Sunday, June 17, 2007

DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #23 - July 1982

sgNow, this is an odd choice of digest star--Green Arrow? Nothing against the Emerald Archer, but GA was hardly a headliner in the DCU at that point, so its an unusual choice. Maybe that's why they called in Jim Aparo to do the smashing, poster-like cover.

The book opens with an all-new framing story by the underrated Mike W. Barr and Dan Spiegle, as Ollie discovers Dinah going through his old scrapbooks, and she demands he regale her with some of his past adventures:
"The Unmasked Archers" by France Herron and Jack Kirby
"The Case of the Camoflage King" by Herron and Lee Elias
"The Amazing Miss Arrowette" by Dave Wood and Elias
"Green Arrows of the World" by Herron and Kirby

...we then stop for a moment, and rejoin Ollie as he brags to Dinah that he's fought crime all over the universe! Case in point:
"The Mystery of the Giant Arrows" by Herron and Kirby
"Prisoners of Dimension Zero" by Herron and Kirby

...Dinah brakes out laughing at the absurdity of these stories(a subtle dig?) and then asked Ollie where he got his new costume. Well, Dinah, it's a very well-drawn tale:
"The Senator's Been Shot!" by Bob Haney and Neal Adams
"The Origin of Green Arrow" by Denny O'Neil, Mike Grell, and Bruce Patterson
"What Can One Man Do?" by Elliott S! Maggin, Adams, and Dick Giordano
"The Plot to Kill Black Canary" by Maggin and Giordano(you'd think Canary would know this story already)

The book ends with Ollie and Dinah, having stayed up all night talking, reaffirming their love for one another, which is a sweet ending, nicely rendered by Spiegle.

I'm assuming this was was originally put together for one of the reprint books DC was putting out before the Implosion and then it was padded out a bit to fit the one-hundred-page digest format. The framing story is a nice, fun touch and I wish DC had done more of it.

6 comments:

Conqueress said...

Seeing all of the comic book covers here... I have a question for you. I have a first-edition Spiderman comic book. I tried getting it appraised at a local comic shop, and the guy offered me $75 but was practically salivating over it. It's been kept in a preservation sleeve as long as I've had it. Any ideas?

rob! said...

>>I have a first-edition Spiderman comic book.<<

not sure what that means. do you know what the exact title and issue # of the Spiderman book is? whats the cover price on the book--12 cents, 30 cents, 75 cents?

Anonymous said...

Another stab at guessing why certain characters got a digest: GA had his first mini-series around this time, by Barr and longtime World's Finest GA artist Trevor Von Eden.

Just a guess!

Chris

rob! said...

that made sense to me, then a quick trip to GCDB revealed that the GA mini was over a year away, so...?

Anonymous said...

Gee Rob, why do you have to use logic. Thanks for shredding my theory. :-)

Um, maybe it was a primer for the mini, and it got pushed back a bit? The involvement of Barr makes me think they still may have been related. Maybe?

I give up. :-D

Chris

rob! said...

Chris-

i'm sure there's a connection somewhere!