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Post by MWGallaher on Jul 1, 2021 7:29:15 GMT -5
When this story from MYSTIC #19: was reprinted in MONSTERS UNLEASHED #3, the story title was relettered: blatantly swiping from one of the greatest comic book logos of the 70's:
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 22, 2021 16:33:17 GMT -5
Has anyone here read the 80's revival of "The Fly" published by Red Circle/Archie, and if so is it worth checking out? I always liked the original version, and I noticed Steve Ditko also did the art on some of the stories in this version so it got my curiosity up (not that the back issues cost a lot, but if it's considered pretty bad might hold off). I think it's well worth checking out. Ditko appears in almost every issue, and is the plotter for a good chunk of the run, and it's "good" Ditko, relatively mainstream adventure material. While some issues have somewhat more sophisticated inking, it doesn't overwhelm Ditko's style. (I remember one Valiant issue of MAGNUS. Valiant was putting their credits at the end of the comic, and I was shocked when I got to the final page and found that Ditko was credited as penciler, since his style had been almost completely obliterated from the book! I think a big part of that was also due to Jim Shooter's layout edicts, which helped readability, maybe, but turned so many books into "stage plays on paper", relying on boring, medium range shots.)
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 20, 2021 11:42:07 GMT -5
I realize I didn't lavish much praise on Romita's work. Considering his standing and prominence at 70's Marvel, that was undoubtedly a factor; I myself favor Syd Shores and Doug Wildey a bit more, but Romita knew his way around a Western for sure. I wonder how much plotting input he provided on these stories. Given the consistency with which he handled the feature, he may well have been its primary shepherd. It occurs to me that the absence or lesser presence of Maneely, Whitney, Wildey, Keller, etc. on new material in the 70's may have been a small plus. Without much contemporary art by the same men to serve as contrast, and with no concerns about fashions or timely references, the recycled nature of the material might not have been as obvious to readers. I can remember a brief time early in my buying when reprinted art styles didn't seem as jarringly out of date as they soon would strike me, and I suppose myself to have been one of the more artistically discriminating readers in the 11-16 year old age group. With the kind of cherry-picking of the best that you mention, Stan could minimize the impact. At some point, though, the Western reprints began to unashamedly identify the original sources on the splash page, and I don't really get the point of that. Savvy readers could pick up on the vintage of the material by scouring the indicia, and most readers were highly unlikely to be encountering material they already had, so there's no need for a "fair warning" so far as I can tell. And in this particular case, it's kind of strange to re-brand the character as "Gun-Slinger" by re-lettering it while at the same time announcing that the material came from "Western Kid #8". Either you're embarrassed by the nickname or you're not, make up your mind! In the end, I guess it was just the influence of the superhero line spreading throughout Marvel. Identifying original sources was important to the readers of Marvel superheroes, so I reckon the production department began doing that throughout the publishing line.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 20, 2021 7:26:09 GMT -5
Next up in the pecking order of 2nd-tier Western heroes at Marvel in the 70’s comes Tex Dawson, the Western Kid, a.k.a. “Gun-Slinger”. Tex’s entirely-reprint adventures were all drawn from the pages of THE WESTERN KID, which ran originally from issue 1, December 1954 through issue 17, August 1957. Unlike many of the Western stars in the Atlas era, Tex Dawson seems to have appeared exclusively in his own title, never in any of the anthology titles like WILD WESTERN. Dawson was a rather straight-laced and generic lead, not a wrongly-designated outlaw, but a respected heroic figure roaming the west. His modest gimmick was that in addition to his horse Whirlwind, he was aided by his dog, Lightning. It doesn’t seem like much now, but the 50’s were a big era for both Westerns and dog stories, so merging the two genres must have seemed like a potential winner of an idea. It looks like every single Western Kid story was penciled and inked by John Romita. Romita drew the first issue’s cover, but cover artists after that were Joe Maneely (2-7, 10, 13-15), Syd Shores (8), Carl Burgos (9), Russ Heath(12), and John Severin(11, 16-17). Debut issue cover by John Romita: A typically attractive JoeManeely cover: A very striking and moody Syd Shores cover: Nice tonal effects from Carl Burgos: Ragged but dramatically colored Russ Heath cover: Energetic and well-rendered John Severin cover: So now let’s “Meet Tex Dawson!” from his first-ever story: The tag line that appeared on every story: “Ride the Western