters moving to the eponymous city and their first experiences with a super-heroic disaster. It’s a pretty low key story and, at first blush, might seem unexceptional or, for your friendly neighborhood blogger, difficult to talk about, but the low key stuff really is the strength of Astro City as Busiek time and again mines the super-heroic world for little moments that, while profound, are dealt with in such a perfectly casual manner that his incredible insight into what it would be like to live in the Marvel or DCU can be momentarily missed. In this issue, it’s the quiet moment when the residents of our protagonist’s apartment building ascend to the roof, some with lawn chairs, to watch the apocalyptic battle taking place in the skies overhead. It’s real Lee/Kirby end of the world stuff, dangerous beyond human comprehension, but the people stand and watch, knowing that, should the worst happen, the brick and mortar of their home won’t protect them, but never truly fearing that such an end will occur. Of course the heroes will win, they always do and you may as well watch, even if, for many of the bystanders, it’s as common as the rain.