Saturday, January 4, 2020

Reading Room WEIRD THRILLERS "Cycle of Time!"

Here's a sci-fi triple-treat: time travel, aliens, and dinosaurs!
This kool tale appeared in the HTF Ziff-Davis' anthology Weird Thrillers #2 (1951)!
Illustrated by Murphy Anderson, who was doing quite a bit of work for Z-D including the second issue of Space Busters and both issues of Lars of Mars as well as various one-shots like this.
We don't know who wrote this tale, but it might be series editor Jerry (Superman) Siegel.

Friday, January 3, 2020

Friday Fun YAK YAK "Drama vs Realism"

After hearing of recent events in the Middle East, I'm struck by the disparity of info presented by con and lib media...
...so to keep my spirits up, I decided to run this never-reprinted piece showing the stark difference between how each side portrays a given situation.
I leave it to the reader to decide which (drama or reality) is which (con or lib)...
Dell gave MAD mainstay Jack Davis his own title, to do with as he pleased.
The series, Yak Yak (subtitled "A Pathology of Humor") only ran two issues, but they were pure Davis, who wrote, penciled, inked, and colored the whole project as well as providing painted covers for both issues!
The next (and final issue) had another Drama vs Realism piece.
You'll see that next Friday!
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Thursday, January 2, 2020

Reading Room ANDROMEDA "Where Do You Get Those Ideas?"

It's a question creatives are constantly-asked...
Alan Dean Foster, whose prodigious output includes the novelization of Star Wars (and the in-between-SW & ESB novel Splinter of the Minds Eye) and the Star Trek Logs (which adapted the scripts of the Star Trek animated series), along with the plot for Star Trek the Motion Picture (far different from the final film), as well as hundreds of his own novels, novelettes, novellas, and short stories gives us an idea of the process in this never-reprinted piece from Andromeda/Silver Snail Publications' Andromeda #6 (1979)...which was an all-Foster scripted issue!
Interestingly, it's a manual, not electric, typewriter, which was the standard by that point!
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Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Celebrate the New Year with the Psychedelic Master of the Mystic Arts!

...produced not one...
...but two...
...classic blacklite posters in the early 1970s!
Third Eye Studios produced, using Marvel artwork, a line of fluorescent-ink posters, greeting cards, and puzzles that glowed under ultra-violet ("black") light...
 
(Click to enlarge)
...all of which are now hard-to-find and expensive!
Ironically, the most collectible of the posters are the montage shown above and this one with new art by John Romita Sr...
(Click to enlarge)
...which were not for sale, just display!
There were three Doctor Strange posters, the two Colan/Palmer ones and a Dan Adkins piece.
Note: while all the puzzles repeated art from the posters, some of the greeting cards used art not seen on the posters, so while there are repeats, there are also unique cards that make the set worth collecting!
 Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics This New Year's
Digitally-Restored and Remastered DIRECTLY From an Original Poster!

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Best of Holiday Reading Room DOCTOR STRANGE "Eternity, Eternity" Conclusion

(A New Year's Eve repost you readers demanded...)
When Last We Left the Sorcerer Supreme...
...it was the end of 1968, New Year's Eve, to be exact.
After seeing a vision of the etherial Eternity changing into his old enemy, NightmareDr Strange takes his alien love, Clea, to Times Square to experience New Year's Eve: New York City Style...where a pterodactyl crashes into the clock as it strikes midnight!
Yep, True Believer, it's another of Marvel's patented "continued stories"!
But our intent here is to present only the New Year's Eve part of the tale, since both parts have been reprinted recently.
So we're going to show you how Marvel itself got out of re-running the entire two-parter when it ran this tale from Doctor Strange #180 (1969) in Marvel Treasury Edition #8: Giant SuperHero Holiday Grab-Bag (1975)!
The editors took the Gene Colan penciled and inked presentation piece showing the finalized design for Doc's "superhero-style" costume that appeared as a pin-up in Doctor Strange #180...
...took out the final panel of the story and used the Doc figure with a new word balloon!

Sneaky, huh?
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Gene Colan, and inked by Tom Palmer, this tale is one of the koolest of the era's Dr Strange stories with pop culture references galore and accurate NYC locales!
The cover, btw is a combination of a Steve Ditko Eternity figure, a new Doctor Strange by Colan and Palmer and a New York City photo background (Marvel did several photo background covers during this period)
Tomorrow:
The Splash Pages that Became BlackLite Posters!
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...featuring this tale and it's continuation!

Monday, December 30, 2019

Best of Holiday Reading Room DOCTOR STRANGE "Eternity, Eternity" Part 1

(By popular demand...our most-read New Year's post of all...)
The year was 1968, going into 1969...
...and the wildest New Year's Eve story in comics history is about to begin!
Yeah.
It's a heckuva point to break off our tale until tomorrow, but you'll need an incentive to get out of bed on New Year's Eve Day!
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics This New Year's
Digitally-Restored and Remastered DIRECTLY From an Original Poster!

Sunday, December 29, 2019

Holiday Reading Room HUMBUG! "Humbug Award for Fake Santa Clauses"

...well, here's a far more cynical take on the matter, courtesy of artist Will Elder from the appropriately-titled Humbug #6 (1958)!
The writer is probably Elder or editorial staffers Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Davis, Al Jaffee, or Arnold Roth.
Any guesses?