Public Service Announcement: Kamandi Challenge Special #1

Just in case you care and haven't heard . . . 

Last week's Kamandi Challenge Special #1 was originally announced as a reprint of Kamandi #32 (from 1975). I was not thrilled at the prospect of paying $7.99 for a reprint of a comic book I already owned (and which cost a mere 50 Cent(s) back in the day), but this would be the first Kamandi comic book published since the 2008 Countdown Special: Kamandi 80-Page Giant (which was a reprint of three issues from the 70s), which was the first Kamandi comic book published since the 6th issue of Kamandi: At Earth's End in 1993, which was the first Kamandi comic book published since the first-series-ending issue #59 in 1978. So kind of a big deal.

And Kamandi has always held a special place in my comic book nerd heart. It was the first comic book I bought issue #1 of . . . and the first series I collected from beginning to end, which was no mean feat in those newsstand distribution days, let me tell you. I had to go to three different drug stores and a food store to get all of those issues. It was also the first comic book I had a letter published in (issue #31 if you're trying to collect my Complete Works). And I can't even tell you how many comic books I bought because there was some kind of Kamandi connection--no matter how tenuous. I even bought both volumes of the Kamandi Archives and both volumes of the Kamandi Omnibus--pretty pricey items, and both reprints of material I already had--AND the first Kamandi Artist Edition from IDW (SERIOUSly pricey item). And I bought a Kamandi doll.

Err . . . Action figure, that is.

So yeah, I was ready to lay the money down for Kamandi Challenge Special #1. 

It came out last week, but Joe and I didn't have time to make it to The Great Escape, so I didn't pick it up until today. Fortunately I'd had it pulled for my holds box, since there were no copies left on the stands. And when I got home and opened it up I saw some black and white pages, and I thought that that was very odd. A misprint? I looked again.

Waitaminute, I'd seen those pages before. And that's when it hit me. HOLY SHIT!!! DC had published the Kamandi issues from Cancelled Comics Cavalcade 1 and 2! 

[In what later became known as The DC Implosion, at the end of the 70s DC hit the wall and cancelled a slew of titles, including Kamandi. Many of the comics already had issues that had been completed (minus coloring, I think), and for some reason they made 35 photocopied copies of the "finished" books and called in Cancelled Comics Cavalcade #1 and #2 . . . apparently to establish copyright for DC . . . and distributed them internally. It's not too hard to find the contents of those two issues online, so I did. And printed out my own copies, since it really wasn't feasible to buy a real copied copy. Hmmm, that would be scanned.]

So Kamandi Challenge Special #1 went from duty to delight. You might still be able to find a copy out there. If nothing else, this issue should be worth quite a few bucks in the near near. If you can't find it and just want to have it for yourself (as opposed to investment value), it looks like Comixology has it up . . . though the description doesn't say that the contents include Kamandi #60 and #61. I think that's an oversight, though, as the page count indicates that it does have that stuff, but I've emailed the Comixology folks to check on it. More news as it happens on that front.