Note: These have been cleared off Demonoid, so I wanted to make sure I didn't lose them entirely, so I'll post them here.
(Click here for larger image)Bloodstrike #132 pgs (No ads!)
$2.95 (Now the average cover price of most current comics!)
April 1993
Image Comics
Cover Art: Dan Fraga
Signature: Rob Liefeld (He also 'writes' the book - bonus!)
No, wait,
don't leave, there really is a gimmick on this cover!
While it may look like a generic early Image title you would've sneered at when spying it on the racks, this bad boy's got a surprise in store for you! This was a must-have for people who liked their comics 'grim and gritty'...
Let it be said that this is first part of the 'Blood Brothers' crossover, which I think has the distinction of being one of Image's first multi-title swindles. The story is continued in
Brigade #1 according to the final page, if you're keeping track of continuity, that is. But don't expect
me to read this thing, having to look at Liefeld's 'art' is enough of a chore that I can't bring myself to try. I'm sure I'm cheating myself of an epic saga.
And about the art, let's just say there are as many backgrounds as there are characters' feet, and there's A LOT of gritting teeth and black-hole crotches. Ah, but this was actually drawn by Dan Fraga, aping Rob Liefeld - and other than for a paycheck, I can't imagine why any artist would want to do that. I dunno if Fraga's still working but I hope he's grown into his own style...
Anyway, the gimmick - if you check out the upper left corner of the cover, in the 'i', it says 'Rub the Blood!' Unfortunately, that it. That's all it says, even inside it doesn't tell you what rubbing the blood will do. So, unless you'd read the solicitation, you didn't know that it was supposed to make the blood disappear. Pretty awesome, eh? So let's take the politician for a spin, right?
For perspective, the part of the cover I've chosen is the blood just beneath the chin of that Wolverine-looking guy...
Well, maybe it needs a little more...
Huh. And I started over from zero, too...
Um, okay. So I've managed to smudge the cover, but the blood doesn't really seem to have 'disappeared' even slightly. I mean, it got a little lighter, but that's hardly 'disappear'...
Y'know, we're talking the height of the speculator craze here, so no one in their right mind was going to risk losing the 'mint' grade to actually rub the cover! And if they were, they still bought and set aside multiple copies of the bless'ed thing.
But basically, they counted on no one trying the thing to see that the gimmick didn't work at all. I also believe they counted on no one reading the things either just bagging and hoarding them, and so the interior is akin to filler. And I tried just applying warm and cold and it makes no difference either way, the blood does not disappear. And anyway, you can see through the blood already, so making it disappear was redundant, really.
You really can credit Image with not only the exacerbation, but also the demise of the speculator market and comics like this were a major part of that. They bled those poor suckers dry.
Not that Image didn't have help, of course.
