Insane / A World Gone Mad!

Người đăng: vanmai yeu em on Chủ Nhật, 31 tháng 10, 2010

Insanity and madness have taken over THOIA today, and our first tale from the February 1954 issue of Adventures into Terror #28 (art by Al Eadeh of course) might just be the cure you need to finally cut loose and really become something you are not tonight! Followed by an appropriately themed holiday yarn, originally presented in the September 1956 issue of Adventure into Mystery #3.

Happy Halloween, you fiends!










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Number 834


The Creekmore Curse


So! Hallowe'en tonight, eh? Just before preparing this posting I wired the doorbell to give electric shocks. That's for the trick or treaters who make it past the moat...and the alligators...and the land mines, that is.

"The Creekmore Curse" is, I believe, Al Feldstein's only story for ACG. It was published in Adventures Into The Unknown #3 in late 1948, when Al was still freelancing for Bill Gaines at EC. To my knowledge it pre-dates any of the horror stories he did for Gaines.

Feldstein did a fine job on the artwork here, too. It's obvious he took some care. Maybe he was cultivating ACG as a potential client, but then swung his loyalties to Gaines. If you see Al would you ask him for me, please?

What's that sound? Ha-ha! I just heard the doorbell ring and the shriek of the electrocuted. Oh, it'll be a fine Hallowe'en after all.









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Trivia Quiz #41: Answers

Người đăng: vanmai yeu em on Thứ Bảy, 30 tháng 10, 2010

What do they have in common?

1. Stone Boy, the Blob and Metamorpho?
All turned down the opportunity to join one of the superhero teams. Respectively, they passed on the Legion, the X-Men and the Justice League.

2. Batman, Aquaman and Green Arrow?
As usual, my readers came up with one that I hadn't thought of: All were backup features in World's Finest at one point. The intended answer was that all three had caves that they used as their headquarters.

3. Tommy Tomorrow, Congo Bill and the Legion of Super-Heroes?
Ditto with this one. Yes, they were all backups in Action Comics. But they were also bumped to make room for Supergirl. Tommy Tomorrow was bumped with Action #252's introduction of the Lass of Steel, while Congo Bill got the heave-ho in order to expand her feature effective with Action #262. The Legion left Adventure Comics to the Maid of Might in #381.

4. Jimmy Olsen, Robin and Alfred?
They all knew Batman was actually Bruce Wayne. I talked about the big reveal to Jimmy Olsen here.

5. The Joker, the Blue Bowman and the Clock?
All of them had fought Batman originally in different identities. The Joker was the Man in the Red Mask, the Blue Bowman was the Signalman, and the Clock was an ordinary criminal named Kyle.

Jim came, he saw and he conquered all five questions. Michael Rebain got the first four right. Ed got #2 and #3 correct.
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Word Count

Người đăng: vanmai yeu em on Thứ Sáu, 29 tháng 10, 2010

I did a pair of posts a year or two ago on the number of punches thrown in Batman versus Spiderman, on the basis that Marvel Comics were often perceived as more violent in the Silver Age. What I found surprised me; Batman actually had a slightly higher punch count per page than Spidey.

Another common belief is that Marvel Comics were wordier than DC Comics. Certainly Stan Lee seemed to have been vaccinated with a fountain pen. So I picked an issue of Spiderman at random (ASM #56 as it happens) and actually counted the words. There were 3,288 words on 20 pages, or an average of 164 words per page.

Then I picked the nearest Batman issue chronologically to ASM #56. That turned out to be Batman #197. Ironically, the issues have a common theme: the teaming of the hero with one of his longest-running villains. In Spidey's case, he has amnesia and is conned by Doctor Octopus into helping him steal a critical part for a nullifier that has the power to shut down anything mechanical. In the Batman story, Catwoman joins forces with him in an effort to win his love.

But the word count isn't significantly different in Batman: 3,455 words on 23 pages or about 150 words per page. I noticed a few other things:

1. Word counts went way down during fight scenes. In ASM #56, Spidey and Doc Ock have a battle from pages 14-16; those three pages have the fewest words in the entire comic (with the exception of the splash page). Who needs words when you've got real conflict going on? Ditto with Batman. Here's page 7 of that story:

Excepting the splash page for ASM #56, that page had the fewest words in the two issues.

