Showing posts with label Big Apple Productions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Big Apple Productions. Show all posts

Friday, September 29, 2023

Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "Hi There! I'm Paranoia!"

As NYC's subways are shut down due to once in a quarter-century flooding (at least 7 inches of rain)...
...I fondly remember Big Apple Comix's back cover by Ralph Reese, personifying the response we New Yorkers tend to have to even the most outrageous occurrences!
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Friday, September 1, 2017

Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "Can You Spot the New York Air Breather?" & "Backward"

We've reached the final two pages from the legendary Big Apple Comix!
Written and illustrated by underground cartoonist Margery Peters (aka Petchesky), known for her work on Wet Satin and Wimmen's Comix!
To cap it all off, Fabulous Flo herself writes and draws the epilogue...
But her contributions to our shared culture will live on forever...
Be here next Friday as we introduce a new ongoing feature!
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Friday, August 25, 2017

Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "My Word"

The legendary Wally Wood contributed several pieces to this historic one-shot comic...
...but none was better than his New York City-themed re-do of one of his most famous tales...
...from EC's Weird Science #22 (1953) and written by Al Feldstein, not Wood.
Unfortunately, due to nudity and naughty words, we can't run it here, but you can find it on our "brother" blog Not Safe for Work Comics!
(Link Fixed)
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Friday, August 18, 2017

Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "Battery's Down"

Like many people, Chicagoan Alan Weiss came to New York City to seek fame and fortune...
...and the Midwestern man who became an established comics illustrator shared a (supposedly only-slightly exaggerated version of his first days in NYC in the late 1960s...
Note: may by NSFW due to a couple of common-to-the-era racial stereotypes in this never reprinted tale.
Alan is now accepting private comissions at his site HERE!
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Friday, August 11, 2017

Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "Over and Under"

In a "split screen" tale by Neal Adams and Larry Hama & Ralph Reese...
...we witness a typical day (and night) in NYC told from opposite ends of the social and financial spectrum.
Unfortunately, it's so sordid and sleazy we can't show it to you here, so you'll have to go over to our "brother" blog Not Safe for Work Comics to read this never-reprinted tale from 1975!
And you better be 18 (or over)!
(Note: Link fixed) 
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Friday, August 4, 2017

Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "Peep Shows"

I can tell you from first-hand experience...
...this is, in fact, an extremely accurate look (except for the last four panels in the story)...
...at what visiting 42nd Street in the 1970s and 80s was like!
My high school was nearby (West 54th between 5th and 6th), and I discovered that, when you wore a sportscoat or leisure suit (which I had to wear daily), you could pass as over 18, even if you were only 15!
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Friday, July 28, 2017

Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "Lotsa Yox featuring Rodger Farnsworth USAAF"

With Kong:Skull Island coming out on disc last week...
...we nostalgically flashed-back to the good old days, when cinematic giant apes had to come to NYC and climb whatever the tallest building was at the time!
But, because artists Herb Trimpe and Wally Wood insisted on including a nude woman in the strip, you'll have to see this never-reprinted classic in out "brother" blog Not Safe for Work Comics!
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Friday, July 14, 2017

Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "New York City: the Future"

In 1975, this is what we thought were headed for...
Written and illustrated by Paul Kirchner, this never-reprinted piece from Big Apple Comix (1975) is somewhat, but not totally prophetic.
Odd, though, how the armored character in the last panel looks like a Cylon, eh?
(Battlestar Galactica was created several years later...)
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Friday, July 7, 2017

Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "Silent Majority"

I think it was Will Eisner who said...
If you can tell a tale without word balloons or captions, you've succeeded as a graphic storyteller!
Appropriately enough, this silent story from Big Apple Comix #1 (1975) is by Mike Ploog, who broke into comics assisting Eisner on P.S. Magazine! before becoming Marvel's primary "monster" artist doing Man-Thing, Monster of Frankenstein, Werewolf by Night, and Ghost Rider! during the Bronze Age.
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Friday, June 23, 2017

Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "A Nice Place to Visit, But..."

We New Yorkers are proud of our metropolis...
...and we deal appropriately with those who put it down, as exemplified by this short scripted and illustrated by Marvel writer/editorial assistant Linda Fite, who, no doubt, based it on real-life visits from out-of-towners!
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Friday, June 16, 2017

Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "Man Without a City!"

