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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2014 19:05:01 GMT -5
From 1947, I give you Liberty Belle, from Star-Spangled Comics. Some of you may remember her from All-Star Squadron. She didn't wear a mask in the original series. She just combed her hair over half her face and somehow nobody recognized her. That's a fun little story. 1947 is the year actress Veronica Lake debuted her "peek-a-boo" hairstyle, which Liberty Belle is likely emulating. 50 years later, Kim Basinger would win an Oscar playing a Veronica Lake look-alike in "L.A. Confidential."
Veronica Lake:
would be perfect for Liberty Belle ... I adore Veronica Lake as an actress and one of my favorite movies is This Gun for Hire (1942), I Married a Witch (1942), The Blue Dahlia (1946), Ramrod (1947), So Proudly We Hail (1943), and Variety Girl (1947). |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2014 22:35:14 GMT -5
I enjoy Golden Age comics...especially anything that was drawn by Curt Swan or Dick Sprang.  |
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Post by Paradox on Dec 24, 2014 23:34:30 GMT -5
I don't understand the original question, because I will read anything from any era, comic or not.  I have two eyes, and I must read!I love crime thriller novels, but not sure I can go back to pre-1970 with them. People talked funny back then. I LIKE it when people "talk funny". Different perspective.  |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 25, 2014 7:53:32 GMT -5
I'll also read things just for the fact that they're really old. It just fascinates me. I couldn't find any of the really early Spectre stories online, but here's a rarity.
From 1947, I give you Liberty Belle, from Star-Spangled Comics.
Some of you may remember her from All-Star Squadron. She didn't wear a mask in the original series. She just combed her hair over half her face and somehow nobody recognized her.
"Voyage Down the Styx"
Thank you!!!! |
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 25, 2014 23:21:02 GMT -5
I couldn't find any of the really early Spectre stories online, but here's a rarity.
From 1947, I give you Liberty Belle, from Star-Spangled Comics.
Some of you may remember her from All-Star Squadron. She didn't wear a mask in the original series. She just combed her hair over half her face and somehow nobody recognized her.
"Voyage Down the Styx"
Thank you!!!! You're welcome!
I was going to post some Robotman but I decided to look around and see if I could find something interesting from 1940s Marvel and I came across this Human Torch story with Captain America and Sun Girl!
"The Ray of Madness"
(I haven't read it yet, so I hope it's not too horrible.)
Merry Christmas!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2014 8:18:04 GMT -5
Thank you!!!! You're welcome!
I was going to post some Robotman but I decided to look around and see if I could find something interesting from 1940s Marvel and I came across this Human Torch story with Captain America and Sun Girl!
"The Ray of Madness"
(I haven't read it yet, so I hope it's not too horrible.)
Merry Christmas!
Thanks! I just checked to see if this might be collected in the Golden Age omni I have, but it's not, I don't believe. I will read this when I get a chance. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 26, 2014 17:06:50 GMT -5
You're welcome!
I was going to post some Robotman but I decided to look around and see if I could find something interesting from 1940s Marvel and I came across this Human Torch story with Captain America and Sun Girl!
"The Ray of Madness"
(I haven't read it yet, so I hope it's not too horrible.)
Merry Christmas!
Thanks! I just checked to see if this might be collected in the Golden Age omni I have, but it's not, I don't believe. I will read this when I get a chance. I just read "The Ray of Madness" and it is pretty goofy. Fun but goofy!
I linked to it because it has Sun Girl, and she's little known and her stories are pretty rare. I think I may have read one Sun Girl story in 40 years of reading Golden Age stories.
In the late 1940s, Timely got rid of their teen sidekicks and gave their top characters female associates. In the Captain America series, Bucky was replaced by Golden Girl. In the Human Torch series, Toro was replaced by Sun Girl. And the Sub-Mariner (who managed to muddle through the Golden Age without a teen sidekick) started hanging around with Namora.
(When the Timely heroes got a brief revival in the mid-1950s, Bucky and Toro returned, none the worse for wear.)
Unfortunately, Sun Girl doesn't do much in "The Ray of Madness." I'll have to look around and see if I can find a better Sun Girl story. (I think she had her own series for three issues.)
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 26, 2014 21:38:39 GMT -5
I wasn't planning on linking to any more great 1940s comics for a few days, but then I came across a Powerhouse Pepper story that I've never read.
Powerhouse Pepper is MUST-READ Golden Age!
"Powerhouse Pepper"
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2014 8:20:53 GMT -5
I wasn't planning on linking to any more great 1940s comics for a few days, but then I came across a Powerhouse Pepper story that I've never read.
Powerhouse Pepper is MUST-READ Golden Age!
