Labor Day sale and kicking off football season
Word Balloons #1178: Football adventures in comic books
Happy Labor Day weekend, everyone. I hope many of you are able to enjoy some time off. At Speeding Bullet Comics this weekend, we’d love to see you for our returning Labor Day sale.
We first ran a Labor Day sale in 2016 to celebrate our expansion and store renovations. It was very popular, so we continued it annually until 2019. During the pandemic, we let it lapse, and since we are regularly closed to the public on Mondays now, we didn’t bring it back in 2021 or 2022. But enough people asked about it that we decided to try it again and see how it goes! The sale will run Friday-Monday, and full details on the sale are at the end of this column.
Along with Labor Day, the calendar has turned to September, and many people’s thoughts in the state of Oklahoma have turned to football. The Sooners and Cowboys both kick off their 2023 campaigns on Saturday.
Launching today is the Sellout Crowd, from several of my former colleagues at The Oklahoman and others, and I think it will be an exciting space to read about this football season and sports coverage beyond that as well.
Comics and football have had many crossovers in the past – in recent years, Marvel has made custom covers featuring NFL players, but the sports adventures have spilled into the pages of comic books as well.
One of the more interesting football cameos for Oklahoma fans happens in “Uncanny X-Men at the State Fair of Texas,” a 1983 promotional comic that sees Kitty Pryde, Colossus, and Professor X attend the Oklahoma-Texas football game, though no actual football is shown.
Fans can see some on-field action in “Kickers, Inc.,” a 1986-1987 New Universe title featuring members of a pro football team who moonlight as adventurers. Created by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz, the team was originally conceived as sort of a sports-themed “Challengers of the Unknown,” but with the New Universe caveat to seek a more realistic tone, “Kickers” struggled to split the difference. The series went through eight writers and six pencillers in 12 issues before being canceled.
One of the most famous football-themed comics came from Marvel in 1991. Former football player Phil Grayfield had become a journalist after injuries ended his playing career. When he’s accidentally doused with a chemical compound, he gains three times the speed, strength, and stamina of a normal human. Wearing a custom football uniform that makes him nearly invulnerable to damage, he takes on the role of the SuperPro in the series “NFL SuperPro,” a collaboration between the National Football League and Marvel. “NFL SuperPro” lasted only 12 issues. The Chicago Sports Review once called it “the worst comic ever created” (I don’t think this is the case), and issue #6 of the series was recalled after Hopi Indian tribe leaders were offended by the portrayal of their culture in its pages.
Looking for something more biographical? Russell Wilson was featured in a 2016 TidalWave biography comic from writer Michael L. Frizell and illustrator Angel Bernuy. Going further back, Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry was featured by Christian comics publisher Spire in the 1970s with “Tom Landry and the Dallas Cowboys,” which is partly about Landry’s coaching career and partly about his Christian testimony. The creative team on this comic are writer Billy Zeoli and artist Al Hartley. In 1992, Personality Comics crafted three issues of “Personality Comics Presents Football Heroes,” starring Joe Namath, John Elway, and Joe Montana. Revolutionary Comics, meanwhile, featured Namath and Walter Payton in its “Sports Heroes” line in the early 1990s, along with O.J. Simpson, before the trial and notoriety that followed.
Oklahoma multi-sport star Jim Thorpe was a player for and first president of the National Football League and would go on to be one of the inaugural inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. His story has been told in multiple comics, from 1943’s “True Comics” #22 to 2010’s “Jim Thorpe: The Greatest Athlete in the World,” from Capstone.
Many more comic-book heroes have spent time on the football gridiron, including Archie Andrews and Clark Kent. What are some of your favorites? Let me know in the comments! And dig for more crossovers in the back issue bins of your local comic shop!
For those local to central Oklahoma, hope to see you at Speeding Bullet this weekend!
Labor Day sale info from Speeding Bullet Comics follows:
For the first time post-pandemic, Speeding Bullet Comics’ Labor Day sale returns! There will be sales through the weekend and special Monday hours from noon to 4 p.m. on Sept. 4!
The sale at Speeding Bullet, 614 N. Porter Ave. in Norman, OK, will kick off Friday, Sept. 1, and continue through Monday, Sept. 4.
FRIDAY: Selected back issues for just $1.50! Plus all bin comics priced $1.99 or under are $1!
SATURDAY: Selected back issues for just $1! – Plus all bin comics $2.99 or under are $1!
SUNDAY: Selected back issues for just 75 cents! – Plus all bin comics $3.99 or under are $1!
MONDAY: Selected back issues for just 50 cents! – Plus all bin comics $4.99 or under are $1!
Additionally, hundreds of graphic novels will be buy 2 get 1 free all weekend!
Come see us if you can!
Matthew Price, matthew@matthewlprice.com, has written about the comics industry for more than two decades. He is the co-owner of Speeding Bullet Comics in Norman, Oklahoma.