range with Tex Dawson…The Western Kid and his fighting pals…Whirlwind and Lightning!” tells us just about all we need to know and all we’ll get to know about him. Tex seems to ramble across the old West, where he has a good reputation as a self-appointed keeper of justice. In his first story, he runs across a rather shocking scene in which the bad guys are stringing up an innocent woman for a lynching. We see them begin to execute the killing: Unsurprisingly, Tex is able to aim a bullet that precisely severs the noose from the tree limb as the horse carries her to safety by his side. “I knew you would not let them do this to me, Senor Dawson!” Tex’s trustworthiness among the townspeople gives him the chance to challenge Rosita’s accuser, who’s managed to get the folks roused up with his claim that Rosita’s the one he saw rob the stage office, when he himself is of course responsible. And so it goes, issue after issue of 4-6 page yarns feature Tex going from town to town, solving crimes with modest detective work, with frequent assists from his dog. As Marvel ramped up its Western line-up in the 70’s, they gave Tex some back-up appearances in their king-size anthology WESTERN GUNFIGHTERS in issues 3-6, before spinning him off into his own reprint solo title in December 1971, led off with a cover from his old handler John Romita: This reprint series ran for 5 issues, cancelled in August 1972. John Severin drew covers for 2-4, and Gil Kane handled the cover for the final issue: I’ve noticed that “Drago” was a go-to villain name for, presumably, scripter Stan Lee, throughout the Western stories I’ve read. A modern writer could work up quite a crime legacy for the Drago family! “The Western Kid” was apparently not performing up to expectations, perhaps because the title seemed hackneyed and juvenile to contemporary readers. This led to a rebranding of the feature as TEX DAWSON, GUN-SLINGER when he returned to the stands with a new #1 issue in January 1973. Along with a more thrilling monicker, Marvel invested in a new cover by star artist Jim Steranko: (Marvel had also tried to use Steranko to goose sales on several other new features around that time, including SHANNA THE SHE-DEVIL, DOC SAVAGE, and Gullivar Jones.) Inside these issues, all references to “The Western Kid” were replaced with “The Gun-Slinger”. If readers snapped up the Steranko cover, neither it nor the rebranding were enough to keep them buying, since this run only lasted three issues. The second issue, behind a Gil Kane cover, dropped the prefixed “Tex Dawson” for a starker title of simply “Gun-Slinger”, and the final issue, with cover by Romita and Herb Trimpe, tried to amplify the drama with “They Call Him…Gun-Slinger”: But Marvel weren’t going to let those inexpensive reprints go to waste in support of sales to a less-discriminating audience of Western readers. Maybe Tex didn’t merit his own ongoing feature, but he’d suffice as back-up for WESTERN GUNFIGHTERS, a title which had gone from the experimental king-size try-out for new Western ideas that we saw in the Western Team-Ups thread to a run-of-the-mill anthology reprint. Continuing under the monicker of “Gun-Slinger”, reprints of Tex’s short adventures appeared in issues 17 through the end in issue 33. Tex got to share the cover of issue 23, in a misleading implication of a team-up: In a literally last ditch effort to make this a snazzier and more saleable package, the final issue showcased a new logo for the trio of Tex, Kid Colt, and the Apache Kid, topping an excellent Gil Kane cover. You have to wonder why they invested the expense in what was surely an obvious dead horse of a title: A Western Kid reprint also cropped up (without cover billing) in RAWHIDE KID #105, November 1972. All totalled, Tex Dawson had 42 stories reprinted in the 70’s, spanning 30 issues and appearing on 10 covers. That’s a pretty substantial chunk of Marvel’s 70’s era Western output for a now mostly-forgotten and ignored character, elevating him over the next highest contender, who will be considered next time.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 18, 2021 8:08:55 GMT -5
Marvel began its reprints of RINGO KID in late 1969, with the first issue cover dated January, 1970, under a cover that reprinted Joe Maneely’s cover from issue 18 of the first run (June 1957): Although Ringo would be considered a second-tier Western hero, consider that at the time, Marvel’s Western lineup consisted of: RAWHIDE KID—Rawhide was on issue 73, featuring new stories written and drawn by Larry Lieber KID COLT OUTLAW—Marvel’s longest-running Western was at #142, but was reprinting issues from the late 50’s MIGHTY MARVEL WESTERN—only 7 issues old, MMW was reprinting Rawide, Kid Colt Outlaw, and Two-Gun Kid It’s a pretty meager sub-line, but Ringo figured prominently, leading the way for an expansion: TWO-GUN KID would return with issue 93 dated July ’70, followed by the all-reprint OUTLAW KID #1 and the mostly-new try-out giant WESTERN GUNFIGHTERS #1 in August. By the next year, WESTERN GUNFIGHTERS had dropped to a quarterly before going reprint, with THE WESTERN KID #1 returning