All-Pro Sports Comics #1 (2022 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Challenge)

Even though I was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, I paid very early attention to the career of one Vincent Edward Jackson.  

Oh, you don't know Vincent Edward Jackson? Well, do you know Bo- Jackson, that is!

Jackson played a trio of sports for Auburn University including baseball and football. Bo's impressive scoring of 17 touchdowns and almost 1,800 yards during his senior year earned the Tiger the Heisman Trophy and Walter Camp Award in 1985. While Bo's future looked paved in goal with teams such as the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Buccaneers putting early bids on the multi-sport star. Ultimately, Bo went on to play with the Kansas City Royals and Los Angeles Raiders while securing several lucrative endorsement deals including Nike and a live-action cartoon series with NBC. 

But early on as a child, Bo Jackson almost ended up behind bars. The 8th of 10 children, Jackson's family were literally dirt poor in rural Alabama. They lived in a 3 room shack that did not have indoor plumbing. Often targeted for his stutter, Jackson developed a violent temper. The angeralso earned him a nickname- 'Bo-hog', later shortened to just BO.

A violent incident of animal cruelty put Bo at an impasse- clean up his act or got to juvenile detention. For the sake of his mother, Bo chose to put his aggression into school sports. Bo become a 3-sport star and was heavily recruited by many SEC schools. Jackson selected Auburn due to it's proximity to his family and the rest was history.

Some of that history includes Bo running a touchdown for a then record of 92 and 93 yards, breaking baseball bats over his knee when he struck out, hitting a home run in 4 consecutive at bats, and becoming the first player in MLB all-star history to hit a homer and to steal a base in a game. He was the MVP for that 1989 game. 

The Bo Jackson train came to a screeching halt in a January 1991 NFL play-off game against the Cincinnati Bengals. A rough tackle resulted in Bo dislocating his hip. Somehow upon being taken off the field, the hip popped back into place and the damage was done. Blood vessels damaged, Jackson was soon diagnosed with avascular necrosis which killed all of the cartilage within Bo's hip socket. 

Bo would never play football again. After taking 1992 off to get a total hip replacement, Bo returned to baseball with the Chicago White Sox and the California Angels. While Bo did have some impressive numbers, chronic pain kept him from ever playing more than half a season's worth of game. By 1994, Bo Jackson hung up his cleats for good. 

This issue of All-Pro Sports Comics was published in 1991 just as Bo's career ending injury had experts wondering 'what if?' Published by Burke Publishing, this issue was to usher forth a vast line of comics based on current and all-time great superstars of all areas of sports. Ultimately, only 5 issues were published. Joe Montana, Wayne Gretzky, Larry Bird and Evander Hollyfield were featured in these unauthorized biographies. Sadly, Burke Publishing folded sometime in 1992 before the release of the much promised issue to feature 'Steffi Graf Graf and the Babes of Tennis!' All-Star Sports Comics would be Burke's only comic book publication.

There is supposed to be a variant cover to this issue. Bo in his Royals uniform is the lesser known version. Despite the rarity of the KC Royals cover, I haven't seen a very big difference in the prices of the 2 comics. Though, I've run across the Raiders issue on several occasions in bargain bins throughout the North Carolina comic convention circuit. 

Bo Jackson will never be a part of Canton or Cooperstown. His career was too short and he never played for a championship team. But those short several years that Bo did play were exciting. If anything, Bo will forever be enshrined in my personal hall of fame. He was an amazing specimen who unfortunately became a victim of a career ending injury.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars. 

Completing this review completes Task #37 (About Sports) of the 2022 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

Classic Toys from a Madman's Youth: Advent 2019 Day 12

Man have I got a great story for today's Advent toy. It's 1989 and my parent's took me to where else- Toys R Us. So we walk the whole store. Myself, I'm pointing out things that I want for Christmas. My folks are taking notes. 

At some point, I was banished to the front of the store while they went shopping. Eventually, I had to go to the bathroom. Since my sister wasn't born yet, the girls section of the store seemed to be the natural place to cut through in order to get to the restroom located at the back of the store without running into my parents. 

