April Fools Day ?

I seem to remember that every year DC would publish a " spot the mistake story "
Is that right ? Am I getting too old ?

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  • There's only really one that I remember, but there were a couple others timed to that date that might qualify. The most direct was "The Night of March 31st" in Superman #145 (May 61), in which they asked readers to list all the mistakes they had made.

    Then in Superman #169, they ran "The Great DC Contest" (May 64), in which the story allegedly had only one D and one C in it and readers had to find them. Sadly, that's a tough thing to do, and two extra "Ds" slipped by (and the use of the D and C they planned was kinda cheating).

    They also had "Puzzle of the Wild World" in Action Comics #388 (May 70), in which a wacky version of Earth was created.

    Those are the only ones I remember, but I may be even older than you (probably) and forgotten some.

    It's a fun idea, but it's tough for monthly magazines to time things to a one-day holiday. Making it clear it's in honor of April Fool's Day or just running a wackly story then would work. Wizard used to "celebrate" by having fake news stories and ads in the issue that came out in April, which I always thought was a dubious idea.


    -- MSA

  • Wouldn't it be accurate to say that every Silver Age issue of Wonder Woman qualifed as an April Fools story, in that the joke was inevitably on the reader who shelled out 10 or 12 pennies to read that thing?

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  • What caught my eye was the cover image of Wonder Woman #142, which looks like the image on GCD.

    I've never seen a "15 cents" price sticker pasted over the 12-cent price. I wonder if this was done by the publisher or distributor, or was it by the retailer?

    Has anyone else seen this before?

  • Dave, you know WW stories have a special, unique charm to them that you wouldn't want to change. I have to agree with the cover line "You Will Never Forget...Wonder Woman, Gorilla!" It's right up there with the one on your avatar. And the notion that we (well, I) ever bought a comic with Egg Fu in it, let alone sequels, says a lot about the SA.

    Richard, I have a handful of those stickers in my collection. I would guess it was done at the distributor level, as most of the ones I've seen look pretty similar I don't see the retailer taking the time to make those up and stick them on, and the publisher could have printed them with the higher price.

    Marvel did that later on when it tested higher prices, leading to covers with both prices printed (which some people collect).

    -- MSA

  • Meh, Blackhawk was much worse. At least these stories were fun.

    Dave Blanchard said:

    Wouldn't it be accurate to say that every Silver Age issue of Wonder Woman qualifed as an April Fools story, in that the joke was inevitably on the reader who shelled out 10 or 12 pennies to read that thing?

  • But Blackhawk stories were short. So if you didn't like one, there was another one coming up soon. True, it wasn't any better, but still. 

    More to the point, they were the same each month, with no variations for either title. So as the legendary Don Thompson used to say, for those who liked this kind of stuff, here it is. You knew what you'd be getting, and somebody must've liked it.

    Besides me, that is, who seems to have a reasonably complete collection of both. But I've got both issues of Brother Power AND both Goody Rickles appearances, clear indications I got too much allowance.

    -- MSA

  • Speaking of Bro Power, do you think that comic book would've *maybe* lasted longer, and by longer I mean to an even half-dozen issues, if it'd had another (i.e., better) artist? I actually had to look up the name of the artist, Al Bare, a Golden Age-era artist who had apparently fallen off the grid completely until Joe Simon gave him the GEEK gig. When you think of the artists at DC who were available at the time -- not that any of them necessarily would've wanted the assignment -- guys like Gil Kane, Wally Wood, Neal Adams -- or even the clean-lined stylists like Curt Swan, Dick Dillin, Ross Andru or Kurt Schaffenberger -- BPTG might've at least had a glimmer of a chance of being read by spinner rack flippers. Oh well.

  • Wonder Woman #142 was the first issue of that title I read as  kid and I read it to pieces. I still remember most of the scenes of that story. It was slightly frightening to me at that age and I loved it. With a limited budget, Wonder Woman wasn't high on my must-buy list, especially after I discovered Marvel, but that issue in particular is special to me.

    Fortunately, DC has reprinted the entirety of the Silver Age Wonder Woman stories in Showcase Presents and trade paperbacks, so they are easily available for modern readers to enjoy.

    Hoy

  • Either:

    (1) Canadian market stickers ?

    (2) For some oddity such as the comics vending machines that , once , in the Sixties on vacation in the Virginia/D. C. area I saw in a shop in a rest stop area on a Federal highway in 1966 , I still remember seing them to this day ~ and they cost 15 cents ?

    Richard Willis said:

    What caught my eye was the cover image of Wonder Woman #142, which looks like the image on GCD.

    I've never seen a "15 cents" price sticker pasted over the 12-cent price. I wonder if this was done by the publisher or distributor, or was it by the retailer?

    Has anyone else seen this before?

  • Sure, I think BPTG would've definitely lasted longer with a different artist. In the first place, it can't have lasted LESS long and still appeared, so the odds are in its favor.

    But I can't imagine Neal Adams drawing it. That would've been so horrifying it would've made SKATEMAN look like a classic. Likewise, a lot of those other artists you named wouldn't have suited it so well, IMO.

    Wally Wood would've been an interesting artist for it. Steve Ditko would've been great, but it makes me laugh just to think about him drawing it. 

    Andru would've been the best choice. He tended to work on titles that were almost fairy-tale like in their whimsy, which suited BPTG. Kurt Schaffenberger also would've been a good choice, given his background on Captain Marvel and his Lois stories, which sometimes were virtually dadaesque.

    I do wonder why Bare was given the assignment. Likewise, Howie Post came out of nowhere to do ANTHRO around then. Clearly, they had no idea what would sell, so they had a hard time calling anything a bad idea.

    -- MSA 

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