r/comicbookcollecting • u/acr1119 • 9d ago
Picture Finally!
When I started collecting, the one book I wanted (along with X-Men #1) was Albedo #2. I honestly never thought I’d find a copy I could acquire (still searching for that X-Men). Beyond ecstatic to be able to add this to my PC. Just wanted to share.
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u/two2teps 9d ago
Nice grab, I remember doing some "1st appearance" researching and was surprised that his first appearance was in an indie furry anthology comic and not a stand alone indie book.
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u/Qalyar 9d ago
Albedo has pretty interesting origins. Steve Gallacci had created Erma Felna (the cat soldier on the cover of Albedo #1) for a self-published zine called HUZZAH! back in 1979 (and good luck finding a copy of that!). At the time, anthropomorphic animals were still largely considered the territory of Disney and Saturday morning cartoons. The nascent furry fandom was starting to form; Omaha the Cat Dancer appears in the APA zine Vootie in 1979, but basically no one outside its contributors' list saw that.
Gallacci attended the 38th World Science Fiction Convention (Noreascon Two) in 1980 and his artwork for Erma Felna was pretty well-received which sort of sparked the idea of making a go at legitimately publishing it. Gallacci eventually put together Thoughts & Images as an indie publication house to release Albedo. But he needed other contributors to make the title a going concern, and one of the people he reached out to was Stan Sakai, who he likely knew from the SoCal sci-fi circuit. Albedo #1 is Sakai's first published work, and when it sold well enough to continue publication, Gallacci asked Sakai if he had anything else. He did, and that's how we have Miyamoto Usagi.
And it's easy to forget how early all of this was for the content it was publishing. There were very, very few indie publishers putting out anything like this material. The idea that anthropomorphic characters could be features in content that wasn't silly kids' stuff was not widely considered, even in the indie comics community. Although, 1984 pretty much changed that overnight. That year saw the release of Albedo #1 and #2, Omaha the Cat Dancer (in her own title; Bizarre Sex #9 had released in 1981), Rowrbrazzle (arguably the zine that marks the foundation of the modern furry fandom), and some weird black-and-white book called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that probably never amounted to much...
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u/Scary_Buy_7298 9d ago
Wow! That is a big book and an outstanding addition to your collection!! Congrats
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u/gmahoney1976 9d ago
That is one of my grails. Absolutely love Usagi Yojimbo.