I made a left turn only to run into my dad with his hands full of today's featured toy- Starting Lineup!

Made by Kenner, Starting Lineup were action figures based on real athletes. Figures I remember getting for Christmases 1989-1991 include Jose Canseco, Art Monk and Patrick Ewing. Oh, and how can I forget my all-time favorite athlete, Bo Jackson!

The toy line lasted from 1988-2001. While the toys were awesomely sculpted, they really weren't traditional action figures. Since the athletes were posed in dramatic action poses, they lacked articulation. The head would turn and the arms would too. You might get their torsos to twist but the legs were fused. But if you didn't turn the bodies parts the right way, they looked really weird. 

Starting Lineup toys were less for play and more for display. More and more, you'd find collector adults buying these figures instead of kids. Complete with a collectible trading card, these were the thing of beauty. 

Today while some of these are quite collectible, a majority of these figures are a dime a dozen. That's because in the early 90s, the collector's market for sports collectibles bubble finally burst. Over-production was the death nail of just about anything with an athlete on it that only things with little runs and certificates of authenticity had any value. As Starting Lineup had neither, triple digit prices crashed almost overnight. 

Oh- before I forget- to end my story with my dad. When we ran into each other, we both had this frightened look on our faces. I could tell that his arms were full of Starting Lineup figures. Once the shock wore off, we both made simultaneous U-turns. To this day, I still don't remember if I ever made it to the bathroom that night or not.

To close out today's Advent, I want to share with you a very special moment from my youth. I followed everything about Bo Jackson, like staying up to watch Bo win the Heisman or his epic All-Star game performance in 1989 to his tragic hip injury in 1991. EVERYTHING!

So as my gift for you today, here's my favorite at the 1985 Bob Hope Christmas Special in his prime!

Enjoy!

NBC Saturday Morning Comics

This one-shot from the summer of 1991 was published by Harvey Comics in co-operation with NBC and Toys r Us to promote that season's new fall-lineup of cartoons and kid shows. For one time only, fans of Malcauley Culkin, Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson, and Wayne Gretzky got to see their idols in comics form for the shows Wish Kid and Pro Stars. As a kid I was a huge Gretzky fan and I thought the sun rose and set on Bo Jackson. It's pretty much the only reason I got this comic. If I even get to meet Bo, I'm gonna surprise the heck out of him by having him autograph this instead of a ball or trading card.

  Along with the aforementioned stories, this comic included a Yogi Bear comic; something called 'Spacecats' and a short story involving the gang from Saved by the Bell. This comic also doubled as an activity book with some puzzles and a maze to solve. I highly doubt there are very many pristine issues of this comic in existence due to these activities and I was lucky to find one.

  The biggest problem with this comic is that every story ends with "To be continued" and would only be resolved when the reader saw the show on its premiere date in September. To my knowledge Pro Stars and Wish Kid, and probably Spacecats has never appeared on VHS or DVD. So, I don't think I'd ever find out how these tales were resolved. (I'm not losing sleep over it, but it bears mentioning.)

  The comic also featured a voting contest for readers to vote for their favorite series. I was actually interested in this aspect and did a search about this. However, I couldn't find any hits regarding the voting in my search results. So, I couldn't tell you who won or lost.

    The concept behind this comic was a clever ploy of marketing. I'm sure kids were delighted with this, even if they had to shell out a buck twenty-five for it. This time period is pretty much the end of both the Saturday morning cartoon on the big three networks as well as the end of Harvey Comics. From that historical aspect, this might be a book worth collecting or if you are a fan of any of the athletes or characters featured in this book. Ironically, the fan base that probably would be the most interested in this comic (and know the least of its existence) would be fans of the teen series Saved by the Bell. With the show riding a nostalgic high and a planned tele-pic about how the show was made in the works, SBTB stuff is very popular right now and extremely hard to come by.

rating: 6 out of 10 stars.