Today I conclude the awkwardly named Previews of the Death of Superman series with the solicitations for the final two issues of the Doomsday arc and the first two chapters of Funeral for a Friend that ran in Previews. These made for an odd read. As I mentioned in the first part of this coverage I am very familiar with the Previews of 2003 and onward so I have seen how DC and Marvel and other companies have hyped their bigger stories. This one was a little different. Until Jeffrey and I started covering the Death and Return of Superman I never thought about the business aspect of selling the story to the comic reading audience of 1992. I was afraid that the more I would see of “the man behind the curtain” the more I would become numb to the story. Oddly, surprisingly and happily this hasn’t been the case. If anything seeing stuff like this has added to my enjoyment of the story and event.
So without further ado here are the solicits.
Again with the bullet points. I don’t know if they’re getting annoying yet. Let me know if they do.
- The first thing that struck me about this page is that Previews referred to the T-shirt as the “Weeping S”. I have always called it the “Bleeding S” but “Weeping S” sounds really cool to me.
- By the by, I had that T-shirt. I bought it at the Comic Vault, which was my comic shop of choice at the time. I wore the hell out of that shirt until it basically fell apart. It had a 3-D effect to the bleeding S and I was a tad disappointed that they didn’t recreate that for the re-release from a few years back.
- It was cool to see the Weeping/Bleeding S as the signifier that a particular book had something to do with the death of Superman. It certainly draws the eye.
- I like the old school Superman image at the bottom of the page. A lot.
- Apparently nothing happened in Valor #3. Weird.
- There was no Aquaman #14. That particular series ended with the thirteenth issue. Again, weird.
And there it is. The Gem of the Month or at least one of them. I guess it was a foregone conclusion that this would be one Preview’s “picks of the month”.
- So…spoilers then. Right. I realize that everyone knew this was the issue where Superman was going to die, but wow. It’s right there in the solicit. Nice.
- They mention mock postage stamps. I never really saw those stamps as anything close to something you would buy at the post office.
- What is a computer cover? Was it designed on a computer? That’s just odd.
- I believe there was more than a small overprinting of the collector’s edition.
It is really odd to see my favorite cover of the Funeral for a Friend story arc in black and white on crappy newsprint. It looks so weird. Nice to see it in the solicit, though.
The opening line of this solicit is just strange. How can Clark Kent be discovered missing? I mean you can discover that someone is missing but how do you discover someone and yet they’re missing? I get what they’re saying but that is a wonky sentence.
I love seeing the old school DC Bullet at the top of this scan. I miss that logo.- It is neat to see that either DC or Previews decided to re-solicit or highlight a trio of Superman related trades and hardcovers to coincide with the release of Superman #75. Collected editions were becoming more commonplace at this point but they weren’t omnipresent like they are now. Actually there are solicits for a bunch of trades in this Previews. That surprised me a bit.
- Soon after this DC would release a trade of Man of Steel that had a mostly black cover and a cheaper cover price. That edition was the first trade paperback of the mini-series that I picked up. Now I have like six different editions. I defy you to tell me that comic collecting isn’t a sickness.
And thus ends this three part series looking at the Previews containing the solicitations for Superman #75 as well as other awesome Superman articles and interviews. This was fun. Someday I hope to track down a copy of the Advance Comics “issue” to see what it had in terms of Superman content beyond that Mike Carlin interview. So far I have had no luck finding one on eBay but I will keep looking. If someone spots one in their travels or has an intact copy that they want to part with let me know.
Next time: Another newspaper article. This one has a lot of sentimental value to me.
More to follow…