BS: Any comic book readers here ?

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 May 03 - 12:09 AM

Well, this is what happens when a race of creatures becomes "civilized"...they start needing toothbrushes, flush toilets, boots, life preservers, frying pans, and so on. Why should ducks be any different?

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: MMario
Date: 14 May 03 - 08:30 AM

My theory is that Donald and his cohorts are Anas* Sapiens a distinctly different species from those most commonly seen.

*that's with an "a" not a "u"

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: GUEST,Ron Olesko
Date: 14 May 03 - 09:16 AM

Personally I never saw the appeal of Donald Duck - comics or cartoons.   Now if you want to talk about Howard the Duck.... well, let's not mention "that" movie.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Wesley S
Date: 14 May 03 - 11:09 AM

Ron - The movie of Howard the Duck was awful - but the first year or so of the comic book itself was pretty darn funny as I remember it. I'll have to get them out and reread them to see if they still hold up.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 May 03 - 12:19 PM

Come on! The comic Howard the Duck was great (specially in the early days, as you say), and the movie was great too, although it could have been better in some respects, I suppose. It certainly was not exactly like the comic, but stood well on its own.

Ron, the appeal of the duck comics (Disney) was this: The stories were absolutely chock full of social satire and great art and very clever sight gags. Carl Barks was a genius at lampooning the hypocrisies and foibles of our patently idiotic, money-obsessed society. He really went after lawyers, judges, politicians, scientists, social climbers, and all the pompous and petty fools one is confronted by in life. His stories were multi-leveled too...you had the main storyline (which always worked in a moral of some kind in an amusing fashion)...and then you had the little stories within stories (like a squirrel trying to steal a bag of nuts or something...hilarious stuff) which were going on in the background, so to speak.

Of course, you've got to really be into the details and the dialogue, or else you won't care...

Now, as for the cartoons, forget it. They can't compare to the comics. They are mostly sound and fury, signifying not very much. That's Hollywood for you.

The comics by Carl Barks were in the period of the late 40's to the late 60's. A twenty-year golden age for Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Marion
Date: 14 May 03 - 02:59 PM

I squandered my childhood reading Archie comics, and the Betty-on-Veronica thing sounds like wishful thinking to me. What I'm wondering about is the band the characters were in called "The Archies" whose hit song was "Sugar Sugar". I've been informed that a band called the Archies recorded a song called Sugar Sugar in real life. Which came first?

Did anyone else see the very silly movie version (with actors, not a cartoon) of Josie and the Pussycats? It's a spoof of the flavour-of-the-month pop band industry.

Marion

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: GUEST,Ron Olesko
Date: 14 May 03 - 03:19 PM

I believe the song came first - 1969 if my memory is right. I think it was for the Archies cartoon series.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 May 03 - 05:09 PM

Yes, and it was one of the most dreadfully bad pop songs of all time.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Wesley S
Date: 14 May 03 - 06:00 PM

Little Hawk - I had a friend that used to play side two of the Archies record and tell people it was the new Cars LP. Lots of folks believed them

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Marion
Date: 14 May 03 - 06:28 PM

Keep explaining, Ron. How could the song come first if it was "for the cartoon series"? Was there a TV cartoon before the comic books?

Marion

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 14 May 03 - 07:00 PM

Archie, the comic book, came out in the 1940's.   There was a cartoon series in the late 1960's. Don Kirshner put together a group to sing the songs on the series and "Sugar Sugar" was their biggest hit.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Cluin
Date: 14 May 03 - 09:06 PM

Kirshner put together the Archies out of his stable of artists and songwriters (hit writers) after his fiasco with the Monkees. The Monkees wanted to start playing their own instruments and doing their own songs and production, even though Kirshner has a contract to handle the music end of that little artificial group.

Dynamic Don then went to managing the cartoon characters so he wouldn't have to deal with any real egos anymore. When I was a kid, everybody had that damn Archies record. It saw non-stop play at every birthday and pool party for a couple of years.

"Hey Jughead, where are you?"

Trivia: The lead singer for the Archies was Andy Kim.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 14 May 03 - 11:46 PM

I don't know if I would call Kirschner's stint with the Monkees a "fiasco". It made them all rich and gave them careers, manufactured or not. Keep in mind that all of them had some sort of music background, even if it was in theater for Jones and Dolenz. Give them credit for bucking the system and actually going out and playing their instruments and in Nesmith's case, writing songs. It may have been "ego", but there is nothing wrong with having one. Their film "Head" was actually quite fun.

