The Dead Won't Die

Người đăng: vanmai yeu em on Thứ Hai, 30 tháng 8, 2010

What the Hell, how about one more Harvey Horror tale this month? So let's check out a familiar, trusty, supernatural pre-code crime theme-- the good 'ol haunted hitchhiker tale! This one from the debut January 1951 issue of Witches Tales #1 (art by Tom Gill, credits confirmed by John E. Petty, Director of Auctions, Heritage Comics, via the GCD Error List on 23 May 2003).







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DVD NEWS! Finally available on DVD August 31st! Image Entertainment's 14-disc presentation of the acclaimed anthology series Thriller is arguably among the most anticipated DVD releases for horror fans and vintage-TV aficionados alike. Hosted by screen legend Boris Karloff, (who also appeared in five episodes of the series), and aired on NBC from 1960 to 1962, Thriller immediately earned a reputation as one of the most frightening programs ever broadcast on television.

Click HERE for all the details and to order now!

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Number 799


"If I could talk to the animals..."


Here's a curious and yet poignant story from Forbidden Worlds #58, 1957. A bunch of talking animals strike out on the own, for better or worse, after losing their "master," Dr. Dolittle...errrrr, I mean Dr. Marlin.

This doesn't strike me as a typical ACG story, and maybe it was written by someone other than editor Richard E. Hughes, who is reputed to have written all the content for ACG's post-Comics Code titles.

It's well drawn, too, but the Grand Comics Database doesn't give credit.

Any story with gorillas named Steve and Lola is aces with me.








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Jimmy Olsen #94

Người đăng: vanmai yeu em on Chủ Nhật, 29 tháng 8, 2010



Jeez, Supes, did you have to rub his face in it by picking a new buddy with red hair and the initials "JO". Of course, these covers hit on common teenage themes of rejection and alienation. Who hasn't had a friend who suddenly becomes enamored of the new guy in town?

The opening story features Jimmy as "Insect Olsen". With Superman away in space, a new criminal named the Bug has begun a crime wave. Lana Lang is worried that he will try to steal her insect ring, and so she gives it to Jimmy for safekeeping. But just then:

Hmmm, Spider-Boy? As it happens, in the letters column of this issue, there's a missive claiming a resemblance between Jimmy and Peter Parker:

Those are pretty flimsy comparisons, and you'd have a hard time convincing me that Jimmy Olsen ever tried to avoid trouble.

At any rate, he saves the window washer, who turns out to actually be a private detective who's got a tape of the Bug discussing his upcoming crimes. Conveniently for plot purposes, the tape is slightly damaged so that Jimmy only gets partial details and has to fill in the blanks. But his deductions always turn out wrong:

Similarly:

But in the finale, Olsen, transformed into a ladybug, foils the gang and captures the Bug himself. Not! Instead, he is saved by the God(ess) in the Machine:

Comments: A more perfect example of the problems with the Jimmy Olsen title would be hard to imagine. Yes, it's somewhat amusing to see Jimmy's problems defeating the Bug. But in the end, he has to do it himself, or else he's not much of a hero. The art, by George Papp is serviceable but nothing special.

The second story is the cover one, and it's drawn by Pete Costanza. I like Costanza's art, but it has a cartoonish, old-timey feeling that didn't suit DC's house style in the 1960s. In the story, Jimmy Olsen is being given a big build-up for a new TV show featuring his adventures. As you can see here, even the target audience recognized the problems pointed out above about his characterization:

And we quickly see that stardom has gone to his head, as he refuses to sign autographs for his adoring public. When Life Magazine comes to inteview him at his new penthouse digs, he claims to be bored with his Superman trophies.

Alright, so I'm already guessing that this is some sort of plot by Superman and Jimmy to trap the Collector. This is one of the problems with Weisinger's puzzle covers; they almost always boil down to a plan to catch a crook or fool some aliens.

Jimmy gives Lucy Lane the cold shoulder here:

Of course, the continental dish's name is a combination of Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot, two of the hottest women on the silver screen at the time. Jimmy also snubs his fan club members, resulting in a bit of a bonfire:

Even the girls in his fan club wear bow ties? When rival reporters begin needling Jimmy about his only being famous because he's Superman's pal, he decides to show of his own abilities. First he tries a tight-rope act between two skyscrapers. But the rope breaks and he's only saved by the guy in the cape. And the same thing happens when Jimmy decides to go over Niagara Falls in a plastic bubble. When he jumps out of a plane followed by a parachute, a sudden storm blows it away and he's only saved by, you guessed it.

