Người đăng: vanmai yeu em on Chủ Nhật, 31 tháng 5, 2009



Number 532



Ol' Metal Mouth is back


Iron Jaw was a great villain who kept coming back to plague Chuck Chandler, Crimebuster, Loover of the FBI, and even some crooks who got in his way. He was a take-no-prisoners kinda villain.

This comes from Boy Comics #13, December 1943. It's drawn by Norman Maurer, a staple of Charles Biro's comic book bullpen for several years. Maurer partnered up with Joe Kubert in the early 1950s. At St. John Publishing they unleashed 3-D comic books on the world.

Aside from the grisly splash panel Iron Jaw doesn't show up until late. The first part of the story is taken up by two low level criminals and their fence, Wart.

Try as I might I can't think of any other comic book of this era that had a villain yell "Damn you!" It's on page 15.
















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Neat Stuff

Người đăng: vanmai yeu em on Thứ Bảy, 30 tháng 5, 2009



I've mentioned in the past my biggest criticism of Wayne Boring; the man simply could not put eyeglasses on the nose of Clark Kent to save his life. But Boring was a terrific artist in many other respects, and this is one of them. Boring realized that if Superman wasn't flying simply by jumping from place to place, then there was no earthly reason for his feet to be trailing behind him. So he often made Superman look like he was out for a leisurely stroll in the park, which I always thought was pretty cool.

Neat Stuff elsewhere:

I keep recommending Sequential Crush, because Jacque keeps coming up with interesting posts. I was particularly interested in her post on men's belted sweaters, an apparent fashion trend of the early 1970s that I completely missed. But she's got the evidence!

Of course my idea for Neat Stuff is a ripoff of Mark Engblom's Random Coolness, and as it happens he's got a post up on that topic covering the Cosmic Treadmill, Kirby Krackle and Peter Parker's Pessimism.

Ol' Groove's got a tribute to the covers of John Buscema. And a Batman fan like me can't resist his coverage of Marshall Rogers' all-too-brief stint on Batman in Detective Comics.

Bill Jourdain covers Jules Feiffer's groundbreaking reprint book, the Great Comic Book Superheroes. I remember reading that book in the late 1960s at the Ridgewood Library; I was most impressed with the Plastic Man story from Police Comics #1 and was disappointed in the Spirit story (a 1941 tale, while most of Eisner's legendary stuff was after the war. But as he notes, it was definitely the first exposure for many young comics fans to a significant number of Golden Age stories.

Dave Olbrich has a long post up about the proposed casting for the Johnny Quest movie. I remember being completely jazzed by the show back in the 1960s, with kids having great adventures with frequent sci-fi themes. Remember the lizardmen?
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Mails of Suspense

Người đăng: vanmai yeu em on Thứ Sáu, 29 tháng 5, 2009

Just for the heck of it, I thought I'd take a quick look at the letters columns in Tales of Suspense #s 70-79 to see if there are any interesting patterns I can discern. There were 47 letters in all, so that's a little under five per issue.

1. Only one writer had more than one letter published in TOS in those issues: Kenny Chance of Brooklyn who had letters in TOS #75 and #76.

2. Maybe it should be called Males of Suspense? Only one of the letters was written by a female. Linda Crowe of Greenwood, Indiana, wrote in to complain about the apparent death of Happy Hogan in TOS #70.

3. The letters were all terse; I don't recall any of them being longer than about 5-6 sentences and never two paragraphs. Partly this may have been because TOS only had a one-page letter column, but also Stan obviously had his hands full with so many scripts to pop out in a month and around this time was begging his fans to keep their letters to under a page in length. A little while afterward he even tried publishing the letters without any editorial reply, although this proved so unpopular that he returned to commenting a few months later.

4. The states that had the most letter writers were New York (9), Illinois (6) and New Jersey (4). Five letters were mailed from outside the USA; three from Canada and one each from Puerto Rico and Trinidad. Actually I guess Puerto Rico is still part of the US, but it's not a state.

5. The first names were very much "white bread": Lots of Joes and Bobs and Dons and Williams. The ethnic flavor was more in the last names: Khan, Della Fiore, Zimmerman, Iacopelli, Ahokas, Martinez, etc. It was an era where people tried to blend in, rather than emphasize their heritage, and I actually disliked my name of Patrick back them because it was so uncommon. (According to Social Security, fewer than one boy out of every 200 born in the US in 1955 was given that name).
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Người đăng: vanmai yeu em



Number 531



Clint Clobber's hectic day


DeWitt Clinton Clobber was a creation of animation director Gene Deitch for Terrytoons. Here's a 1957 model sheet Deitch did of the character.

"Clint Clobber's Day" is from Mighty Mouse Fun Club Magazine #5, 1958. It's funny, almost like a storyboard for an animated cartoon. Deitch, who relocated to Prague, Czechoslovakia in the late '50s, is considered a legend among animators. I find this artwork and style completely charming and evocative of that era of the 1950s when the cartoons were created.

