Amazing Heroes #115
Amazing Heroes #115 (April 15, 1987) is the first comics-industry swimsuit issue, pioneering a format that would soon be adopted — and commercialized — by Marvel, DC, and dozens of other publishers. By commissioning beach and pool pin-ups from across the entire spectrum of 1987 comics — major-publisher superheroes, Will Eisner's Spirit cast, Love and Rockets characters, DNAgents, and more — editor Kim Thompson demonstrated that the fan-press could produce genuine creative events, not just reportage. The issue directly influenced the Marvel Swimsuit Special that launched in the early 1990s, and it planted a seed for Amazing Heroes' own stand-alone Swimsuit Special series that debuted in 1990. Its cross-publisher, multi-genre roster of contributors also served as an unusually candid snapshot of the independent-comics explosion then reshaping the direct market.
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Amazing Heroes was launched in 1981 by Fantagraphics Books as a hobbyist companion to the more critically oriented Comics Journal, with founding editor Michael Catron replaced after issue #6 by Comics Journal editor Kim Thompson. By mid-run the twice-monthly magazine had become the leading fan-press title in the direct market, winning the UK Eagle Award for Favourite Specialist Comics Publication four consecutive years (1985–1988). Issue #115 emerged organically from the magazine's tradition of one-off themed specials — the same editorial infrastructure that produced the biannual Preview Specials — and was conceived as a light-hearted showcase for original pin-up art, inviting contributors from across the industry rather than sourcing licensed material.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Correct date is April 15, 1987 — not 1985 as cataloged; the GCD, Wikipedia, Internet Archive, and AbeBooks all confirm the April 1987 cover date.
- First annual swimsuit issue of Amazing Heroes, preceding companion issues #138 (April 1988) and #164 (May 1989), which together laid the groundwork for the standalone Amazing Heroes Swimsuit Special series beginning in June 1990.
- Directly cited by historians as a primary influence on the Marvel Swimsuit Special, which launched in the early 1990s; the Amazing Heroes series featured unlicensed depictions of mainstream characters drawn by contributors who later worked for Marvel officially.
- Approximately 100 pages, black-and-white interiors on newsprint with full-color covers, edited by Kim Thompson.
- Bill Sienkiewicz contributed a full-page rendition of Storm (Ororo Munroe) of the X-Men.
- Trina Robbins contributed a multi-character beach piece gathering vintage 'good girl' characters — Millie the Model, Patsy Walker, Hedy DeVine, and Katy Keene — alongside contemporary counterparts such as Maggie Chascarrillo and Hopey Glass from Love and Rockets, with acknowledgments to creators Jaime Hernandez, Barbara Slate, Barbara Rausch, and Bill Woggon.
- E-Man co-creator Joe Staton drew characters from the then-recently ended E-Man series, including Nova Kane, Michael Mauser, and Teddy Q.
- Other documented contributors include Will Meugniot (DNAgents), Bill Willingham (Morningstar of The Elementals), Mike Grell (Jon Sable's Myke Blackmon), Daniel Clowes (Metamorpho), and Rudi Franke (a tribute to the women of Will Eisner's The Spirit — Ellen Dolan, P'Gell, Silk Satin, and Lady Blackhawk).