Showing posts with label 1970s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1970s. Show all posts

Thursday, March 6, 2025

Reading Room MAGAZINELAND U.S.A. Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

...on the 50th Anniversary of their current plant's "christening" the operators of the largest comic book/comic strip printing facility in America celebrated with a promotional comic detailing how a comic book was created and printed!
After covering the editorial and preparation processes (and segueing into a photo album about the "early days") we now return to the printing plant itself...





As you can see, this was a major operation...


Besides the comic, there were tours of the facility.
This one, during the June 18th, 1977, featured Phil Seuling, known as the Father of the Direct Market and Comic Book Stores!

And that's how comics were produced from the 1930s until the early 1980s, when going to offset printing resulted in a slow transition to Canadian printers.

Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Reading Room MAGAZINELAND U.S.A. Part 1

We Now Wrangle with Tariffs That Will Raise the Price of Comics & Graphic Novels...
...because the vast majority are printed in Canada!
But let's look back at when America printed its' own comic books...courtesy of this 1977 promotional comic celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the printing plant building, packaged by the then-brand new Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art!
This behind-the-scenes look at how comics were produced will conclude Thursday!

Monday, February 3, 2025

Monday Madness CALVIN: Marvel's FORGOTTEN Black Headliner!

The Black Panther was not the first Black Marvel character to get a cover-featured series!
He wasn't even the second!
He was the third!
First was Luke Cage, who received his own title...
...and was the star of his own Netflix series!
Note: Though the series ended, three of the stars have gone on to headline other shows...
Simone Missick (Misty Knight) on All Rise, Mike Colter (Luke Cage) on Evil and Rosario Dawson (Clare Temple/Night Nurse) on Ahsoka!
(BTW, Luke Cage is now available on Disney+!)
The second character was...
WHO???
Several months before Prince T'Challa took over a reprint book, Jungle Action, and began a memorable series that served as part of the plot of the billion-dollar blockbuster movie...
...this character took over another reprint book and began a series that nobody remembers!
But you can read every never-reprinted tale featuring Calvin and his buddies by clicking HERE!
What makes the strip even more fascinating, beyond the vaudeville-level humor, is the identity of the writer-artist behind it!
"Kevin Banks" was not a pseudonym for an already-established creative, but an editorial staffer at Marvel in the early 1970s who received his "big break" with this strip!
Trivia: Kevin was the first (and so far, onlyMarvel creator to have a head shot illustration on an on-going series!

Even ever-amazing comics researcher Nick Caputo could find little about the mysterious Mr Banks, as seen HERE.
What did Banks did after working at Marvel?
Did he work in advertising?
Become an art instructor?
Switch careers and become an accountant or fireman?
To date, we don't know!
Do YOU???

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder HOT STUF' "Heartfelt Thanks"

Remember the movie Fantastic Voyage, about a surgeon and his support staff...
...miniaturized to enter a patient's body to perform a delicate operation?
This is like that...but only up to a point!
OUCH!
Didn't end quite the way it did in Fantastic Voyage, eh?
Written by Kathy Barr and illustrated by Ken Barr, this somewhat grisly tale from SQP's Hot Stuf' #8 (1978) was one of his last comic stories before transitioning to doing movie poster, magazine, and book cover paintings on a full-time basis.

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Reading Room TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED / FROM BEYOND THE UNKNOWN "Cartoon That Came to Life"

Here's an off-beat tale...
Art by Nick Cardy
...that made the cover both times it was published!
Art by Bill Ely
...though I have to admit the original cover (above) is a bit dull compared to the reprint's cover (top)
Written by Otto Binder and illustrated by Bill Ely, it's a nicely-done story with one obvious question?
Why is the Martian called a "dragon-man"?
His wings are feathered and look more like a bird's...or even an angel's!
The new art for the cover of the reprint gives him scales and a beak so it's a little more like a dragon, but still...
Was the original concept much more lizard/dragon-looking, but the Comics Code Authority forced DC to "tone it down" to the rather innocuous-looking alien?
Trivia: This story is one of the few to be the cover feature both for its' original publication (Tales of the Unexpected #1 [1956]) and the reprint (From Beyond the Unknown #24 [1970])
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Monday, January 27, 2025

Monday NSFW Madness VOODOO "Corpses of the Jury" & TERROR TALES "A Jury of Skeletons"

On the 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz...

...we're combining fictional horror with the real-life horrors of the Holocaust and concentration camps!
Warning: NSFW!

Memories of World War II and the Nuremberg Trials were still fresh in peoples' minds when this tale was published in 1953 in Ajax/Farrell's Voodoo #5.
There were stories aplenty of hidden Nazis being tracked down, but most involved them being tried and executed by Allied (American/British/French) law-enforcement, not spectral beings, and certainly not in so gruesome, yet poetic, fashion.
BTW, the identities of any of the Iger Studio creatives associated with this tale are, sadly, unknown!
Now, here's a b/w remake from the 1970s (using the same script), since the original couldn't be reprinted in color comics due to the Comics Code Authority!
South American artist Enrique Cristobal illustrated this redo from Eerie Publications' Terror Tales #V6N1 (1974), 21 years after the never-reprinted original's publication.
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