Comics About the Guy Christmas is Named After!

It's the Sunday before Christmas, an appropriate time to look at comic book stories about...

...the birth of Jesus Christ, the one and only!

BTW, your eyes do not deceive you!

Marvel Comics published a one-shot about the origin of Christ!

You can read that long out-of-print story by clicking on these links...

Part 1

Part 2

Conclusion
Epilogue

But there's more!

Here's a shorter, never-reprinted version from Marvel's 1950s predecessor, Atlas Comics...

Bible Tales for Young Folks

From a small publisher who did only a half-dozen comics, all based on Christian themes...

Life of Christ Visualized

Fiction House, noted for really-fun series like Planet Comics and Sheena: Queen of the Jungle took a somewhat more sensationalistic approach to telling the story of the Nativity....using 3-D!

Part 1

Conclusion

and Finally...

EC Comics, aka Entertaining Comics, the guys who later gave the world graphic horror in Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, and Haunt of Fear began as Educational Comics, publishing wholesome material like Picture Stories from Science, Picture Stories from American History, Picture Stories from World History, and Picture Stories from the Bible...which ran material based on the Old Testament!
They added a second series of Bible tales, this time from the New Testament, kicking off with Christ's birth!
As you'll see, they gave very little attention to the actual event, covering the whole thing in only 1 1/2pages!

Picture Stories from the Bible: New Testament Edition

Holiday Reading Room BIBLE TALES FOR YOUNG FOLKS "Nativity: the Birth of Jesus"

 Over the years, many  comics companies have published Bible-themed projects...

...such as Atlas Comics' Bible Tales for Young Folk which presented this never-reprinted story in its first issue!

The writer is unknown, but the penciler/inker is the legendary Joe Sinnott, best known for his inking of Jack Kirby and John Buscema on the Fantastic Four during the Silver Age.

(In truth, Joe's done an incredible amount of truly-spectacular work in comics, but that's the first thing most fans think of.)

Joe also did quite a bit of work for Treasure Chest, a comic distributed semi-monthly only to parochial schools during the school year (September thru June) that ran over 500 issues.

Oddly, none of Sinnott's stories for that series were Bible adaptations (which TC did a lot of).

Bible Tales lasted five issues in 1953 and '54, mixing New and Old Testament stories into each issue, illustrated by the cream of the Atlas (later Marvel) Comics crew including; Jerry Robinson, Don Rico, Syd Shores, Fred Kida, Bernie Krigstein, Bill Everett, Joe Maneely, and Gene Colan!

Holiday Reading Room UNCANNY TALES "Executioner"

This may not appear to be a holiday tale...

...but it is...for everyone except the unseen (until the end) victim!

Could you tell that this Myron Fass-illustrated story from Atlas' Uncanny Tales #9 (1953) was done during the horror comics craze of the early 1950s?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Reading Room WORLD OF SUSPENSE "Lead-Lined Box!"

What lay hidden in the back of Atlas' World of Suspense #5 (1956)...

...something so hideous...so terrifying...that it couldn't even be hinted at on the cover?

WOW!

I hope the SPCA or PETA never sees this tale illustrated by Chuck Miller (aka Charles F Miller)!

The writer is unknown.

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Reading Room ADVENTURE INTO MYSTERY "Watcher!"

Here's a never-reprinted cautionary tale...

...from Atlas' Adventure in Mystery #7 (1957) whose "moral" is a little lost on me...

All Andrew Morris really needs is someone to doublecheck his time/space coordinates!
If he does decide to collaborate with others when he rebuilds, I'd hope he register a patent for for the system first!
Better safe, than sorry!
Marvin Stein does a fine job visualizing this tale by an unknown writer.

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Friday Fun SNAFU "Ebenezer Freezer Food Plan and Munching Society"

As Unemployment Rises and Stagflation Takes Hold...

...perhaps this solution, presented in the never-reprinted MAD magazine clone Atlas' Snafu #1 (1955) could be the answer!

Likely written by editor Stan Lee and definitely-illustrated by versatile workhorse Joe Maneely, this feature holds up as well as anything EC's MAD crew could produce!

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Reading Room / Tales Twice Told AMAZING ADULT FANTASY "Why Won't They Believe Me?"

Stan (the Man) Lee felt a good story...

...such as this one from Atlas' Amazing Adult Fantasy #7 (1961), was worth repeating...

Scripted by Lee and illustrated by his Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko, the tale was typical of the "gotcha" snap-ending stories made popular in mass culture by Rod Serling on The Twilight Zone, but done a decade earlier in comics by the EC Comics horror and sci-fi/fantasy books (though usually with more gore).

Lee re-used (and expanded) the plot almost a decade later when he re-did it with another Silver Age legend, as you'll see Thursday...

Monday Mecha Madness CRAZY "Robert the Robot!"

Here's a long-lost tale from the era when MAD comic clones filled America's newsstands!

(Which bring up the question...does anybody under 30 even know what a "newsstand" is?)

While the story's not a classic, it's not bad, either!

The amazingly versatile Joe Maneely handled the art for this never-reprinted tale from this never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Crazy V1N7 (1954), but the script is not by Stan Lee...who would've had his name on it if he had penned the story!

Maneely could do anything; sci-fi, horror, war, romance, western, even humor, as this story demonstrates!

If not for his tragic death falling from a New York suburban commuter train, he would have been one of the major talents of Marvel Comics in the 1960s.

Atlas had no less than three MAD clones going at once; Crazy, Wild, and Riot!

MAD themselves commented on the proliferation of clones, not only from Atlas, but virtually every other publisher with this opener for their spoof of the 1950s movie Julius Ceasar by Harvey Kurtzman and Wally Wood...

When MAD converted to a b/w magazine, Atlas dropped the three color comics and launched the b/w Snafu,which only lasted three issues!

Atlas/Marvel would revive Crazy twice more!

First, in early 1973 as a reprint book of Not Brand Echh stories.

Then, in late 1973 as a b/w magazine going head-to-head with MAD, and surviving until 1983 for 96 issues!

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Friday Fun MARVIN MOUSE "Not-So-'Honest John' "

The creator of Prince Namor: the Sub-Mariner, Bill Everett, was an amazing writer/artist...

 ...who could do almost anything he was asked to do.

Unfortunately, funny animals, weren't exactly his "cup of tea"!

This never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Marvin the Mouse #1 (1957) was scripted by Stan Lee and illustrated by the aforementioned Bill Everett.

I believe Everett was instructed to make the characters as different as possible from other cartoon mice such as Mickey and Mighty, which resulted in rodents who looked more like rats than mice!

Bill had shown a knack for humor as shown HERE and HERE, but this was a major disappointment!

A caption at the end of the book read "And remember, every issue Marvin Mouse magazine brings you the best in laughs, adventure, and fun ... don't miss a single issue!"

No problem!

The book ended up a one-shot and the already-completed stories intended for #2 became filler in the backs of other humor titles.

(Editor Stan Lee was very frugal and didn't let anything go to waste!)

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Atomic Reading Room TALES TO ASTONISH "Voice of Fate"

Our final tale about Hiroshima is a re-working of the previous one...

...but with some interesting variations!

This story by plotter Stan Lee, writer Larry Lieber, and artist Don Heck is from Atlas' Tales to Astonish #33 (1962) and is a retelling of "Mister Black", which appeared only a couple of months earlier in Atlas' Strange Tales #93 (1962).
You'll note the protaganist is now American...but still a draft dodger.
Of course, the story omits why the Japanese would even take him in (since he had nothing of value to the government), or how he even got to Japan in the middle of World War II...

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