Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Exit Stage Left: Best of DC #71

If you are somewhere around my age, digests played a big role in your life growing up. I wasn't really reading comics when this one came out, but I can only imagine that its demise was barely noticed by comic book fans at large. Granted, there are certain problems with the digest format but I still think they are pretty neat and grab them whenever I find affordable copies. This particular issue is a great example of DC in the mid-80s as it contains no fewer than 3 Alan Moore stories. It also has a couple of Swan drawn Superman stories and a Colan Batman tale. Just to show the diversity at DC, also included are Atari Force and Ambush Bug tales. I get nostalgic when I see these digests and feel a bit sad that they died when I had my back turned on comics. I think a 'Year's Best' would be tough to pull off these days as self-contained stories are too few and far between. It is a great concept though, and these digest are still a great way to get a nice fix of old stories.

1 comment:

Daniel Graves said...

Scott:

I loved the digests... I don't know if they mostly came out in the summer, but that's when I bought them because the drugstores near the cottage in Parry Sound didn't have quite the variety of Comics that the city stores had and the selections were pretty thin. Perhaps their shelf life was longer on the newstand. I remember owning many digests. They really introduced me to many characters that I would never have read, including some that had war story themes. Thanks again for the trip down memory lane.
Fr. Dan