Monday, January 20, 2025

MARTIN LUTHER KING and THE MONTGOMERY STORY

On the day we honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr, the gang at Atomic Kommie Comics™ thought it only appropriate to help present this item, the first comic book dramatizing his historic efforts.
From the website's intro to the comic...
Many sane thinkers consider MLK to be an important and historic larger-than-life icon, but how did that happen?
Especially given the marginalized press coverage of blacks in the 50s, how was his message galvanized among southern minorities and then spread as a single statement beyond the black community -- and how was it focused so specifically to such seemingly ignorable or boring local incidents as one black woman's refusal to give up a bus seat and a following small-town bus boycott, as well as the concept of Passive Resistance?
Without any need for hyperbole, this comic book is one of the reasons.

Produced by the Fellowship of the Reconciliation and sent very surreptitiously throughout the South (it was dangerous for many to own a copy), then translated, re-drawn, and distributed once again throughout the entire SOUTHERN CONTINENT through Mexico, into Central and then South America, this comic tells the story that established the myth of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks at the time that it mattered, mere months after news events occurred.
Intended for adults, but shown in comic book format for the largest possible distribution and audience and instruction.

It was also produced as a comic because more adult seeming publications and newspapers were often destroyed by white businessmen and other violent types bent on continuing segregation's grip on the South.
But that does not mean people found distributing copies of this comic were not given their fair share of beatings and harassment, nor does it mean thousands of copies were not often destroyed.
Why? This comic is and was dangerously honest.
Featuring the Klan (lynching, bombs, burning crosses), Jim Crow laws, and the entire concept of Nonviolent Protest.
This pamphlet offered advice and instructions on how to use passive resistance and massive non-violent resistance against segregation, just as these ideas were fresh --and it also established a clear connection of MLK to Gandhi, a public connection that continues on to today.

A copy of this comic is held in the Smithsonian and many Civil Rights leaders recognize this as one of the most important AND PERSUASIVE items of the 50s in establishing or explaining their cause to the world, as well as giving many black youths the courage and direction to hold their own political protests.
Many notable sit-ins and demonstrations link to this comic book getting into the right hands - and it did get around, literally devoured by black college students at the time.

We're DELIGHTED to offer you not just the American version of this comic but also the SPANISH edition, of which maybe two or three copies are known to exist.
After extensive effort and search, we were able to find a copy in Uruguay.
Not joking. Completely redrawn and translated, click back and forth to compare art, some of the differences between the two are great.
Ever wonder how much influence and power a small press or self-produced item can have?
This is one of the best examples you'll ever see.

Sunday, January 19, 2025

THE CONVICTS WHO RUN COUNTRIES, PAST AND PRESENT!!!

The German Dictator Who Almost Destroyed the World...
Hitler in his prison cell in 1924!

Now, Republicans allowed another criminally-convicted German,
Donnie Johann Drumpf
(his real family name, BTW)...
...who stated he would be a dictator...
...to rise to power over America in 2025!
God Help us All!

Saturday, January 18, 2025

Space Hero Saturdays JIM SOLAR: SPACE SHERIFF "Defeats the Moon Missile Men" Part 1

From the 1950s comes this weirdly-formatted, never-reprinted strip...
...that was available only as a giveaway inside various products!
Be here next Saturday for the thrillling conclusion!
Created by writer Walter (The Shadow) Gibson and artist E.C. Stoner (Blue Beetle), this 7" x 3.5" comic was part of the Vital Publications line of promotional giveaways distributed by a variety of merchants inside their products' packaging.
This particular one was included in packages of Rodeo All-Meat Wieners...
Back cover
There were apparently eight other Jim Solar comics, but they're very HTF since they were "self-covered (fragile newsprint covers, like the inside pages, instead of the heavy slick magazine paper most comics use for covers) and included with food products, whose juices would damage the paper!

Friday, January 17, 2025

Frigid Friday Fun ARRGH! "Beauty and the Bigfoot!"

As the Deep Freeze continues...
Art by Marie Severin and Alfredo Alcala
...lets look at a half-century old, never-reprinted tale about someone who actually enjoys this sort of weather!
Written by Don Glut, penciled by Mike Sekowsky, and inked by Mike Vosburg, this story about the legendary Sasquatch appeared in Marvel's Arrgh! #3 (1974) as a new surge of interest in the creature swept America.
Most older pop culture fans remember that a Sasquatch/Bigfoot appeared several times on both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman (including a two-part crossover), played initially by pro wrestler/actor Andre the Giant, and later by Ted (Lurch) Cassidy!
This particular Bigfoot was an alien-created cyborg in a plotline that combined the twin 1970s fads of Bigfoot and Chariots of the Gods!
It was also one of three "enemy" figures released (as "Bionic Bigfoot: the Sasquatch Beast") in Kenner's Six Million Dollasr Man/Bionic Woman action figure series! (The others were a Fembot and Maskatron/Mr X!

Thursday, January 16, 2025

Reading Room OUT OF THIS WORLD "Antique Collectors"

What's "antique" really depends on your point of view...
...as this tiny tale (from 1959) demonstrates!
Cars from 1959 are extremely collectible now, and it's only 66 years later!
Both the writer and artist of this story from Charlton's Out of This World #13 (1959) are, sadly, unknown.
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