(Day Before) Veterans' Day Special: Comic Books Played a Major Part...

...in shaping the public's impression of our troops during World War II!

Tribute to the Navy Air Corps

featuring F6F Hellcat fighters.

Issue #11

Tribute to the Army Air Force

featuring B-24 Liberator heavy bombers.

Issue #10

Tribute to the Marine Air Corps

featuring F4U Corsair fighters.

Issue #9

Among the classiest were these three beautiful covers for Aviation  Press' Contact Comics.

Spectacular, intense, eye-catching color highlights these poster-style illustrations by artist LB Cole.

Each one paid honor to the aviation division of one of the three armed forces branches.

(The Air Force as a separate branch of the military didn't come about until after WWII, though the other services' aviation divisions still operate!)

Who sez comics ain't educational?

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Black Light

World of L.B. Cole

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Monday Mecha Madness ALARMING TALES "I Want to Be a Man!"

Following up on a kool guest-post about artificial intelligence...

...is this little tale about an AI who aspires to be more than mere machine!

Written and penciled by Jack (King) Kirby and inked by Kirby with Simon & Kirby Studios partner Joe Simon, this story from Harvey's Alarming Tales #2 (1957), this short feature would be quite different if done today, since miniaturization would enable David to put FABIAC in a human-sized form with close-to-human features...as Kirby himself did with X-51 aka Aaron Stack aka Mr Machine aka Machine Man 20 years later!

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Simon & Kirby Library

Science Fiction
(which reprints this story, along with a lot of other kool sci-fi by the duo!)
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Start Your Thanksgiving Feasting EARLY with Our Turkey Dinner...

Every Year, the RetroBlogs Run What We Charitably-Call...

...a "Thanksgiving Turkey"!

It's a comic, graphic novel or mini-series that's so unbelievably-bad, we can't believe it was actually published!

We're talking The Worst of the Worst.

Stories and/or art that are so awful, so inane, they're not even shown on the 'Net, just talked-about in embarrassed whispers!
In fact, they're so bad they've likely never been reprinted, and probably never will be!
Who has won the title this year, and which blog has the misfortune of hosting it?
To answer the second part first, the Thanksgiving Turkey will appear on Seduction of the Innocent!!
As for the first part...this year it's a three-way tie!

Preeesenting the three related books that truly define "turkey"...and not in a good way...
The Silver Age Dell Comics Monster SuperHeroes!

Frankenstein

Dracula

WereWolf

Apparently Universal Studios wasn't enthusiastic about Dell's plans and, while they couldn't stop Dell from using the names Dracula and Frankenstein (which were derived from public domain literature) thus continuing the books' numbering from the movie adaptation issues with #2 issues, they made sure the superheroes didn't use actors' likenesses or the unique makeup designs from the movies!
They did put their legal foot down (as it were) when it came to Wolf Man, which the studio had trademarked, so Dell had to start their WereWolf comic from #1, and avoid any of the story or makeup elements created specifically for the movies!
There's more, and you can begin your intellectual indigestion on Monday at Seduction of the Innocent!! with the first chapter of Frankenstein!

Bring your Pepto or bicarbonate of soda...you're gonna need it!

Space Hero Saturdays FLICK FALCON IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION "Power of the Slave Giants' Goddess"

When Last We Left Our Time and Space-Hopping Hero and Heroine...

...so, let's go to dinner!

But, is it truly over?

Don't miss the next exciting adventure of Flick Falcon and Adele!

Using the pen-name "Orville Wells" (a variation of "Orson Welles", who a couple of years earlier, frightened America with a dramatic radio adaptation of HG Wells' War of the Worlds performed like a news broadcast), writer-penciler Don Rico's wild imagination goes full-speed, combining science fiction and fantasy elements with equal aplomb in this never-reprinted tale from Fox's Fantastic Comics #3 (1940).

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3
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Friday Football Fun JETTA OF THE 21st CENTURY "Pardon My Power!"

It's a Frosty Fall Friday, so Let's Talk...High School Football!

But, as you may have guessed, when we talk football, it's football as shown in the "future" (our present), as presented in 1952...almost 75 years ago!

If the art style of this tale from Standard's Jetta of the 21st Century #6 (1953) looks familiar, it's the work of Dan DeCarlo, who helped establish the iconic "look" of Archie Comics!
Dan actually started at Atlas Comics (the 1940s-50s predecessor to Marvel Comics) doing a variety of humor strips before beginning a long-term run on various Archie titles in 1951.
Even then, he continued to work for a number of other publishers, including Standard Comics, who asked him to create, write, and illustrate a teen-humor series.
(Every publisher had at least one of them!)
Exactly whose idea it was to set it in the "far future" of the 21st Century is unknown, but the resultant strip, though extremely derivative of Archie, was unique in the teen-humor genre for it's Jetsons-style setting and "futuristic" slang.

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Dan DeCarlo's Jetta
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