2. For some reason, Spiderman was wordier in the front end of the comic (1,727 words in the first ten pages) than in the back (1,561 words in the last ten), while Batman had the exact opposite trend with 1,570 words on the first twelve pages and 1,885 words on the last eleven.

3. The most verbose pages had to do with scene transitions. Page 15 of the Batman issue has Batgirl explaining her inability to defeat some crooks (it turns out that the Catwoman had disoriented her), followed by a sequence where Selina Kyle is autographing her new book to adoring crowds. That page had 287 words. Spiderman #56's page 7 starts with Harry and Gwen paying a visit to Aunt May to check on Peter's whereabouts and then cuts to some military men (including JJJ's son) discussing the new threat of Spiderman and Doctor Octopus.
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Number 833


The dancing girls and the cult of killers!


Hallowe'en is in two days...and this is not a Hallowe'en story. Sorry to disappoint, but it does have a masquerade of sorts, and people wearing masks. They're all members of an opium-smoking, dancing girl-watching cult. I'm always interested in good cults, and if you know of any would you sponsor me for membership? Besides this blog, there isn't much for me to do in retirement. I'm not looking for anything satanic, but sex and/or UFOs would be acceptable. Especially a UFO sex cult. (If one does not exist I may have to invent it.)

Enough of that...the story is from Wanted #52, from 1953. The artwork is credited by the Grand Comics Database to Harry Anderson. I'm fairly certain this is the first story of Anderson's I've ever posted. He was a solid pro who worked in comics until the 1950s. Wanted was published by Orbit, whose publisher was listed as Ray Hermann, which was a pseudonym for Ruth Hermann. You'll notice a screw-up with the dates in the Cult of Killers story...the body is found in 1948 and the execution of the murderer is four years earlier.

Wanted had a gimmick, which was to offer $100 rewards for the capture of criminals profiled in the comics. Here's a typical Wanted wanted poster:

I wonder if anyone ever collected that $100.








After posting this story I need to get busy furthering my Hallowe'en preparations. I have my moat filled with water and alligators. Today I'm planting landmines in case any of the trick or treaters get past the 'gators.
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In the Bag! (x2)

Người đăng: vanmai yeu em on Thứ Năm, 28 tháng 10, 2010

THOIA fills your treat bag a few days early this Halloween with a double load of gruesome goodies, and once again it's two Atlas tales that share the same baggy name! First up, a heady little Jim Mooney classic from the July 1952 issue of Spellbound #5, followed by Doug Wildey's wicked take on John Collier's excellent horror short story "De Mortuis" from the April 1954 issue of Adventures into Weird Worlds #28.






 Speaking of Atlas, Marvel just announced another volume from their pre-code Marvel Masterworks series: Atlas Era Strange Tales Vol. 4 hardcover, collecting Strange Tales issues #31-39, coming March 2011!





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Some Random Thoughts

Người đăng: vanmai yeu em on Thứ Tư, 27 tháng 10, 2010

Did you ever notice that the superheroes that Julius Schwartz resurrected in the Silver Age were the All-American heroes? DC actually was two separate companies for awhile in the 1940s: National, which published Batman and Superman (among others), and All-American, which published the Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Atom and Hawkman (among others). It was not until the Spectre returned in 1966 that Julie brought back a National superhero.

I've talked in the past about the reverence that DC showed for scientists in the Silver Age, with Jor-El as the high priest. Barry Allen and Ray Palmer were also known to wear lab coats on the job. But what about Marvel? Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Bruce Banner and Tony Stark all had slide rules strapped to their belts, and Peter Parker originally went to Empire State U on a science scholarship.
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Number 832


Curse Of The Werewolf


Hallowe'en will be here in a couple of days. I've got the moat filled, full of hungry alligators. C'mon to my house, kids! I've got to feed those 'gators or they'll come after me.

My second Wednesday werewolf post is an adaptation of Curse Of The Werewolf, a Hammer Film from about 1960. My brother and I saw the movie, first run, at a dumpy theater during a Saturday matinee. The air was full of flying popcorn and occasionally the dialogue could be heard above the din of the rowdy crowd. But we loved it. We'd seen Lon Chaney Jr. doing his Wolfman thing on the local Nightmare Theater and we thought hairy guys with teeth who ran around biting people were mighty cool.

Written by Steve Moore, artwork by John Bolton:















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