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Author/Illustrator Mike Mosher has a number of books available on www.amazon.com, as does Link Yaco. Go and see at!
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MOSHER: I believe that Image's 1993 series "1963" was not intended for the usual comics demographic. They were published and marketed to press the buttons of guys who were kids (like we were in those days) to buy for their own kids or for themselves. So it's appropriate two guys who were eight years old in 1963 should analyze and dissect them.
YACO: Fair enough. But in doing so, I bet we'll inevitably end up toasting
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and talking about the masters of the milieu in which 1963 parodistically trods, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby. Starting with this "1963" character "U.S.A. (Ultimate Special Agent)", he's obviously a parody of Mighty Comics' Shield, right? And this "Horus" guy is obviously Charlton's Son of Vulcan, as scripted by Roy Thomas, nu?
MOSHER: Madame Nhu...? What? Now you're talking non-Marvel comics, which are admittedly pretty hard to remember. You don't think "Horus, Lord of Light" is a straight Thor rip-off? "N-Man" cops the Hulk?
YACO: Oh yeah, but it's boring to stop there since almost every one of the Marvel characters has a counterpart at one of the other companies of the era. This either
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points to the archetypal quality of these characters or the lack of over-priced lawyers under the Marvel roof at that time. I would like to think that the creators of 1963 were thinking more broadly than just in terms of Marvel parodies. Everybody had a patriotic character like U.S.A.
MOSHER: So these titles are meant to convey to us not only the Marvels we cherished but the lame second-string comics we tolerated and purchased when we had to fill out an entire dollar given to us by our parents? Peter Laird created a Kirby parody called "Stupid Heroes" for Next Comics and it came across like a mediocre '60s book from a company like ACG. Gad, what must it
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