Conventional Wisdom

Okay, full disclosure: I first became aware of comic books being a thing in the early-to-mid 90s, right at the peak of Liefeld excess and speculator boom absurdity.  So while I absolutely hold this era of comics in contempt from any artistic standpoint… I also love ’em to pieces.  Look, kids, anybody who tells you that you’re only allowed to like things you legitimately think are good is a bad person.  And yeah, I totally love the flashy, garish, collector-baiting gimmickry of this era of comic books, every bit as much as I love the tacky, grotesque, terrible artwork that was so en vogue at the time.  Hey, if nothing else, it’s the height of hilarity for art that was trying to hard to be “edgy” is now a source of cozy nostalgia for me.

But regarding that “cut in half” book, I’m not just making something up out of nowhere.  Probably my favorite find of the whole day was this copy of Protectors #5, in which the cover image of a guy shot through the chest is accented by LITERALLY CUTTING A HOLE THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF THE BOOK.  Like, all the way.  If I’d moved my hand slightly to the right while taking that picture, you’d see my fingers moving.  And yes, it’s INCREDIBLY distracting while reading the comic itself, which is in no way formatted to avoid the hole in the center.  Oh, and the best part?  When you finally reach the last page of the comic, and we see poor Nightmask dead, like the cover promised, you’d THINK they’d have the foresight to align the art so that the hole would be in the center of his chest, to mirror the cover.  NOPE!  He’s slumped over to the side, and the hole is over is shoulder, like the shot just grazed him.  It’s just beautiful how terrible it is.  Oh, and the second best part?  There’s still several pages of letters and ads in the back, that ALSO have the hole punched right through them, rendering some of the text unreadable.  Just classic.