It's Wednesday, and it's time to check out the answers to my contest and anoint some winners. Yes, I wanted to have this post up by Monday. But I wanted to alert the winners first, so they had to get back to me. So without further ago, let's hit the bricks!

First, here's the original post, if you want to follow along. I'll add some commentary, because I can. Thanks to everyone who entered - I hope you had fun digging through your collections! Some people wondered why I was using mostly mainstream panels to give away mostly non-mainstream stuff. Well, some people who read mostly mainstream stuff occasionally don't know about the more obscure stuff out there, and what better way to get them acquainted with it than give it to them? Isn't that what being a pusher is all about????

1. Superman Annual #11 by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1985). It's Superman's birthday, and Robin saves the day! Very neat story by the Watchmen team. Collected in the Alan Moore Across the Universe trade paperback.



2. Batman #321 by Len Wein and Walt Simonson (March 1980). A lot of people thought this was an Englehart/Rogers issue. I can't blame them, because the Joker looks a lot like Rogers'. It's another birthday issue, but this time it's the Joker's birthday! That can't be good. I got this panel from my collection of The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told.



3. Daredevil #160 by Roger McKenzie and Frank Miller (September 1979). I tried to fool people by giving them Miller on art but not on writing. It didn't work. People must have the Marked for Death trade paperback, from which I took this panel! Not a bad story, but nothing like when Miller took over the writing.



4. The Golden Age #3 by James Robinson and Paul Smith (1993). Manhunter discovers the secret of Tex Thompson, and boy, it ain't pleasant. This is a really good mini-series that is available in trade paperback.



5. The Kents #4 by John Ostrander and Tim Truman (November 1997). A lot of people said this was Tom Mandrake. He drew some of the later issues in this series, but this is Truman. This is a pretty good story of Kansas and the U. S. in the 19th century.



6. Longshot #6 by Ann Nocenti and Art Adams (February 1986). Most people recognized Adams' art so they said an annual of Uncanny X-Men, of which he did a few. But Quark should have given it away! Who doesn't love Quark?????



7. Point Blank #4 by Ed Brubaker and Colin Wilson (January 2003). This mini-series that led into Sleeper is very neat. Brubaker does a nice job with Grifter and TAO, who's really a cool villain.



8. Wildcats (vol. 2) #2 by Scott Lobdell and Travis Charest (May 1999). Charest did about three issues total of this book. Too bad, because it's such gorgeous art. Lobdell didn't last long on the book, which is weird, because the stories weren't bad. Then Casey took it over and made it a great comic.



9. Fallen Angel #5 by Peter David and J. K. Woodward (April 2006). This is the IDW series, and this panel is Lee explaining to us all why we shouldn't worship God. Peter David taking on religion!



10. Catwoman #53 by Will Pfiefer and David López (May 2006). The first One Year Later issue, when Pfeifer really starting hitting his stride with the book. That's Selina giving birth, by the way, in case you hadn't figured it out when I gave the answer.



11. Moon Knight #2 by Charlie Huston and David Finch (July 2006). This was too easy. Khonshu? Come on! And this is the issue in which our hero rips Bushman's face off. I'm ashamed of myself for being so obvious!



12. The Middle Man (vol. 2) #4 by Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Les McClaine (April 2006). If you don't go buy the two trades of this comic right now, I'll be sad. (That being said, I'm not sure the secondvolumehas been collected yet. It should be.) So much fun in eight issues that it's almost more than you can handle! And it has the Wu-Han Thumb of Death!



13. Team Zero #1 by Chuck Dixon and Doug Mahnke (February 2006). It's a war comic by Chuck Dixon! It features gorgeous art by Mahnke! It features a hot evil nurse! Fine stuff.



14. The Huntress #1 by Joey Cavalieri and Joe Staton (April 1989). The introduction of Helena Bertinelli to the DCU, which was received poorly by old-school fans. I was not one of them, so I kind of enjoyed this series, which lasted only 19issues. I still don't like Staton's art, though.



15. Excalibur #45 by Alan Davis and Alan Davis (December 1991). This was during Davis' second runas penciller on the book, and his writing is actually very good. Davis has always been underrated as a writer.



16. The Shadow #1 by Andy Helfer and Bill Sienkiewicz (August 1987). I bought the first four issuesonly because Sienkiewicz was drawing it. They're not that great. Nice art, though.



17. Elektra #2 by Peter Milligan and Mike Deodato, Jr. (December 1996). These are some seriously bad comic books. This is Milligan's worst work as a writer, and even though the art isn't horrible, it's not great, either. The Nineties Excess at its height.



18. Flash #100 by Mark Waid and Salvador Larocca (April 1995). Some people said this was Oscar Jiminez, whoalso drew some of this issue, but it's not. I bought the story leading up to the 100th issue to see if I wanted to keep buying Flash. I didn't.People sayWaid's work on it is great. Maybe I should reconsider.



19. Legends of the Dark Knight #83 by Warren Ellis and John McCrea (June 1996). This is a nice little creepy story (I know, imagine that from Ellis!) with nice art by McCrea. Two parts, no waiting!



