A retro comic fans best publisher friend should be Bill Black. If you, as a collector of old ME heroes like Tim Holt, Red Mask, The Ghost Rider, miss them. Read on!
A retro comic fans best publisher friend should be Bill Black. If you, as a reader/collector of old ME heroes like Tim Holt, Red Mask, The Ghost Rider, and their stable of superheroes, don't know about AC Comics, this is your chance.
Bill Black, founded AC Comics 20 plus years ago in the dawn of creator owned titles and Femforce debuted to great acclaim. Sales were good. The characters were accepted everywhere. But, as a fan of the old western heroes (and artist on Charltons' Billy the Kid), he and Vin Sullivan came to an agreement. Keep the heroes alive.
So he did. Out of a small company has come comics by Centaur, Fawcett, Fox, Standard, Fiction House, Quality Comics and even Dell. A partial listing of the heroes/titles includes Roy Rogers, Sheena, Tim Holt, Gene Autry, Men of Mystery, Charles Starret, Lash Larue, Tom Mix, John Wayne, Zorro, Fire Man, Black Terror, The Phantom Lady, and The Black Rider. A more complete one can be found on his excellent website. Presently, Bill is publishing "Best of the West", a compilation book with many varied heroes. He has also hailed back to the Dell with "Western Round Up", presently at volume 3 if you are lucky enough to have had your dealer order one.
With such a variety of material at hand, he has also produced NightVeil, from Femforce. Truly a B grade film, it will make you remember those 1940's and 50's serials fondly. They have also gone into serials as well.
In terms of format, AC Comics has printed in both color and b/w, in various sizes. The Roy Rogers coloring book is large size, and the newer BOTW are less than regular comic size.
Why black and white?
Cost, not to mention time. The sheer man hours required to recolor the stories to modern standards would stagger your imagination.
Why do I like 'em?
There is no substitute for the quality. By that I mean, done in 8-10 (pages that is), not a 12 issue maxi series (with the optional graphic novel and sequel)! Reading the tales in his books is like taking a step back in time.
Who's my favorite character?
The Haunted Horseman...Dick Ayers rocks!
Where do you find them?
Ask your dealer to order them in for you. Or go online and order direct from AC at www.accomics.com
To quote Bill from his website,
"As one of today's independent publishers, AC Comics has a personal interest in preserving the history of other smaller publishers, their characters and creators, as well as in preserving the history of the comic book form. To that end, we have made reprinting Golden-Age comics from those companies that went out of business after that era, one of the major goals of our company.
On this web site (as well as in our publications), you can read about publishers such as Fox, Magazine Enterprises, Holyoke, Fawcett, Fiction House, Chesler Comics and others. You can meet Cat-Man, Spy Smasher, Yankee Girl, Phantom Lady, Sheena and many, many more characters that you may or may not have heard about. You can learn about the work of Golden-Age artists like Matt Baker, Bob Powell, Lou Fine, Will Eisner, Frank Frazetta, Bob Fujitani and scores of others and read interviews with some of the Golden-Age creators. Finally, we hope your interest will be peaked and you will order some of our many reprint titles and take a trip into the "Golden" past."
How does he do it?
He never told me that!
Hoping this helps you relive part of your childhood....BIll Black has helped me with mine.
Until next, I write, I am
Tim Lasiuta