Still, the Archies were just a studio band - although they did some appearances.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 May 03 - 08:00 AM

And what did Betty and Veronica ever see in Archie anyway? I can't fathom it.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Marion
Date: 15 May 03 - 02:17 PM

What Betty and Veronica see in Archie:

- he fronts a rock band, and musicians, as we all know, are extremely hot.

- he has a gay best friend, which shows him to be a man ahead of his time: sensitive and secure in his masculinity.

- he's just so dreamy with his red hair and his resolute underdog manner.

- because he wants them so desperately that it's a rush just to be around him; he makes them feel desirable and powerful.

Thanks for the further info on the band.

Marion

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Cluin
Date: 15 May 03 - 09:02 PM

Archie furthered his career a bit in the 80s when he dumped the rest of the band and had a few hits recording under the name of Rick Astley.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: stevetheORC
Date: 16 May 03 - 02:44 AM

OK Now I'm going to vomit!!!
how can anyone mention that name in a discusion about Comics is beyond me Yuk Yuk Yuk

De Orc

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 May 03 - 08:49 AM

And what was with Jughead's hat? Never could figure that one out.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 May 03 - 10:26 AM

Jughead was really a beatnik at heart, but he never had the chance to groove with the hep cats. They didn't have any real coffeehouses in Pleasantville or any real espresso either. Their knowledge of beat poetry was fragmentary at best. They were uncool. It was a bummer, man. Dig it.

But at least he tried.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 16 May 03 - 10:45 AM

We are such fools when we're children. How could I have ever thought that Betty or Veronica or Supergirl (who WAS just a girl) or even Mary Worth's niece could have fallen for me? A shy weird kid with an unnatural fixation on dead Black musicians....a neighbourhood curiosity who talked to himself while playing endless games of rubber-ball toss, against the wall: "Mantle's now at bat...Fielding throws that vicious slider...Mantle strikes out!"

And Barbara McNutt? Ha ha, don't make me laugh! Why would the most popular girl in grade eight want to even be seen with an underachiever who's only clain to fame was that he could draw cartoons ridiculing various teachers?

So why didn't I just try to hang out with Irma Kowalchuck, or Jane Johnson (other nurds like myself) or fantasize about lesser cartoon women? I'm sure there were perfectly nice girls in "The Hulk", or "Slime Woman", or "Domesto-Girl".

Ahhhhhh, the human condition.

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Cluin
Date: 16 May 03 - 12:28 PM

There was always Big Ethel, Rick.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: MMario
Date: 16 May 03 - 12:33 PM

hey! I *liked* big Ethel! face it, Veronica was a snob and a bigot, Betty was a gold digger and though intelligent didn't have the backbone of a cephalopod.

Big Ethel had character, was always willing to help, cared about what other people thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 May 03 - 02:54 PM

Good point about Big Ethel, Mario. Your analyses of both Veronica and Betty are spot on!

Rick...man, we must have somehow been ejected from the same cosmic mould (physical dissimilarities notwithstanding)...

We are such fools when we're children. How could I have ever thought that Veronica or my Dad's secretary (Edie) or Karamaneh (the daughter of Fu Manchu) or even Mary Perkins could have fallen for me? A shy weird kid with an unnatural fixation on Vanguard Recording Company folksingers....a neighbourhood curiosity who talked to himself while playing endless games of rubber-ball toss, against the wall: "Mantle's now at bat...George throws that vicious slider...Mantle strikes out!"

And Pamela Ford? Ha ha, don't make me laugh! Why would the most popular girl in grade eight want to even be seen with a Coke bottle-lensed bookworm, the class "brain" whose only claim to fame was that he could score 100% on 98% of his tests and remember all 50,000 stamps in his collection?

So why didn't I just try to hang out with Maureen McCauley, Thelma Amos, Irma Kowalchuck, or Jane Elliot (other nurds like myself) or fantasize about lesser cartoon women...like Minne Mouse? I'm sure there were perfectly nice girls in "AstroBoy", or "Slenderella", or "Miss Mannerisms".

Ahhhhhh, the human condition.

(I'm intrigued that you also had an Irma Kowalchuck in your school. Amazing...)