20. El Cazador #4 by Chuck Dixon and Steve Epting (January 2004). Ah, El Cazador. How I miss you! This and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang were the only CrossGen books I got, and they were both excellent. And then they died in the Great Purge.



21. Starman #72 by James Robinson and Peter Snejbjerg (December 2000). In this, the final "Grand Guignol" issue, many things happen. This is right after the Mist shoots his own daughter. Holy crap, I didn't see that coming!



22. Major Bummer #15 by John Arcudi and Doug Mahnke (October 1998). The last issue. Poor Major Bummer. A wonderful comic that no one read. At least the trades sell well! Oh, wait a minute - there are no trades. Good job, DC! It's interesting to compare Mahnke's art from this comic and Team Zero above. He's gotten a lot better.



23. Small Gods #4 by Jason Rand and Juan Ferreyra (September 2004). Another short-lived series that I really liked. 12 issues,and all good. Seek them out forsome good reading!



24. 1963 #4 by Alan Moore and Jim Valentino (July 1993). This one stymied people the most. Onlya couple ofpeople got it. It's a fantastic series, even though it's incomplete. The issues should be cheap if you can find them, and I highly recommend it.You can read more about the series here (yes, I'm plugging my own blog again - deal with it!).



25. Doctor Mid-Nite #1 byMatt Wagner and John K. Snyder III (1999). This is a weird little mini-series, but it's very pretty. Snyder is an underrated artist, and of course Wagner doesn't get the credit as a writer that he deserves.



26. Steed and Mrs. Peel #1 by Grant Morrison and Ian Gibson (1990). One ofThe Godof All Comics' minor works, but it's charming enough.It's weakened because Gibson doesn't draw the entire series (three issues) and becausethere's not one complete story - Morrison tries to cram more than one into it. It starts strong, though. Too bad it didn't end that way.



27. My Flesh is Cool #1 by Steven Grant and Sebastian Fiumara (January 2004). I thought this would be one of the harder ones, but plenty of people knew it. This is a neat three-issue mini-series, with very nice art from Fiumara. I wonder if it's gotten collected in a trade yet ...



28. High Roads #6 by Scott Lobdell and Leinil Francis Yu (November 2002). Lobdell gets a lot of flak for some of the lousy things he's written, but he can write comics well occasionally, and this World War II adventure mini-series is Exhibit A. It's fun, exciting, and features great art from Yu.



29. I Am Legion #1 by Fabien Nury and John Cassaday (2004). Cassaday's art is so distinctive that even if people didn't know where this came from, they knew it was him and guessed Planetary or Captain America or even Desperadoes. This book had only the one issue, and supposedly there's a movie in the works, but we'll see. It's a neat book, too, so it would be nice to see more of it.



30. Dr. Strange #14 by Roy and Dann Thomas and Jackson Guice (February 1990).This was PartOne of a vampire story, so I picked it up. It wasn't very good, though. Guice's art is nice. In the panel, Clea is about to attack Morbius, who has come to Strange for help. A misunderstanding over intentions? In a superhero book? Really?



So those are the answers. Our winner, by a wide margin, is Zeb Aslam (his blog is here, by the way - I pimp because I can!). Zeb, astonishingly, got 283 out of 300 points. He got every point on 28 of the 30 panels - he failed utterly to get #19 and #24, but otherwise he was perfect - plus he got the three extra credit points for the last one. That's some geeky comic book knowledge! I'm realized amazed - it's like he was watching me put the list together! In second place, with 227 points, is Brice Dare, also knownas Apathy Boy. He may be apathetic, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know his comics! Finally, in third place is Yiding Lu with 217 points. He was cruising along until #23-26, which he didn't get at all, but it was still good enough. Luckily for me, the fourth place finisher wasn't that close to third place, so I didn't feel bad about it.

I thought I'd break it down a little, because it's fun. I got 13 entries, which was about what I got last year.So there were a possible 130 points for each one, because each panel was worth 10 points. The easiest panel was the first one, with 115 points. Only three people didn't get that one completely right, and only one person didn't get any points on it. The second easiest was #3 with 111 points, which means a lot of people have that trade paperback! #17 was third with 102 points, which means a lot of people were buying bad comics in 1996. I just re-read the seven issues of Elektra I own, and man! they're lousy. With 101 points, #21was the fourth easiest - I guess a lot of people own Starman. Finally, #16 was fifth easiest with 100 points. Sienkiewicz is a pretty distinctive artist, andwhen you show the Shadow, it becomes easier to guess the title of the book! The mostdifficult ones were #19, with 31 points; #25, with 30 points; #2, with 29 points; #23, with 28 points; and #24, which only two people knew and thereforeonly 20 points counted toward it. The biggest surprise for me was My Flesh is Cool, which was the sixth-easiest. That was kind of neat that so many people knew it.

Thanks to everyone who entered. I dig doing these, and will probably have one again in six months or so. I will probably actually change it up a little - I don't want to go stale! I hope all the winners enjoy their reading!