Friday Fun RIOT "Advertisements"

Several people have complained my post about Bill Everett's Marvin the Mouse was too harsh...

...but I submit these never-reprinted pages from Atlas' Riot #5 & #6 (1956) demonstrate Everett could do humor...and in a variety of styles!

Spoofing actual ads from Kleenex, Wildroot Cream Oil, Ford Motors, Westinghouse Electronics and TWA (I have no idea what the bike ad relates to), artist Bill Everett demonstrates his mastery of the page, even imitating the art style of Little Lulu's creator Marjorie Henderson Buell!
The mystery of why his work on Marvin Mouse was, to put it mildly, substandard may never be discovered!
Trivia: Atlas was a bit of a trend-follower, rather than a trend setter, as it became in the Silver Age as Marvel!
Trying to capitalize on EC's success with MAD, Atlas launched four different satire/parody anthologies...Crazy, Riot, Snafu, and Wild, only one of which lasted to seven issues!

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Fire & Water

Bill Everett, the Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics
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Reading Room MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN COMICS "Doorway to the Future!"

Is this a "lost" Kirby Klassic from the 1950s?

Read this never-reprinted tale from Prize Comics' Monster of Frankenstein #33 (1954) and judge for yourself...

When Prize Comics' Monster of Frankenstein title was revived during the horror comic boom of the early 1950s, besides a wonderfully-gruesome version of Dick Briefer's Monster, it featured a number of two to four page "fillers".

Most of these tales appear to be, at the very least, laid-out by Jack Kirby.

This story is a prime example.

The figure poses, faces, machinery, even the futuristic buildings all but scream "KIRBY"!

The Grand Comics Database lists the story's artist as Marvin Stein with a "?", but considering the volume of work Simon & Kirby did for Prize before leaving to form their own company, Mainline, and the fact Stein worked primarily for their studio, it's not unlikely this was an "inventory" story meant for insertion wherever editorial material page count came up short.

Sadly, the writer of the story is, as in so many cases, unknown, but it might also be Kirby...

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Simon & Kirby Library
Science Fiction

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Wednesday Worlds of Wonder WORLDS UNKNOWN "Doorstep"

We've been showing aliens who dare to land on Earth "who's the boss" for centuries...

...but this is one time that may not have been the best approach!

Adapted from a short story by Keith Laumer, this tale from Marvel's Worlds Unknown #2 (1973) has a kool "Twilight Zone" twist ending, but couldn't have been adapted for the show due to the crudeness of tv special effects work at the time.

OTOH, writer Gerry Conway, penciler Gil Kane, and inker Tom Sutton had no such constraints, and they do EC Comics' writers and artists proud with a tale that would have fit right in with Weird Science, Weird Fantasy, or the merged Weird Science-Fantasy books!

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A Plague of Demons

and Other Stories

(featuring "Doorstep")
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Reading Room MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN COMICS "Into the 4th Dimension"

Is this a lost "Kirby Klassic" from the 1950s?

Read this never-reprinted tale from Prize's Monster of Frankenstein #31 (1954) and judge for yourself...

When Prize Comics' Monster of Frankenstein title was revived during the horror comic boom of the early 1950s, besides a wonderfully-gruesome version of Dick Briefer's Monster, it featured a number of two to four page "fillers".

Most of these tales appear to be, at the very least, laid-out by the legendary Jack (King) Kirby.

This story is a prime example.

The Grand Comics Database lists the story's illustrator as Marvin Stein, who worked primarily for the Simon & Kirby studio, so this most likely was an S&K "inventory" story laid-out by Kirby and meant for insertion wherever editorial page count came up short.

Sadly, the writer of the story is, as in so many cases, unknown...

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Science Fiction Comics
Taylor History of Comics
Vol 3
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Monday Mecha Madness SHOGUN WARRIORS "Five Heads of Doom!" Conclusion

When Last We Left Genji Odashu and the Mecha She Pilots...

...they were engaged in combat with a giant automaton hand whose fingers, like Combatra itself, can separate and battle independently, turning the whole area into a mecha demolition derby...

Mecha vs Mecha and the Military vs Everyone!

Plus: Who are the Men in Black?

(And no, they're not the ones in the later graphic novel and movie series!)

Find out in late June!