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 May 03 - 03:18 PM

Gentlemen, stay away from this topic, I beseech you. This is Dobie Gillis and Thalia Meninger country. Eventually I will have to ask why Sue Ridgell never looked at me twice. Also, I will have to start talking about the supercostume I made, and it will all end badly. Please return to comic books. yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 16 May 03 - 03:24 PM

I could never see the point of 'Archie', he was such a Sad Sack (oops, sorry, wrong comic!)

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 May 03 - 03:40 PM

I think he was supposed to be "everyman", highschool style.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Cluin
Date: 16 May 03 - 03:55 PM

Yeah, but didn't Big Ethel have it bad for Jughead?

There was something weird there. They looked waaaaaay too much alike... twins separated at birth or something. It all had the makings of a fine Shakespearian tragedy.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 May 03 - 01:06 AM

Indeed. You're onto something there, Cluin.

Well, I am thoroughly enjoying my second copy of Liberty Meadows...what a great comic! Adventure, romance, wacky humour, great art, and the most engaging and likeable heroine of all time, in my opinion...the courageous and lovely Brandy. She is a gal who's got it all, even if her bust size should probably be scaled down by about 35%... Scary.

Thanks to Frank "Monkey Boy" Cho, without whom Brandy would never have been created! Frank, may I be the newest Liberty Meadows fan to say, "YOU ROCK!!!" (that's apparently what they ALL say...) :-)

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 May 03 - 09:08 PM

"Kreegah!" is not a "Turok, Son of Stone" expression. It's a "Tarzan of the Apes" expression. For shame, Tweed! Get with the program.

Important "Turok, Sone of Stone" expressions are:

HONK! GAH-HONK!!! (uttered by annoyed or hungry dinosaurs)

RUNK!!! (uttered by dying dinosaurs)

There may be others too...I'll look into it.

NEWSFLASH!!! While purchasing a copy of "Liberty Meadows" (the World's greatest and funniest comic) at the local comic shop a few days ago I couldn't help but notice that there were AT LEAST 8 COPIES of the old "Turok" comics for sale!!!!!!!   At an average of $8 Canadian each...

I expect an avalanche of frantic, hyperventilating comic fans to descend on Orillia shortly...be warned that security will be heavy, and be prepared to bid high for these beauties, now that the cat is officially out of the bag!

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 27 May 03 - 11:29 PM

LH,

Come south, you can buy them all day long at comic shows for $2.00.
Ooops, my mistake, that is $8.00 Canadian.

Don

:-)))

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 May 03 - 11:48 PM

I should have known... :-) $2 for a Turok is a bargain. It comes to about $2.70 Canadian right now. Our dollar's been going up substantially as the US dollar goes down.

Y'know, I haven't read one of those comics in at least 30 years...maybe longer. I should order a couple off the Net. As I recall, the stories were really lame and repetitive (Ziiip!... RUNK!!!...THUD!!!)

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Cluin
Date: 27 May 03 - 11:53 PM

Of course the Canadian dollar is on the rise. I have a bunch of gigs booked in the States this summer.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Peter T.
Date: 28 May 03 - 09:16 AM

Rick Fielding showed me recently one of the best of the old Classics Illustrated series -- War of the Worlds. It brought back a whole set of brain cells I never knew were still in there. I seem to remember that Food of the Gods was also well drawn. Some of the others were pathetic stick figures.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 03 - 12:26 PM

War of the Worlds was a beauty. I think The Time Machine was drawn by the same artist. Those were two marvelous stories. I've always wanted to see a movie done of War of the Worlds that looked just like that comic in every way.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Peter T.
Date: 28 May 03 - 02:59 PM

Oh yeah, forgot The Time Machine, that was really well drawn too. I wonder if the same person did all the Wells' comics? Was there a version of the Island of Dr. Moreau? Don't remember that one. yours, Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 03 - 03:25 PM

I don't think they did that one. Too bad. Has anyone seen their rendition of "Hound of the Baskervilles"?

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Cluin
Date: 25 Nov 03 - 02:16 AM

You can build your own comic book super hero here.

Have fun.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Wesley S
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 02:53 PM

I'm hearing that there are big budget films in the works for both "Green Lantern" and "The Justice League of America". Plus "Hellboy 2" is in production. And the movie version of "Ironman" with Robert Downey Jr should be out soon. Things are looking up, up and away for superheros at the movies.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 04:16 PM

Hotsy Dandy!
Terry and the Pirates, Milton Caniff, volume one, is everything one could want in a compilation. Every strip, daily and weekly, finely reproduced on excellent heavy paper, beautiful color, a sturdy, well-bound volume. Even a ribbon to mark your place.
Five more to come!