"Powerhouse Pepper"
That is adorably awesome. Please do not stop posting links to great old reads. It is much appreciated!  |
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Post by Pól Rua on Dec 31, 2014 3:41:08 GMT -5
I tend to prefer books from the silver age on up to the present but I love atom age horror and Sci-fi comcs, and I really like the golden age adventures of Batman, Superman, the Phantom, Mandrake the Magician and Flash Gordon and the oldest comic I've read and enjoyed would be the Nemo strips. Oh yeah, you can take my George Herriman 'Krazy Kat's and Windsor McCay's 'Little Nemo's when you pry them from my cold, dead hands. Honestly, every time period has diamonds and dross. It's important to remember that, while so many publishers were pumping out holofoil, die-cut collector's item specials in the 1990's, Gaiman's Sandman was hitting its apex, Dark Horse (and others) were destroying the two publisher monopoly, Viz was putting out 'Pulp', which featured some of the most sharp and innovative Japanese comics for the first time... Sturgeon's Law always applies. There will ALWAYS be a lot of shit you're gonna have to push aside to get to the good stuff. I hear a lot of people talk about how bad modern comics are, with their decompressed storylines, rolling events and narrow marketing to fake-cynical, antisocial teenage creeps. But you've got to remember that companies like Image, Dark Horse, Boom, Fantagraphics, Oni Press and so many others are putting out an incredible range of amazingly good comics from ridiculously talented creators across a wide range of genres and aiming them at a wider range of audiences than we've seen... almost EVER. And not only that, but the ready availability of older material in reprints, or via online sellers is just CRAZY. So yeah, it doesn't matter to me what age something comes from. I like reading fiction from different times and places. It gives me a nice insight into what it was like then, what people were interested in and what stories they liked. So yeah. Good is good. |
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Post by Pól Rua on Dec 31, 2014 3:49:19 GMT -5
Really!? I think almost all my favorite crime thrillers predate 1970 by a fair bit. If I'm in the mood for a crime novel (which is pretty rare since I mostly read history non-fiction) I'll just re-read one of Raymond Chandler's novels. I read The Long Goodbye two years in a row.
I was thinking of reading a little more Agatha Christie. Or maybe some Mickey Spillane.
I'm a big fan of Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton stuff, and Wold Newton-esque stuff (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Kim Newman's Anno Dracula and Diogenes Club stories, the L'Officiers' work in tracking down and writing about the French Pulp tradition...) and I tend to use them as a reading list of sorts. Lately, what's been really floating my boat is a lot of older adventure fiction (19th Century - mid 20th Century mostly), Gaston Leroux's Roulettabille stories, Earl Derr Biggers Charlie Chan novels (which are AMAZING!), Edgar Wallace, Arthur Conan Doyle, H. Rider Haggard, Jules Verne... Raymond Chandler is still one of my all time favourites. He has such a gift for incredibly vivid description and crackling good dialogue. |
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Post by Pól Rua on Dec 31, 2014 3:51:49 GMT -5
Silver Age Marvel wise, I'd recommend starting with the Galactus Trilogy and This Man This Monster, the Romita Spider-man, and... See, I think post-Ditko the series ossifies. It's like Stan saying, "OK, we know what sells now. Let's so that for the next 10 years." I agree. I LOVE the Ditko Spideys. Just the sheer weird energy of it, plus the gallery of truly astounding oddball villains. It took me a LONG time to 'get' Ditko... not until reading the Spidey reprints in 'Marvel Tales' in the 90's, but as soon as it clicked, man, I was like, "How did I not see how GOOD this stuff is?!" |
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Post by Pól Rua on Dec 31, 2014 3:57:17 GMT -5
I love crime thriller novels, but not sure I can go back to pre-1970 with them. People talked funny back then. I LIKE it when people "talk funny". Different perspective. Jaysis yeah. I recently went back and watched some old RKO gangster films with Cagney, and he blew me away. I'm a Bogart fan from way back. The guy is the epitome of cool, but whenever they're on screen together, Cagney's vibrant energy just puts him in the shade. Nothing I like better than a great piece of old-timey tough guy talk. "You are so goddamn smart. Except you ain't. I get you, smart guy. I know what you are. Straight as a corkscrew. Mr. Inside-Outski, like some goddamn Bolshevik picking up his orders from Yegg Central. You think you're so goddamn smart. You join up with Johnny Caspar, you bump Bernie Bernbaum. Up is down. Black is white. "Well, I think you're half smart. I think you were straight with your frail, I think you were queer with Johnny Caspar... and I think you'd sooner join a ladies' league than gun a guy down." - Eddie Dane (J.E. Freeman), 'Miller's Crossing' |
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Post by Pól Rua on Dec 31, 2014 4:01:04 GMT -5
I wasn't planning on linking to any more great 1940s comics for a few days, but then I came across a Powerhouse Pepper story that I've never read.
Powerhouse Pepper is MUST-READ Golden Age!
"Powerhouse Pepper"
Basil Wolverton is amazing. I was reading a bunch of old Fawcetts and ran into his 'Culture Corner' feature and just fell in love with it. Fortunately, mere months later, Fantagraphics released a big hardcover collection of them. Natch, I hadda have it.  |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2014 4:22:26 GMT -5
I LIKE it when people "talk funny". Different perspective. Jaysis yeah. I recently went back and watched some old RKO gangster films with Cagney, and he blew me away. I'm a Bogart fan from way back. The guy is the epitome of cool, but whenever they're on screen together, Cagney's vibrant energy just puts him in the shade. Nothing I like better than a great piece of old-timey tough guy talk. "You are so goddamn smart. Except you ain't. I get you, smart guy. I know what you are. Straight as a corkscrew. Mr. Inside-Outski, like some goddamn Bolshevik picking up his orders from Yegg Central. You think you're so goddamn smart. You join up with Johnny Caspar, you bump Bernie Bernbaum. Up is down. Black is white. "Well, I think you're half smart. I think you were straight with your frail, I think you were queer with Johnny Caspar... and I think you'd sooner join a ladies' league than gun a guy down." - Eddie Dane (J.E. Freeman), 'Miller's Crossing' It would be so funny if the next big period drama about gangsters had dialogue like that. |
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