in reprints as of December ’71. For some reason, the next generation of Marvel writers arising from the superhero fans of the 70’s didn’t seem to cotton to Ringo, so, as we saw in the Western Team-Up thread, he cropped up very rarely when they would dig into the Western catalog, but Ringo’s reprints ran a respectable 30 issues, lasting until November 1976. After a few issues, Marvel began to commission new cover art, presumably to make the books look more contemporary on the stands. Standouts include work by Herb Trimpe, John Severin, and Gil Kane: Initially, the packaging formula was to lift reprinted stories all from the same issue, but not chronologically: issue 1 drew from issue 10 of the original run, issue 2 reprinted from issue 9, up until the 12th issue, when stories were thenceforth fished out from two to three different issues of the 1950’s run. Before the reprints ran out, readers were treated to some non-reprint “new” Ringo Kid stories; issues 18 and 19 recovered a couple of Joe Maneely-drawn unpublished tales retrieved from inventory. Alan Weiss and Frank Giacoia’s cover for issue 19… …illustrated the “new” story published inside: At this point, the available reprint and inventory material evidently ran out, suggesting that, as in the case of OUTLAW KID, Marvel did not have useable materials from all of its old issues of the 1950’s run. So, what to do? Just like in Outlaw’s case, the intent was to shift to creating new material. Dick Ayers penciled the first issue from a script by Steve Englehart: In MARVEL WESTERNS STARRING THE BLACK RIDER (reviewed in the Team-Up thread), Steve Englehart wrote on the text page: “…in those early Marvel months as a writer, I was assigned a RINGO KID story for a proposed relaunch back then. Dick Ayers did the pencils. But super heroes were selling so well that the Western relaunch was shelved.” On his web page, Englehart says “Every series I did took off so Marvel kept giving me more. I relaunched this classic Western – always my favorite of Marvel’s true cowboy heroes (as opposed to the Two-Gun Kid, whom I also liked but who was more a superhero) – with classic Western artist Dick Ayres (sic). But after this first issue was drawn and scripted, Marvel decided to do more superheroes and fewer cowboys, so it was set aside before inking.” Dick Ayers' work did appear in print on this cover, a few issues before the planned revival, illustrating one of the interior stories (spoiling my theory that the guy on this cover was the same as the guy in the splash page from the aborted revival above): So, like OUTLAW KID, which finished off its short run of new stories with issue 16, June 1973, RINGO KID went on a brief hiatus as of issue 19, March 1973, returning in September with reruns of reruns, starting over with the same material it had printed in issue 1. For a few issues before its end, readers got a few new covers for their 25-30 cents, from artists Ed Hannigan and Gil Kane. For a reprint series, RINGO KID is not bad. The interior art is mostly from Fred Kida and Joe Maneely, all quite appealing if dated by 70's standards. It's unfortunate that the series didn't include the early installments, leaving the character essentially generic, but I assume it satisfied enough of the dwindling Marvel Western fans of the early 70's since it outlasted many others, and wasn't entirely "free" to create, given the new covers on most issues.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 16, 2021 20:29:54 GMT -5
I finally got around to reading the collection of Voyage to the Deep that I supported on Kickstarter some time back. The physical book itself is great. Well produced. Nice foreword and historical information. Great package. But that is a HARD read. I bought it mostly to support Sam Glanzman and because of his artwork. And the art is mostly fine, though it's among the weakest work by Glanzman that I've read. But the stories...holy crap...they are just awful. It's not clear at all who wrote the book. But this is close to as bad as comics got story-wise. The science in this book about an atomic sub appears to have been concocted by a not very bright 4th grader. It honestly makes me long for magic radiation and magic transistors and magic magnetism it's so bad. And, while I don't expect much characterization from Dell adventure books, the characters here have as much depth as a sheet of low-cost one-ply toilet paper. The only thing the book really had going for it were the painted covers by John McDermott. I feel really sorry for any kids that spent their hard-earned 12 cents based on those covers. It's a good thing the book looks good on the shelf, because it will never leave it again. Hey, I like insane premises like "this submarine can mechanically extend itself to be way longer than it normally is"! As I recall, a huge percentage of the "action" in this series was characters' speculation about what might happen if the mission fails, so Glanzman gets to draw page after page of catastrophe like massive flooding that never really happens in the narrative itself. I wouldn't call that "bad" comics, I'd call it "bonkers", and I loved it!