Don't miss out!

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 04:18 PM

Great!

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 02 Nov 07 - 08:21 PM

I love reprints of Golden Age comics. Sometimes I even see a story I read as a kid. My fav has always been, and continues to be the Phantom. Not real popular in US, but apparently very big in Scandinavia and Oz. Can't read Scandinavian and no one in LA area carries the Aussie mags.
Next fav is Captain Marvel--now called Shazam--but the DC stories have none of the humor of the old Fawcetts.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Nick E
Date: 03 Nov 07 - 04:30 PM

Fondest in my memory was the Alan Moore written series of Swamp thing. Just great and the artwork was superb.

I find the comic books so interesting in that the story is sequential and cinematic, yet the artwork is static and each progressive image on the page remains in place and is viewd in association with the next frame, that last frame, and all the other frames at the same moment. It is a narrative dynamic that no other medium offers.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 04 Nov 07 - 07:06 AM

I've mentioned in other threads that Gil Kane walked me down the aisle at my wedding. He was subbing for ulie Schwartz who didn't want to fly to Los Angeles after thanksgiving. Gil and Elaine Kane were, for most of my life, a second set of parents and Julie was a super-combo of Grandad/dad/best-friend and sometimes beloved burden.

All this came about quite by accident when I met Julie at the age of 17 or 18 (I forget which). We became close when I left Graduate School in 1986 and began driving him to regional conventions. He had taken a shine to me during a long fire-drill at a Lunacon when he and I and Isaac Asimov got tfed up with repeated pullings of the alarm and sneaked back into our hotel together. isaac was so mad he packed his bags and took a taxi back to the train station and Julie and I stayed up talking. He had lost his wife a couple of years prior and when he found that I loved Dixieland Jazz, contract bridge and dry manhattans, he felt we were made to be BFFs.

This was a blessing that changed my life forver since Julie isnisted I get a job as Analog/Asimov's magazines and stop working a thankless Wall Street job. his motives were to free me up to accompany him to more conventions each year since he hated traveling alone and had a terrible fear of falling in a hotel room in tthe dark while alone. Our relationship was completely and totally platonic but that didn't stop people from snickering about "us".

Anyway - I had always been interested in comics but Julie schooled me in the cutting edge materials of the 1980s and gave me copies of as much Silver Age material as he could get his hands on. I remember how wonderful it was to get to handle and read a copy of the Batman film script a year or more before it came out. Julie also gave me everything of Alan Moore's. He thought rewally highly of him.

Eventually Julie introduced me to the Kanes in 1987 and when I moved to Los Angeles in 1990, we became close. I had a bad year in 1993-94 with a terrible health crisis and a home-invasion robbery/assault right after Jack Kirby's funeral of all things and that brought us much closer. After I moved, I began dating my husband and the Kanes often douvble-dated with us which was so darling!

We double-dated to the Hollywood Bowl to see Mel Torme in one of his last public performances. It was one of thosemagical nights you never forget. We went out to a cafe afterwards and Gil was drawing on the paper table-cloth. He was embarrassed when I tore it off to keep as a souvenir but I did it anyway. Long story short- when Dave proposed, nobody was more thrilled than Gil and Elaine. Gil assumed the role of Father of the Bride with enthisuasm and Elaine took me dress shopping. Now that Gill has passed way, I am so thankful for those memories.

What has any of this to do with the original question - not much I suppose except to say that since the age of 19, I have spent my personal life and a large part of my professional life immersed in the Comics world. My happiest memories are often of long, lazy sundays at the end of conventions when Julie and I and his group of friends and colleagues would sit in a hotel restaurant and I would listen as then reminsced and argued about the past! I spent a lot of time with the wives and duaghters of Comic greats since we kept eachother company while the "boys" were onstage doing panels or sitting signing autographs. It gave me an interesting perspective on the industry.

I still have some Superman jewlery that Julie used to give to his favorite girls known as "Juliettes". Reading this thread has brought back many happy memories.

FYI - I always felt bad for Jughead too. i rememebr one story where he nearly died from Food poisoning and the gan didn't find him cuz he had played a prank or something and was lying sick in the school on a weekend. Horrifying!

