The Elusive Volume

In try to run down various hardcover comics-related series, it always seems like there's one volume that's unusually rare and doesn't show up very often--and when it does people want more for it. You can get the others fairly easy, but that one elusive volume makes it hard to complete the set without really paying for it.

Lately, it seems like that volume is number 2. 

Over the holidays, I was trying to complete the sets of Star Hawks, the newspaper strip by Goulart and Kane, collected in three volumes by IDW in 2017. I got volumes 1 and 3 fairly easily, but 2 doesn't seem to show up in a price range I'm willing to pay for it. It doesn't show up as often and some places goes for 4-5 times as much!

Then there's the Star Wars newspaper strip collections also from IDW. Here, there's supposedly a Marvel Omnibus coming, but I assume it will be based on the Dark Horse reprints that were arranged in portrait, comic book format and colored, and I don't think they are planning on reprinting the earliest, Russ Manning strips. Here again, the second volume with the great Al Williamson material is the tricky one to find. Not quite as bad as Star Hawks, but the available ones tend be in pretty heavily used condition. I finally relented and got one, though.

So what's the deal? Do these middle volumes just happen to get lower print runs? 

Flash Gordon turns 92

The Flash Gordon comic strip by Alex Raymond and Don Moore debuted on this day in 1934. The current creator on the strip Dan Schkade is doing an homage to that first story, "On the Planet Mongo" this week. 

Flash started out as a Sword & Planet character, perhaps the most famous of those that followed in John Carter's footsteps, before going in a more Buck Rogers direction (though Rogers started out less spacefaring than he became) in the 50s and later decades. Much of the Flash Gordon media post the 1980 has moved the character in a Star Wars direction, at least visually, which is ironic given the influence Flash Gordon film serials had on the Star Wars films.

I enjoy Schkade's and other modern takes than all a blend of elements from multiple eras, but keep as the core Raymond's adventure story on another world.

I hope Flash Gordon continues his adventures for decades to come.

The Year in Review

Over the holiday, I was looking back over the past year here at the Flashback Universe Blog, I'm pleased to see the top posts were old ones by Jim, the founder of the blog. His various posts of Public Domain characters seem just as relevant as ever to the reading public. "Is Dracula in the Public Doman?" from 2015 got the most views this year. That was followed by "The Top 10 Public Doman Heroes?" from 2010.

Various posts in Jim and my reviews of Wild Wild West still get a fair amount of traffic. "Revisiting the Wild Wild West: The Night of the Juggernaut" from 2021 came in in the top 20.

My top post after taking over the blog is from this year. It's my review of The Avengers in the Veracity Trap by Kidd and Cho from August of this year. My second biggest was also a review. It was in my occasional Paperback Flashback series and took a look at the restored edition of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Beyond the Farthest Star.

Thanks to those of you out there still reading, and Happy New Year.