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Saturday, September 11, 2021

What You Are About to Read Actually Happened 20 Years Ago Today...

All text is from the official 9/11 Report ...

...and all dialogue is taken verbatim from verified audio recordings!
Besides detailing the actual events, the adaptation takes what would be incredibly-tedious background text material and livens it up, as these thumbnails on the Table of Contents show...
(You didn't think I was going to present the entire book here, did you?)
Writer/editor Sid Jacobson and writer/artist Ernie Colon are best known for their work together on various Harvey Comics humor strips.
Note that Ernie had demonstrated his serious comics work for DC, Marvel, and Warren, among others on projects like Arak, Damage Control, AmethystBattleStar Galactica and Medusa Chain!
As a result, Farrar, Straus and Giroux's 9/11 Report (2006) stands as a high-water mark for a graphic novel based on history!
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Friday, September 10, 2021

9-11: The World's Finest Comic Book Writers and Artists Tell Stories to Remember "Real Thing"

Due to it being the eve of the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 attack...

...we're presenting a reaction to it by a comics legend...Will Eisner!
This superb short appeared in the "benefit book",  DC's 9-11: The World's Finest Comic Book Writers Tell Stories to Remember #2 (2002), which was the second of two books that helped raise money for victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
All the creative contributors, as well as suppliers/vendors, printers and distributors donated their work on this project.
Please be here tomorrow, when we present parts of the superb graphic novel sdaptation of the 9/11 Report!
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by Art Spiegelman
and/or
Narrated by John Tuturro 

Thursday, September 9, 2021

Reading Room CAPTAIN FLIGHT COMICS "Story Behind the Cover"

In the "old days", comics often had amazing covers like this...
...that had nothing to do with any of the comics tales inside!
Sometimes they wrote a text story around it!
Does the rest of Mankind settle on Eden?
Do the Edenites/Atlantians return to Earth?
What happens next?
We'll never know, since this story in Four Star's Captain Flight Comics #11 (1947) is Flight's final apperance!
Both cover and story illustrations are by L B Cole. but the writer is, regrettably, unknown.
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Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder HUNT BOWMAN IN THE LOST WORLD Part 1B

When Last We Left Our Hero...

...he's the Buck Rogers-ripoff "astronaut frozen and defrosted centuries later in a post-apocalyptic Earth" guy underneath this incredibly-kool Dave Stevens cover, which is based very loosely on what's about to occur in the story...
Computer system...in a cave?
The cliches just keep coming!
While writer Bruce Jones has done some absolutely spectacular work in comics, I'd say this is not one of his award-winning moments!
Clearly, the Dave Stevens cover (above) is the reason Blackthorne's Planet Comics V2N1 (1988) is $50 (or more) on the back-issue market!
Note also that Stevens did exactly what the original Fiction House Planet Comics' cover artists did in the 1940s...take a plot element and hyper-cheesecake it!
(Not that I'm complaining...)
Nonetheless, if you want to see what develops, be here next Wednesday.
Warning: the remaining issues do not have Dave Stevens covers!
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Out of Print 12x18" book of frameable full-page cheesecake posters taken directly from Stevens' original art used for comic and book covers...including the Planet Comics cover...without any logos or lettering!

Tuesday, September 7, 2021

Reading Room (JOURNEY INTO) UNKNOWN WORLDS "Strange Car!"

Did you know there are many 1950s Atlas/Marvel never-reprinted "lost" tales?
...here's one of them, a never-reprinted story of autos, aliens, and alternate universes!
If the police found the body of the alien, Earl would've been charged with murder as well.
Perhaps they found the body, saw it was alien in nature, and thought it was a mannikin?
This tale from Atlas' Unknown Worlds #36 (1950) has an odd artistic pedigree.
The inker has been positively-identified as Russ Heath, but the penciler and writer are both unknown.
BTW, you'll note our post's title says (Journey Into) Unknown Worlds.
The indicia says Unknown Worlds, and as of the next issue, until the end of the run, it would read Journey into Unknown Worlds.
Also, this is the first issue of the title!
The book had been Teen Comics, and before that, All-Teen Comics.
Comics publishers did this because they were notoriously cheap, and each new comic title (classified by law as a new periodical) required a new second-class mailing license for subscriptions.
So publishers tried to keep the numbering of already existing titles, modifying the name just slightly, to keep the already paid license!
But the postal authorities caught them, and Atlas had to pay for a new second-class license and restart the numbering!
So, technically, this was #1, and as of what would have been #39, the numbering restarted with #4!
As a result, the book has two different numbers 36, 37, and 38...which drives current collectors nuts!
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Monday, September 6, 2021

Monday Mars Madness Presents "The Lost Cinematic Worlds of Barsoom" (We Call it Mars)

You may remember 2012's John Carter of Mars movie...
...bud did you know about the two movie versions that went as far as having test reels produced?
Or the low-budget Z-movie (not even good enough to be a B-movie) that went direct to cable TV?

In 1931, legendary animator Bob Clampett worked with John Coleman Burroughs (Edgar Rice's son) to create the following piece...


No movie studio was interested in backing the project.
Most told Clampett that their audiences has no interest in "realistic" animation!
(The Fleischer Brothers proved them wrong with Superman several years later...)

In 2004, Kerry Conran pitched a John Carter movie done in almost total CGI...

...like the movie he just completed, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow!
If Sky Captain had done better at the box office, Kerry undoubtedly would have been given the green light.
But, it didn't, and he wasn't.

There was a low-budget "updated to the present day" version, Princess of Mars, which went direct-to-video/cable/satellite TV just before the big budget flick opened!

It was so low-budget the Tharks didn't even have four arms, and were the same height as John Carter!
(Plus, Dejah Thoris was an ex-porn star!)

The mega-budget film that finally was produced after years of delays, rewrites, and changes in writers, directors, and cast, did poorly, though it was, in fact, damned good...


Because of its' poor performance at the box office, we're unlikely to see another attempt to bring Barsoom to life anytime soon...

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Sunday, September 5, 2021

Did You Join the Annual Summer RetroBlog Blogathons?

If you didn't, you missed...
...the only never-reprinted Shang-Chi comic story ever, unseen for 40 years at
A classic gothic romance/beach read at

Plus: these three too-kool for school, never-reprinted, prose super-hero tales...all unseen since the 1960s at
Hero Histories!

The rebooted Silver Age origin of He Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men!
The Shadow!

The first novel featuring the Star Spangled Avenger!
Captain America: the Great Gold Steal!

And last, but certainly not least, the premiere novel featuring the Caped Crusaders and a trio of evildoers!
Batman vs 3 Villains of Doom!
Lucky for you, it's not too late!
Sit down now and start reading!