Hollywood Superstars (epic Comics)

Five-issue series for epic Comics 1990-91. Written by Mark Evanier, illustrated by Dan Spiegle and doodled on occasionally by Mark's good friend, Sergio Aragones.

Mark Evanier says:

HOLLYWOOD SUPERSTARS was the story of three folks — a stuntman, a wanna-be actress and a stand-up comedian — who operate a detective agency in and around the movie industry. It was brilliantly illustrated by Dan Spiegle and superbly colored by Tom Luth...and you'll have to take my word for both those facts since the color separation work was abominable. Dan even threw his copies away because it so pained him to look at what they'd done to his work.

The comic was created at the behest of the then-editor of Marvel's Epic line, the late, much-admired Archie Goodwin. He'd been having trouble getting comics produced monthly for Epic, liked Crossfire, and knew how reliable Dan and I were. He also wanted something that wouldn't be configured for the usual Marvel audience. The goal here was to publish the comic for a year or two, even at a small loss, and explore alternate forms of distribution. Then they'd collect the stories in paperbacks that could be marketed through bookstores to what one might call the "Harlequin Romance" audience.

It was probably a good idea. A comic book company trying to appeal to a new readership is almost always a good idea. Alas, Marvel's lawyers took around ten months to get the contract into signable shape. By that time, Archie had migrated to DC and we were left doing a book for a company where no one had any interest in marketing to anything but the usual Marvel audience. I found myself getting phone calls from them that said, basically, "Our fans will never buy a comic like this." And they didn't. What a surprise.


Kudos to the creative team and the scanner. Get it, seed it.