Coober Skeber

The story behind Coober Skeber 2: Marvel Benefit Issue has been recently covered at the Comics Comics blog. I probably became aware of this anthology of short stories featuring Marvel characters as done by alt comix creators over at the late comix@ mailing list. I was able to buy a copy around 1998 at Montreal's Librairie Astro for 5 Canadian dollars, I believe. (I was in Montreal for a business trip, but I managed to make time for visiting the local comic stores, including the now-defunct La Mouette, one of the classiest comics stores I've visited.)

Coober Skeber paved the way for DC's two Bizarro Comics anthologies and, of course, the more recent Strange Tales series that have been published by Marvel. But despite these recent attempts at doing something similar, there is still something unique about this small artifact, printed in black-and-white, and featuring artwork done by young creators riffing on characters such as Deathlok, Spider-Woman, and Devil Dinosaur. I remember bringing back home several comics thanks to that Montreal trip (Chaland books, issues of L'Association's Lapin, Steve Canyon reprints, and other stuff), but Coober Skeber was certainly one of the most memorable.

The original comic may be difficult to find these days, but it has (recently?) been scanned and made available among all the scans of new comics that appear each week. The download link is here, so if you haven't seen the book before now there's a chance to enjoy it in its entirety.