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As a little kid back in the 1970's I became an obsessed comic book collector & one of my very most favorite things in the entire world were "Treasury Comics". They were put out by both DC Comics & Marvel ( I was more of a "DC Guy" ). If you have never seen or experienced these beautiful books then your life is completely sad, ha! Treasury Comics were basically reprints of classic stories but sold in a giant-size format. I mean, these babies were HUGE! It was almost like reading a newspaper, ha! I totally loved them & still have about 15 or 20 of them stored away in the very very back of my closet, in protective plastic bags of course.
Which, gets me to the reason for this post. The other day, while trolling on eBay, I came across a guy selling the Original Comic Book Art for the Cover to the 1975 BATMAN Treasury Comics Limited-Collectors-Edition #C37. The Artist back then was Jim Aparo!! I have always been a HUGE Aparo Fan & totally love his artwork. Now, as you can imagine, this baby is out of my price range, but I would kill to have it, ha! To own an actual piece of your childhood history like that, is what gives Collectors a reason to live. Oh well, I guess I can just drool over the photo posted up above ( Please click on it for a larger, more beautiful, picture ). The later photos show the actual product ( front & back ) and also a few advertisements that showed-up in comic books back in the day. By the way, if your a big fan of treasurys, or just wanna learn more, then please let me suggest TREASURYCOMICS.COM, it's a great reference site!
When I was a very young teen DC Comics used to publish these HUGE comic books called Treasury Comics. They were a very large format & I used to totally love them. One of my favorites was called "Muhammad Ali VS Superman". The entire story & artwork was done by Neal Adams so you know it had some amazing art! It was a really great story too. The basic premise was that the leader of an alien race wanted to know who would win if Ali & Superman fought in a boxing match. The alien leader had them both abducted & taken to a planet with a red sun. Because of the "red sun" aspect, Superman didn't have any super-powers at all so then it would be an "equal fight". The story also dealt with a lot of real-life issues like race, tolerance, justice, equality, etc...it was just really really great! In fact, it's now a beloved classic! Well, this post is mainly about the "parody covers" in other magazines. The 1st one is an issue of ESPN Magazine ( art done by Neal Adams ) showing Muhammad Ali boxing Michael Jordan surrounded by the top 100 athletes of the millennium. The 2nd one ( artist unknown by me ) is Homer Simpson VS Bugs Bunny, totally hilarious! OK, I know this post is not really that much "Batman-Related" but Neal Adams was one of the very best artists to ever draw the Dark Knight Caped Crusader so that counts, right?
There's a really great site I found last week that is totally dedicated to the TREASURY COMICS. Basically it's all about the history of those cool GIANT-SIZED Comic Books made in the 1970's & early 80's. Most of the time they were reprints of classic stories in a HUGE format. Both DC Comics & Marvel Comics made them for their main characters but they even teamed-up in a landmark issue called SUPERMAN VS SPIDERMAN. This was the 1st time in history the two companies got together to make one comic! The design layout of this webpage is beautiful! It's sort of a minimal-style site that really makes the photos of the covers shine thru! As a very young comic book collector I used to really love these & still have about 15 of them hidden away in my closet, most of them Batman! This site is very detailed with alot of great information that will bring back alot of good memories, so go check it out. Just remember to BOOKMARK The BAT-BLOG before ya go, ha ha!
