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Wednesday, July 26, 2017

KRAVEN CONVERSATION

The Kraven's Last Hunt anniversary celebration continues as I talk to those fine folks at the Saturday Detention Podcast.  Enjoy!

8 comments:

  1. Haven't listened yet. How many times do you bask my beloved weird War Tales in this one?

    I have to prepare myself first.

    Jack

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    1. I don't think there's a mention of WWT here. I wholeheartedly apologize.

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    2. At least there is no Weird War Tales bashing.

      Maybe the world needs a PRO-Weird War Tales podcast.

      Jack

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    3. If anyone does a WWT podcast, I'll be happy to talk to them!

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  2. Great interview. I share in the same interests as these interviewers, because my favorite stories (Kraven's Last Hunt, Born Again, etc) all came out at that time in the 1980's. I was 12 when KLH came out and because I was young I was limited on funds. I typically was able to buy 4 comic books a month. I only collected one Spider-Man book: Web of Spider-Man. Like you said, stories crossing over into other titles were basically non-existent at the time. The only reason I was able to read this series at the time of its original publication was because you and your team crossed titles, and because you started it in Web of. That was the book I was collecting at the time, and I remember the feeling when I saw that it was crossing over into Amazing and Spectacular. That blew my mind.
    In regards to plugging this story when it came out, I knew nothing about it. I heard you say Fabian was in the PR department at that time and he remembered plugging the book. I saw/heard nothing about this story. My only exposure to it was picking up the physical issues. That being said though, I think that enhanced the experience, because it blew me away with what happened to Peter and Kraven.
    I do want to disagree with you on something you've been saying for years though, and this is just my lowly opinion. I loved Kraven even before this series. I never thought of him as a cheesy or corny character. Remember, I was 12, so seeing this guy infatuated with hunting the most prize game was incredible. I also wasn't just exposed to him in the comics. There was a cartoon in the very early 1980's called "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" (with Ice Man and Fire Star) which I absolutely adored. Kraven was in one of my favorite episodes. So I was a Kraven fan when all this went down.

    I agree when these interviewers (and many fans) state that this is the best Spider-Man story of all time. It's always been my personal favorite. It's also my favorite cross-title event of all time. That might have meant much in 1987, but think about what it means in 2017!?!?!

    Before I get too long winded (which may already be too late) I wanted to mention something off topic: and that's that I saw the Hard Cover collected edition of "Stardust Kid" in this months previews. I've already pre-ordered it. I wasn't aware of the series when it first came out. I was going to buy the individual issues but all the extras in the collected edition sound really great so I'm going for it. Looks like the release date is scheduled for December 20, 2017.

    Thanks for posting these podcasts. Even if I don't leave comments on all of them, I do listen to them all.

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    1. Thanks for sharing those thoughts, George. Especially your point about Kraven. Just because I perceived the character that way, doesn't mean everyone else did.

      Re: promotion. I think promotion in those days meant sending posters to comics shops, previews to store owners, maybe an article in MARVEL AGE. The average fan didn't necessarily see any of that. Or if they saw the poster, they saw it when they were in the shop on the day of release.

      Re: STARDUST KID. Thanks for ordering it. VERY excited about the new hardcover. With all the extras—and, of course, the story itself, which I'm very proud of—it's going to be a beautiful book.

      Glad you're enjoying the podcasts. I go months on end without doing any, then suddenly it seems that four or five in a row crop up, which is what's happened lately!

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    2. KLH had a really cool promotional poster!

      It's funny to think back on how things mostly spread by word of mouth those days. You got a lot of your info from the local comic shop as to what was worth buying, whereas these days you know what you're going to get six months before it's ever out.

      I remember they were selling pretty quickly by about the third issue. I even had to travel to multiple comic book shops to find the fifth and sixth one. I was terrified that I wasn't ever going to read the conclusion, given that TPBs weren't a thing yet!

      While I can't say I MIND the conveniences of modern times, there was something special about getting in on the ground floor for stories like KLH. (I was buying every Spidey title at the time anyway. But there were other books where I'd be like, "Wait, Steve Rogers got fired?! Magneto is a teacher at Xavier's school? Hulk is grey (again)?" And I'd usually get into those stories a few months after they'd started, because it took a while for them to really catch fire without the internet.

      Looking for the back issues felt like a treasure hunt! And a rabbit hole--a lot of times you didn't find what you were looking for, but there was something else to catch your attention.

      --David

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    3. Sometimes I pine for those simpler times, David...but maybe we're just getting old. Well, oldER. : )

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