No Ditko.



The moment everyone has been waiting for! Charlton is back from the grave!

The Charlton Arrow #1 is a 44 page color comic blockbuster, featuring stories and art by well-know contributors to such companies as DC Comics, Marvel and Archie, including a few Charlton veterans, alongside amazing new talent! The comic features comics, pin-ups and articles by over a dozen creators.

The comic will be released in March 2014, but not available in stores, only through mail order. If you order now, before the release date, you can get this first issue collector's item for cover price with FREE shipping! The comic is $6.99 and after March, there will be an additional $2.95 charge for shipping & handling. You will get a confirmation email from the publisher Comicfix via morttodd.com. Allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery.

Order your copy NOW for $6.99 by securely paying via Paypal to charlton@morttodd.com or get two copies for $11.99 and save even more! For more information, and bulk discount rates, contact charlton@morttodd.com

See a preview of the incredible contents at http://morttodd.com/charlton.html — with Larry Wilson, Joe Staton, Steven Thompson, Rick Stasi, Michael Mitchell, Lou Mougin, Roger McKenzie, Batton Lash, Barbara Johnson Kaalberg, Paul Kupperberg, Sandy Carruthers and Javier Hernandez.

JB deigned to offer a pin-up.

I just ordered a copy. Looks like a lot of those 44 pages will be pinups and articles.
Still, I was always a fan of Charlton stuff. Have the Bullseyes, etc.

Ah, well. It'd be great if it offered all new stories of the old characters done by professionals. Maybe next time.

No sale.

I wonder if they even tried.

Who knows if he would have wanted to anyway. Although it does list his old Charlton partner Joe Staton.

I'm a little confused by the existence of this thing. Didn't DC buy all of Charlton's properties? Or did they purchase only the action heroes?

I'm sure they tried to get Ditko. The editor of this is Mort Todd, who edited Cracked in the 80s and early 90s, and gave Ditko work on that magazine at a time when his major publisher jobs were drying up. So he's someone that Ditko knows and probably likes. My guess is Ditko just doesn't want to do anything beyond his self-published work at this point.

DC bought up the action heroes material/trademarks, but not anything else owned by Charlton.

Looks like one of the stories is going to be based upon the heroes of the Charlton universe going missing.

This was...interesting. Did more to drive nostalgia in me for the old material than to really get sucked into this particular book.

To that end, I just spent too much time and $$ on ebay grabbing a bunch of old Charltons.




But at least I know I'll be getting some good reading stuff in a week or 2!!

Also...through the Charlton Arrow adverts, I snagged a copy of the SKYMAN PENCIL PORTFOLIO which is supposed to have Ditko material in it (hence my buying it).

I kind of enjoyed Charlton Arrow.
And while I can't exactly say that the book was very good,
it really wasn't exactly bad, either.

It did invoke some fond memories. Nice to see a few old Ditko covers as backdrop in a couple of panels.

I was going to bump this to ask you how it was because Volume 2 is out now.

I liked it enough that I ordered the 2nd issue...I'll give it a few issues to find itself.

Just the heroes, and they didn't get Thunderbolt or E-Man.

I've read that the non-hero stuff DC din't buy either went to some ownership in Canada or fell into PD. Can't really figure out how much of what went where...seems to be all pretty muddy, almost to the point of why not try to publish something and see if someone tries to stop you.

That's pretty much as it is. The Ditko Archives are mostly Charlton stuff - IIRC, the Atlas stories are missing, which is a shame. I think Ditko's entire career should be perpetually in print.

Thanks for the info. I might've picked this up in my local store but am unlikely to spend the money to have it mail order/shipped sight unseen unless there was a complete Byrne story inside. I can pass on a pin-up.

I invite Charlton fans to join up here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Charlto ... j_approved

"When Charlton closed shop, they sold off most of their properties, with many left to languish in limbo. If anything, appreciation of their comics has grown over the years, with fan publications, such as Charlton Spotlight, and FB fan page The Charlton Arrow dedicated to their memory. CHARLTON NEO is the fruits of those labors and we hope it properly honors the Charlton legacy!"

So apparently this is now a going concern with Charlton Neo. They've done a western anthology and are now actually doing Kupperberg's Secret Romances. Yes, a romance comic.

The western has stories and art by Eduardo Baretto, Rick Burchett, Chuck Dixon, Kupperberg, Roger McKenzie, Gary Kwapisz and others. So, I guess what we have here is indie comics by people who've actually worked for the Big 2.

So that sounds good.

Hopefully, they'll throw some work at Herb Trimpe and some others out there who can use it.

I can dream about Roger Stern doing SOMETHING super-heroey.

The Western, by the way, has some Charlton heroes.

I bought the first issue, and it was pretty good. They can only get better if they keep
bringing on some of the other comic book creators (in my opinion). I wish them well,
and I will probably pick up some more when it makes sense (cost-of-shipping wise).

This is more historically significant than the launch of Image.