The other totally horrifying comic I recall was when Bandit from Johnny Quest got lost and eventually captured by a Dog Fighting Ring! It was so ghastly. Eventually, He tells the other dogs how to team up and escape and Johhny finds him but the really baaaaad dog who is all grizzled and busted up from years of fighting to the death - he sacrifices his own life against the captors to buy time for Bandit and the others. I sobbed for DAYS over that one. bandit was a good dog.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Nov 07 - 11:26 AM

Wow! There's a dramatic story line for you...

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 04 Nov 07 - 03:03 PM

Comic book novels, biographies, histories (or graphics as the New York Times Book Review calls them) are gaining wider audiences. Some are truly works of art, in addition to presenting stories in new ways.
Enjoyed recently are:
Kim Deitch, "Alias the Cat."
Art Spiegelman, "In the Shadow of No Towers."
Chester Brown, "Louis Riel." (A balanced view, not the usual British-Canadian elite distortions of the last century).
Marjane Satrapi, "Persepolis I, II." (Autobiographical, growing up in Iran).
Joe Sacco, "The Fixer, a Story from Sarajevo." (The New York Times said about a previous work on Bosnia- "few have told the truth more bravely than Sacco's. He is an immense talent").

I wish I could afford more of them. Graphic presentation is expensive, and as yet the market is not large for hard-bound graphic works, running to many pages.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Folk Form # 1
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 10:56 AM

I use to devour comics when I was a kid in the 60s. I use to buy american superhero Marvel and DC comics. I use to have TV21 delivered to my house. My sister worked for Odhams (now IPC) and she use to bring home some of their publications: Wham! Smash! Pow! (all rip offs of teh Beano) Terrific! and The Eagle. I kept them all in date order until my mum chucked them on the bonfire. Mummy! What were you thinking?

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 08:06 PM

I have redone over 60 Phantom comics via photoshop to make them indecently politically incorrect. aka telling the truth.

but I suspect this exercise will remain unseen, uninteresting and undoubtedly inane.

besides I must have broken hundreds of copywrite laws.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 07:41 AM

I recently read Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis I, it was fascinating.

Sunday for me is reading the comics in both our Sunday papers while eating brunch. I go to a lot of trouble at Festivals to make sure I get my Sunday papers! 'Sunday isn't Sunday without The Sunday Telegraph' (well known advertising blurb) '& the Sun Herald' (the bit I add). I've been following some of those comics - Prince Valiant & The Phantom - since I was very young & get twitchy when I can't read them!! My siblings & I used to buy comics when we had the money.

I haven't read thru the whole thread so don't know if folks have been mentioning Japanese manga. My local library has manga & other illustrated novels in the Young Adult section, & today I found a reprint of the first 3 issues of Marvel's Battleship Galactica comics in the Library so read it while I was waiting for the rain to stop, along with a manga-style novel drawn by someone who was not Japanese. I love that style of drawing.

I don't collect comics, tho I do have 2 old (1960's) Modesty Blaise comics/illustrated novels, and a few pages from manga that were used as wrapping for Japanese ceramics. The precious manga pages are kept with my other Japanese stuff.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: bobad
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 10:25 AM

Came across this on the www - The Comic Book Periodic Table Of The Elements - pretty cool.

Subject: RE: BS: Any comic book readers here ?
From: Rumncoke
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 12:42 PM

I used to walk down into town - so saving the bus fare, buy a comic at the stand in the bus station and then read it on the bus home. I even used to forgo lunch and buy DC comics with the money.

I had seven years worth of comics such as the Victor, Valiant, Hotspur, all in pristine condition, some of them from the first issue.

When I went off to University I left boxes full of comics at home, and eventually I came across a shop selling comics for lots of money. I told him what I thought I had, and his eyes lit up. A few weeks later I went home and prepared to tell my parents about the fortune thay had in the loft - only to discover that the boxes of comics had been disposed of almost as soon as I left home.

My parents were really struggling financially at that time, my father had been unable to work through ill health for many years, and it would have made a terrific difference to them.

I was quite shocked that anything had been thrown away - it was not the usual thing at home, everything was kept. I supose it should have told me a lot about my mother's attitude towards me, but it was not until years later that I told my father of the amount of money the comics would have fetched, and he went quite pale and very quiet for a minute or so.