Charlie Droople has always been one of my favorites, by the way. There are a lot of hidden gems to be found in those old Charlton Comics.

(And if you substitute Charlie for Peter Parker, you've essentially got One More Day in eight pages!)

Dalarsco mentioned Moore's "Mogo Doesn't Socialize". Moore did a couple other Green Lantern back-ups in that time frame. I think they're all reprinted in that "Across The Universe" collection. The one with the F-sharp bell (maybe it's titled "In Darkest Night"?) is delightful, kind of Silver Age-y. But my absolute favorite is the one which begins "Years later, he died." It fills in a hole you never realized was in the Green Lantern origin: explains why Abin Sur was flying a space ship.

There was a beautiful backup story in an issue of Dr Strange 20-25 yrs ago, Michael Golden did the artwork.

Also Peter Gillis did a serial of shorts after Doc Strange got cancelled, an enjoyable storyline.

Tales of Asgard!

Sure, there are exceptions. And, sure, many of the old 8 pagers sucked. When all is said and done, however, I think the collected works of Lev Gleason (Crime Does Not Pay) and EC (Sci/Fi, War and Horror ) are far more innovative and better crafted than the junk Marvel has been spewing out for years. I'm pretty sure that if you collected one issue of every sucky Marvel comic and dumped them all in the ocean, there would be a new continent rivaling Australia in size.

That being said, I guess my real complaint is the lack of density in today's story telling. And, heck, for all it's goofiness, the original single-issue "Death of Superman" is way more moving than the modern trainwreck of Doomsday. And I'm not even mentioning that ish w/ one panel per page!!!!!

I just love anthology comics and miss them very much. In litterature the short story is my favorite format as well, and the art of telling a good story with as few pages as possible IS a lost art indeed.

I too can only highly recommend the AMAZING FANTASY OMNIBUS. It contains some of the best short stories ever published at Marvel. It was by far their best sci-fi/fantast anthology (and they did a lot of those in the 50's and 60').

Another recommandation, if you liked the WEIRD TALES OF THE MACABRE magazine, Atlas/Seabord also put out a great adventure anthology magazine called THRILLING ADVENTURE STORIES (only two issues as well). There is mostly only great stuff in them (especially # 2), with art by the greats Russ Heath, Alex Toth, John Severin, Walter Simonson...

I have to disagree with you on the Atlas/Seabord line Scott. I own a complete set of their output and it's not worst than the average stuff that came out in the late Bronze Age (around 1974-75). And they are quite a few gems in there. With a good and stable editorial direction (without the incompetants Goodmans to mess things up), who knows what may have become of them? They certainly had the creative talents to potentially take on DC and Marvel (Archie Goodwin, Steve Ditko, Howard Chaykin, Mike Ploog, Russ Heath, and so many more, plus Neal Adams on many covers!)

Yes, there are some BRILLIANT six- or twelve-issue arcs out there, but can you imagine, for example, a decompressed Watchmen?? 60 issues....

Eisner is the champ of the short story by the way, had to get that in here somewhere. But as poignant as his stories were they contained one maybe two themes each and rarely more than 3-4 characters of any depth. People today not only want more in their stories, they want a sense that the stories matter in a greater context; a context that can only be achieved through a longer story.

Dalarsco hit the nail on the head - such stories do have a place and a function to play in comics but they are not by any stretch of the imagination the consummate form of the art. I also agree that being able to write a decent 8-pager is a good skill for a comic writer to have to force them to stay on point. That said, you won't find me up in arms to defend the current trend towards padded 6-issue story arcs either but that isn't to say that there aren't great examples of good 6-issue arcs because they do exist.

Dal - While I'm not disagreeing with you, I'd like to see if more of today's writers could write an 8-page masterpiece. DC's Solo books were pretty good for that. Personally, I steer clear of 'events' as it is too much of an investment. A nice anthology title or two would be great. John Severin's still around to lend a hand!

Did Charlton never reprint the Charlie Droople story? I know I went online & bought a comic containing it after you (I'm sure it was you ...) picked it as one of your all-time favorites for the Classics Forum Christmas list back in, I guess, '05, & I sure don't recall having to go all the way back to DR GRAVES #5 to obtain it.