Among his many other accomplishments Deitch had done a comic strip called Terr'ble Thompson for a short time in the '50s, then turned Terr'ble into the animated Tom Terrific, which I watched on the Captain Kangaroo TV show. Even in the late '50s I was too old to be watching a show which featured characters like Bunny Rabbit and Mr. Greenjeans. I just dug Tom and his dog, Mighty Manfred.

Deitch also has two sons, Kim and Simon, themselves legends amongst the comic community for their groundbreaking work in underground comix.






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You Learn Something New Every Day...

Người đăng: vanmai yeu em on Thứ Năm, 28 tháng 5, 2009

At least, you did when you read DC's Silver Age comics. In addition to the regular features, several of the mags had informative features about science and history. Here's a sample from Green Lantern #2:



Consider these Amazing Speeds, appropriately enough from Flash #119:



In Wonder Woman we found out about quaint romance and marriage customs throughout the world:



Was DC doing its civic duty, or just abiding by postal regulations? Actually, a little of both, according to a response to a letter in Green Lantern #5:



Now the funny thing is that DC did have an irregular "fact" feature in Batman called "Strange Old Laws", but it didn't appear in every issue by any means. In fact, the fillers in Batman were much more likely to be Henry Boltinoff cartoons like Warden Willis, Casey the Cop and Jail Jests:



Although they did have a Public Service Announcement in virtually every issue, so that may be how they got by:



That kid in the blue shirt is DC's version of Goofus, although he generally learns a lesson by the end of every PSA.
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From The Ashes #1

Người đăng: vanmai yeu em on Thứ Tư, 27 tháng 5, 2009


From The Ashes #1
English | PDF | 19 MB | May 2009

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Doctor Who - Time Machination. Volume 1. Number 1

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Doctor Who - Time Machination. Volume 1. Number 1
English | PDF | 13 MB | May 2009

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Witchblade and The Punisher #1

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Witchblade and The Punisher #1
English | CBR | 10.1MB

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Witchblade and Devi #1

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Witchblade and Devi #1
English | CBR | 24.3MB

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Witchblade and Battle of the Planets #1

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Witchblade and Battle of the Planets #1
English | CBR | 17.3MB

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Weaselguy and Witchblade Necessary Evils #1

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Weaselguy and Witchblade Necessary Evils #1
English | CBR | 10MB

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Tomoe and Witchblade Fire Sermon #1

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Tomoe and Witchblade Fire Sermon #1
English | CBR | 22.2MB

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Witchblade and Darkchylde #1

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Witchblade and Darkchylde #1
English | CBR |10.8MB

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Medieval Spawn and Witchblade #3

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Medieval Spawn and Witchblade #3
English | CBR |12.8MB

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Medieval Spawn and Witchblade #2

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Medieval Spawn and Witchblade #2
English | CBR |15.3MB

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Witchblade and Darkminds #2

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Witchblade and Darkminds 02
English | CBR |10.3MB

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Artemis Requiem #6

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Artemis Requiem #6
English | CBR | 12,2MB

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Giant Green Ring Things Part III

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Picking up with issue #4, we encounter our first repeat Green Ring Thing, a Giant Net:



As with the first net it's marginal to call it giant, and given that it doesn't work, it only gets one Star Sapphire out of five possible.

The next Green Ring Thing is a stethoscope:



The text describes it as huge, but does it qualify as giant? Ah, well, I can't resist the opportunity to add a Giant Green Stethoscope to the list. Two Star Sapphires.

Green Ring Thing #18 is a giant hand:



Pretty dull, though, so we'll only give it the minimum one Star Sapphire.

Next up is a Green Ring Thing Shield:



Not giant.

A Green Tidal Wave is GRT #20:



Tempting, very tempting, but that does not look like an oversized tidal wave to me.

Giant Green Hands for #21:



What to call Green Ring Thing #22?



It's kind of like a net, kind of like one of those old-fashioned shopping bags that ladies used to bring to the supermarket with them. And so that's what we'll call it, and as it is giant and retro, we'll give it three Star Sapphires.

GL #5 features the first Green Ring Thing not created by Green Lantern:



A spear, but not a giant spear.

GL responds with GRT #24:



A shield, but not a giant shield. And in the next panel:



Giant Green Hands arm-wrestling? Four Star Sapphires.

Green Ring Thing #26 is a dam:



But not a giant dam.

The Giant Broom sweeps clean:



Three Star Sapphires.

Green Ring Thing #28 is rather unusual:



I'm not sure why GL would only be able to do this on a planet with a "super-magnetic field"; presumably Schwartz was looking to make sure his writers didn't overdo this particular trick.

Running Tally:

Giant Green Net: 2
Giant Green Bird: 1
Giant Green Springs: 1
Giant Green Test Tube: 1
Giant Green Ice Tongs: 1
Giant Green Hand(s): 4
Giant Lock Wrench: 1
Giant Green Umbrella: 1
Giant Green Chiller Diller Menace: 1
Giant Green Stethoscope: 1
Giant Green Old-Fashioned Shopping Bag: 1
Giant Green Broom: 1

The hands move out into the lead, but still no sign of the Giant Green Boxing Glove!
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