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 16, 2021 18:51:24 GMT -5
ALL-FLASH QUARTERLY No. 4:
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 16, 2021 13:13:11 GMT -5
Allow me to offer some balloons. Verrry funny tonebone...
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 16, 2021 12:03:38 GMT -5
Watching one of those old Shazam! TV cartoons, I find myself a bit surprised that the writers stayed so faithful to the comic book canon as to retain Junior's magic phrase being "Captain Marvel". Seems like it would have been a lot simpler to have him say "Shazam!", too. The audience (mostly) wouldn't have known the difference--or cared--and it would have spared the animators the effort of having to do the Marvel Family transformations in two stages (the one I saw had Billy and Mary say their word and transform, followed by Freddy saying his to change to his heroic identity, rather than all speaking and changing in a single shot). I remember decades ago reading the (dubious) speculation that Freddy's word was different in order to remind Junior's readers that there was his predecessor also out there on the newsstands, but that wouldn't be relevant for cartoon viewers of the 70's. Anyway, it's an obvious way to streamline things, and I can't see why they wouldn't have done so had it occurred to them.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 15, 2021 6:55:42 GMT -5
The Ad: Also worth noting: the unknown writer (working with Curt Swan, penciller, Vince Colletta, inker, and Ben Oda, letterer) has slipped in the almost certainly-intentional line "Let's make this a million-dollar debut", referencing Batgirl's first appearance.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 13, 2021 7:52:45 GMT -5
I don't remember whether I spotted this back in 1975, but it appears that Al Milgrom had Morlock 2001 murder Captain Kangaroo in the second issue of his Atlas/Seaboard comic:
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 13, 2021 7:45:40 GMT -5
In my head canon, Superman's running is purely mechanical: he's applying force against the ground using super-strong muscles to propel himself forward, physically no different than the way an ordinary human runs, just more powerfully. Flash, it seems to me, must be doing something beyond that with his more complex power set, "warping spacetime" as @supercat said. It's not a matter of physical force with him, it's purely (the appearance of) speed as he moves through the universe in ways different than the way the rest of humanity does. Flash's running just directs his movement through spacetime, it doesn't generate the speed itself. That, in my mind, gives him the clear advantage over Superman. In a more practical sense (not that that usually matters in the comics), super-powered running of the sort I conclude that Superman engages in would have detrimental environmental impacts that Flash manages to avoid, since Superman would be essentially jack-hammering the surface he is running on.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 4, 2021 20:12:33 GMT -5
I just stumbled across that The Mission did a pretty damn fine cover of "Tomorrow Never Knows"
Very cool version! Here's my favorite cover of that one by 801, with Roxy Music's Phil Manzanera on guitar and Brian Eno on vocals:
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 4, 2021 20:05:48 GMT -5
LOVE DIARY #2, Charlton Comics, December 1958 art by Dick Giordano
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 3, 2021 19:57:49 GMT -5
Don't be afraid, we will ask the Sorcerer Supreme for help if we get lost ! 2pm EST 6-6-21 Shouldn't that be a Zom meeting? Hey, I've got a Zom story! Maybe I'll share it next time I'm in the Zoom...
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