A couple of interesting items of note. First, no one in this issue (or the next, as I'm told) references the fact that Lobo is a person of color. He's just written as any other character might be. Second, Arneson is surprisingly judicious with his dialogue; there are a number of panels that are completely wordless. A testement to both Tallarico's storytelling ability, and Arneson's restraint.
Evidently, later on, Arneson and Tallarico couldn't agree on how exactly the character and/or book came together originally, but it would be more than a few years before another Black character headlined his own title. Arneson claimed sales were the only reason for the book's discontinuation, but I'm a little skeptical of that. There were ten months between the first and second issues. Plenty of time for sales of #1 to come in. Why produce a second book if sales were that bad?
4 comments:
"There were ten months between the first and second issues. Plenty of time for sales of #1 to come in. Why produce a second book if sales were that bad?"
Because, while they were printed 10 months apart, they were produced back-to-back as is standard procedure.
Work had apparently begun on a third issue when the word came down to stop due to unusually-poor sales.
As to why the second issue appeared 10 months later...it's likely another book on the schedule was late and, since press time was already paid for, and #2 was paid for, prepped and ready to go, it was a case of use the press time or lose it.
BTW, noticed you used the scans from my blog Hero Histories...
http://heroheroinehistory.blogspot.com/2011/02/lobo-1-saga-begins.html
Would've been nice if you linked or at least credited it, or mentioned the fact the second issue is also there...
Sorry, Brit. Very bad form on my part. I've got it corrected in the main body of the post now.
Thanks for making this scan available. I purchased this book slabbed but wanted to read it. Thanks.
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