Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Baker Reading Room UNUSUAL TALES "Bordoni the Great"

Charles Nicholas and Vince Alascia's cover introduces a never-reprinted Matt Baker-penciled story...
..and there's not a single Baker-trademark beautiful woman in sight!
Cue The Twilight Zone music...
Writer Joe Gill and inker Vince Colletta join penciler Matt Baker in a simple, but effective story from Charlton's Unusual Tales #16 (1959) that could've worked as a standard-budget TV episode in the 1950s!
The tale reads like a set of storyboards with dramatic camera-angles and lighting effects!
Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Order...

Monday, February 24, 2025

Monday Madness A REAL-LIFE Super-Villain Team-Up???

Why Did Don da Con Take Putin's Side at the UN?
(And why did Israel also join Russia and North Korea?)
This example from Unquotable Trump by cartoonist R. Sikoryak, based on the cover for Marvel's Giant-Size Super-Villain Team-Up #2 (1975) by penciler Gil Kane and inker Al Milgrom shows what they have in common!

Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Order...
Drawn & Quarterly Special Edition
by R. Sikoryak
Paid Link

Sunday, February 23, 2025

Jackie Robinson Comics Covers

With Spring Training for Baseball Season in Full Swing...

...here's a bunch of serious collectibles!
Not baseball cards, but baseball comics!

These are the covers of the never-reprinted series that ran from 1949 to 1952 about the exploits of legendary player Jackie Robinson!
Not only was he Rookie of the Year, National League MVP, National League Batting Champion, two-time National League Base-Stealing Champion, a six-time All-Star, and a Baseball Hall of Famer (as if that wasn't enough)...

...he was also the man who made history in 1947 as the first Black player in the major leagues!
He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1947 through 1956 before retiring due to the effects of diabetes on his performance.
 
During that period, this series from Fawcett Comics came out each summer and fall from 1949 through 1952.
Besides being sold in newsstands and candy stores, it was also sold at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn where the Dodgers played home games.
Trivia: Babe Ruth was the only baseball player to have a longer-running comic than Robinson, but his mag, Babe Ruth Sports Comics was an anthology covering numerous sports with Babe himself appearing in only one story per issue for 11 issues!
There was a 1950 movie about Jackie, The Jackie Robinson Story, where he played himself (as an adult)!
In 2013, Chadwick (Black Panther) Boseman superbly-portrayed Jackie in the movie 42: the Jackie Robinson Story!
To this day, Jackie Robinson is remembered as one of the greatest players in baseball history!

Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Buy...
(BioPic starring Chadwick [Black Panther] Boseman)
Paid Link

Saturday, February 22, 2025

Space Heroine Saturdays / Baker Reading Room MYSTA OF THE MOON "Prison Break on Paladnor!"

The February Matt Baker Posts have been Space-Oriented...

...but our final one goes full-on SPACE OPERA...starring a beautiful woman as the protagonist!
Surprise!






Though he didn't create Mysta of the Moon, Matt Baker demonstrates a wonderful "feel" for the character!
Makes me wish he had a chance to do more stuff for Planet Comics!
This tale from Fiction House's Planet Comics #58 (1949), was the first of two consecutive stories he penciled, inked by long-time associate Ray Osrin.
The script was by ongoing series writer Ross Galun.

Support Atomic Kommie Comicss
Visit Amazon and Order...
Matt Baker

Friday, February 21, 2025

Friday Fun / Baker Reading Room CANTEEN KATE vs The Comics Code Authority!

Besides Romance Comics and Scantily-Clad Heroines like Phantom Lady & Rulah... 

...pioneering Black comic book artist Matt Baker also did a military humor strip featuring (what else) a scantly-clad, beautiful WAC (Womens' Army Corps) officer assigned to run a canteen at a US military base not far from the front lines in Korea!
(She actually encountered North Koreans in a couple of tales)
The following, "Foxhole Floozie", appeared in St John's Fightin' Marines #7 (1952), where Kate's strip appeared in almost every issue from #2 to #12...while she also had her own comic book!
Straightforward, fun story with a little harmless cheesecake thrown in, illustrated by a master of the craft!
However...
When Charlton Comics bought out St John Publishing's inventory and began reprinting it, the brand-new Comics Code Authority literally got its' panties in a bunch, insisting on some ridiculous changes in the retelling of this tale in Charlton's Fightin' Marines #17 (1956)
Start with putting a bra/bathing suit top on Kate, and putting a boulder over her shapely legs in the opening panel and removing the story's title "Foxhole Floozie"!
Plus, throughout the tale, her tasteful shorts are replaced with mid-calf length Capri pants, and there's an olive-drab t-shirt under her uniform shirt, covering her cleavage!
One additional point...
Usually, when Charlton, Avon, and other publishers modified previously-published art to conform to the Comic Code's demands, they usually did it only to the black plate art, but, to save money, not to the existing cyan, magenta, and yellow plates!
Here, the reprint is totally-recolored!
Plus the retouching is so clean that it looks like the original artist, Matt Baker did it himself!
Did Charlton have the original art along with photostats and photo negatives, and asked Baker (who was doing freelance work for Charlton) do the reworking himself?
In truth, it's the sort of thing I'd expect editor Dick Giordano to do!
But, sadly, we'll never know the answer, since all involved parties are no longer on this mortal coil!
Support Atomic Kommie Comicss
Visit Amazon and Order...