Jimmy's getting a little tired of the Man of Steel always horning in, and so he announces that he's no longer Superman's pal. There follows the contest to determine a new buddy, and Josh Oberlin is the winner. Meanwhile, Jimmy gets fired from the Daily Planet for always showing up late, and his TV show is canceled due to poor ratings. Desperate for cash, he shows up at the Collector's fortress to sell of his Superman trophies for a million dollars. The criminal is careful to check Jimmy for any microphones or listening devices.

Included are some items that would be very valuable to a crook, like this one:

But when the Collector opens up his lead-lined vault to reveal items he's stolen, Superman bursts in. How did he know the vault was open, with no "bugs" on Olsen or in the trophies?

There follows a needless explanation of how Superman and Jimmy collaborated on all his failed stunts, and a mention that Josh Oberlin will forever after be Jimmy Olsen's backup as Superman's pal. If he ever appeared again, the GCD doesn't have a record of it.

Comments: Overly predictable, but entertaining. Jimmy Olsen would remain a strong-selling title for the next few years, but the silly stories and immature nature of the title character probably ensured the steadily declining sales that the book showed for the next several years, as the Baby Boom turned into the Baby Bust and publishers tried to sell their wares to an older audience.
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Number 798


Born of a nightmare


Consider if Edgar Rice Burroughs had lost Tarzan to a huge corporation which made millions in profit from the character over the years, and fired Burroughs from writing his own creation. Think of Conan Doyle losing Sherlock Holmes in a similar fashion. Good thing those nightmare scenarios never happened.

Superman is an icon like those characters, yet the nightmare happened to creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. A few years after being bumped from Superman they came up with another character, Funnyman. I'm sure they knew all about the Superman lawsuit against Fawcett over Captain Marvel and their lawyers may have told them, "Make any new characters you create unlike Superman or DC will sue." Funnyman is about as un-Supermanlike as you can get.


OK, so Funnyman isn't so funny...more oddball than humorous. And if anyone other than Siegel and Shuster had come up with the character our expectations might not have been so high. But he's not all that bad, either. Unfortunately, he didn't get much time to prove anything one way or another. His self-titled comic was canceled after six issues.

The Grand Comics Database says this was drawn by Shuster, but it isn't. I don't know who drew it, but it wasn't Shuster. I like Queen Hotcha, and she's a hottie, but she's not a Joe Shuster hottie.

The story, inspired by Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is from Funnyman #4, 1948.















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Frew #1245: The Barbary Pirates

Người đăng: vanmai yeu em on Thứ Bảy, 28 tháng 8, 2010


Story:    Norman Worker
Art:    Carlos Cruz

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It's scanned and edited by Micho & link provided by Rocklud . All thanks & credits go to both friends.

Fantomet #21 - 1999
Egmont India #14 (Sep 2001)
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D2-032 Solar Mirror (23-Jun-1958 to 26-Jul-1958)

Người đăng: vanmai yeu em on Thứ Sáu, 27 tháng 8, 2010

Writer: Harvey Kurtzman
Art: Dan Barry
Summary:  Checking in at Continental Spaceport after his adventure on Pluto (see D2031 The Pluto Spectacular) Flash is informed that a spaceship carrying a killer to the prison satellite orbiting Earth has suddenly been diverted to a nearby colossal solar panel.

With the prisoner appearing on screen asking for a huge ransom not to kill the pilot and turn the solar panel on New York, Flash decides to throw caution to the wind and accompany the unmanned cargo ship to the satellite and its unpredictable inhabitants...
(Source of summary: www.ipcomics.net)

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It's from Emile's e-collection. All credits go to her & "Allen Lane" who scanned and first shared at net.
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Number 797


Comical Comics Week: The Three Mouseketeers


This is the final day of Comical Comics Week, and with it, Pappy's theme month. On Sunday we go back to the regular style postings.

Sheldon Mayer created The Three Mouseketeers in 1956 for DC Comics. There had been another set of Three Mouseketeers--not the same characters--created in 1944. I showed one of their adventures in Pappy's #212. Mayer's Three Mouseketeers are different than the original Three Mouseketeers. My guess is that the popular Walt Disney TV show, The Mickey Mouse Club, which featured a group of pre-teen "Mouseketeers," was the reason for this strip. Since DC already had claim to the name Mouseketeers* they could tie in to the show by association with the title, and Disney couldn't do a thing about it.

Fatsy, Patsy and Minus were funny characters in the best Shelly Mayer tradition. You can read about them here. These two stories are from The Three Mouseketeers #3, 1956. The young boy in the story, "Working On The Railroad" looks like an older version of Spike, another character S.M. created that year in the comic book, Sugar and Spike. Spike was based on Mayer's son, Lanny. I assume this boy is, also. So did Mayer caricature himself as the pipe-smoking dad?














*For maximum confusion, Tom and Jerry starred in a spin-off comic called The Two Mouseketeers at Dell.
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