This message was just posted by Gerry Alanguilan.

"I'm sure some of you may have heard of the devastating floods that happened here in the Philippines, specially Manila and surrounding areas. A lot of comics guys, old guys and younger guys, lost their homes/properties or at least had them really badly damaged. Colorist Jay David Ramos and veteran Rico Rival got their homes completely submerged in the flood waters and lost everything. Other guys affected include Steve Gan, Noly Zamora, Jun Lofamia, Danny Acuña (some of whom may be familiar to you guys as artists who worked on DC's war and horror stuff in the 70's.). Other artists of the younger generation affected include Gilbert Monsanto, Carlo Vergara, Joanah and Melvin Calingo, and these are the people we've heard of. Many people are still incommunicado due to downed phone and power lines. With another typhoon coming in shortly, things are not looking promising as many places are still flooded.

"Anyway, we…

The great thing about Australian reprint comics is that it's fairly easy to trace the history of a particular title from conception to end. What's not so easy is tracking down all the issues in a particular run, and some of what is known is merely supposition on the half of many researchers, myself included. The best part of such assumption is that, in the majority of situations, patterns are so consistent that any educated guess will more than likely be correct. Having said that, there are abnormalities that appear to make no sense at all. The case of the first story featuring the Amazing Spider-Man is just one of those sagas that falls into the category of 'what were they doing?'

The first appearance of Spider-Man in Australia came in the pages of Strange Tales #5, as published by Horwitz. The cover of the comic featured an excellent Ditkoish cover by Australia's Maurice Bramley, the man responsible for the bulk of Horwitz's output, in particular their li…

My good pal Robert Thomas brought this one to my attention over the weekend. Robert dropped a German fanzine, Das Sagte Nuff devoted to Marvel Comics into the store for me to check out. Inside are several articles, all written in German, covering Marvel Comics worldwide - well, at least I expect that's what the articles are covering as the photos are plain to see. In amongst them all is an article covering Newton Comics with my name mentioned and several images which appear to be lifted straight from this blog. My images, my scans.

I know what people will say, once it's on the internet it's public domain. These days it appears that once it's in print, it's public domain and frankly I don't have much of an issue with that. It's the sheer lack of manners that's gotten to me. If you want to use my work then do what I do - ask first. I've learned the hard way (and, in some cases, paid a higher price than would be expected) and in this day and age …