1st Folio (1984) #1

I said in the previous blog post that Pacific was, at this point, mostly launching reprints. Bit this book is a collection of student works by members of the Joe Kubert school, so that’s a bit different.

Kubert gives an introduction and tells the story of the school, and Pacific chimes in and says that they’ll be using more Kubert students in future comics. I think these ended up in Vanguard Illustrated, for the most part…

Joe Kubert contributes a two-page piece (done in 1979), in which we learn that war is hell. But the artwork’s not bad.

One curious thing here is that all the stories are copyrighted by the school. What’s up with that? But it’s not like this Mike Chen and Ron Randall story had any potential for selling anywhere else, so perhaps it doesn’t matter. It is, as most of these stories, professional enough, I guess, and basically not any good.

Perhaps this ad for the Kubert school is the best thing in the book.

Uhm. A piece by Adam Kubert? Was he a student?

And one by Andy Kubert? Is this more of a family thing than a student thing? In any case, both stories are barely there.

This unattributed story did go somewhere, but not anywhere you’d want to be.

More Adam Kubert! The end?

Rex Lindsay does a sci-fi story of a character he would continue to develop in Vanguard Illustrated. It’s mostly fumes.

At least Brad Joyce has done drugs.

My guess is that guess that Pacific published this purely because they wanted to shovel something, anything out the doors, without having to pay anything for the work inside. Or perhaps the Kubert school paid Pacific? I mean, there are no redeeming qualities here: This is student work, to be admired by them and their teachers only.

The not-always-wrong R A Jones writes in Amazing Heroes #48, page 57

There are four other stories
which run three pages or less,
with the art ranging from poorto
passable. As for the stories…
well, there really are no stories
to speak of, I guess Joe’s school
doesn’t turn out any writers.

The three longer stories are
bad enough that you wish they
had only been two pages long.
They look like inventory for the
various mystery comics that
have finally faded into well-
deserved oblivion. You know
the type—”surprise” endings
you can guess after the second
page, and cardboard characters
so limp that you really don’t care
whether they live ot die.

One might excuse the poor
writing, since this is obviously in-
tended to spotlight the art. Un-
fortunately, with the exception
of Joe Kubert’s story and cover,
the illustrations are bland and
immensely forgettable.

As a class exercise or home-
work assignment, 1st Folio
might make the grade. As a
comic book, it’s a dismal failure.
Give it a wide berth. Class
dismissed.

Indeed.