To a New Yorker, there's no fate more frightening...
...than to be forever exiled from the Big Apple!
I speak from first-hand experience.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, I went to high school in Manhattan and lived there after graduating college until 1999, when I began commuting between NYC and Chicago, eventually settling in Chi-town full-time in 2006.
Only taking occasional trips back to the Land of My Birth to see clients and family helps me keep my sanity!
Lord knows what condition I'd be in if I were exiled like the story's protaganist!
Written by Marvel's main production person for several decades, Stu Schwartzberg (who was also a Shazam Award-winning scripter of Crazy Magazine), penciled by Stu and the multi-talented Marie Severin and inked by Marie, this never-reprinted tale from Big Apple Comix #1 (1975) perfectly captures the "Noo Yawker" love-hate dichotomy!
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Friday, June 9, 2017

Friday Fun is HERE This Summer!

Whenever possible, I try to run at least one ongoing weekly feature.
Art by Larry Hama, Paul Kirchner, Stu Schwartzberg, Wally Wood
This summer it'll be Friday Fun featuring Big Apple Comix!
It was an underground comic anthology produced in 1975 featuring an incredible range of NYC-based comics talent (including many DC and Marvel contributors, all paying tribute to the city "so nice, they named it twice!"
The book was sold in head shops, porn shops, and other off-the-beaten track venues in NYC, SF, and other cities where there was a major counter-cultural presence. 
(The first comic book shops were just starting up, and some didn't want to carry "adult" material.)
As Denny O'Neil explains...
Art by Denny O'Neil

...Flo, BTW, was Stan Lee's right-hand woman at Marvel during the Silver Age of Comics, and she had both the publishing experience and the contacts to put together this one-of-a-kind project!
The best part is...none of the material in this 40+ year old book has ever been reprinted, so, for a lot of you, it'll be a look at work by some of your favorites that you've never seen before!
For the record, we ran one of the stories several years ago. You can see it HERE.
Be here next Friday for...FUN!
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Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Best of Reading Room BIG APPLE COMIX "Token" by Herb Trimpe

The Abraham Lincoln story scheduled for today can be found HERE.
In the early 1970s, there were a lot of underground / alternative comics...
...but this HTF 1975 one-shot was one of the koolest, if only for it's awesome lineup of big-name New York-based comics talent including:
Wally Wood (who did the amazing cover above as well as a NSFW spoof of his classic "My World" strip, plus he wrote a second strip and inked a third.)!
Al Williamson, who illustrated a NSFW strip written by Wood, illustrating a Roy Thomas-lookalike nerd thrust into a world of barbarians, nude princesses, and monsters, becoming a loincloth-wearing, sword-wielding hero!
Plus: Neal Adams, Larry Hama, Ralph Reese, Paul Kirshner, Archie Goodwin, Marie Severin, Mike Ploog, Alan Weiss, Stu Schwarzberg, Linda Fite, and Herb Trimpe.
Edited and published by Flo Steinberg (known as "Fabulous Flo" when she was Stan Lee's Gal Friday during the Silver Age), the comic was sold primarily in "head shops" and sleazy bookstores since the Direct Market was in it's infancy and there were maybe two dozen comic book shops in the entire country!
The comic was a tribute to New York City, the city we love, the city we hate, the city we love to hate and hate to love.
(Yeah, I was born and raised in NYC...Brooklyn, to be exact!)
There's lots of venting of cynicism and irritation, like the cover with commuters just standing there with an "It's always something!" attitude instead of fleeing in terror as most populaces do at the sight of giant monsters tearing up the skyline.
And then there's the gentle, poetic, side as shown by the highly-underrated Herb Trimpe's visual treat...
BTW, the object in question is a subway token.
Its' use was discontinued over a decade ago in favor of "smart cards", so there are probably readers of this blog who have never used, or even seen them.

Penciler/inker (and occasional writer) Herb Trimpe, who fell into disfavor with Marvel in the 1990s, despite trying to adapt by becoming a Rob Liefield clone, was as much a part of their Silver and Bronze Age success as the Buscema brothers, Don Heck, John Romita Sr, Dick Ayers, Frank Giacoia, Joe Sinnott, or any of the other hardworking craftsmen of the era.
He passed away a couple of days ago...another of the links to the Silver and Bronze Ages (and, according to all accounts, a heck of a nice guy) lost to eternity.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Reading Room: BIG APPLE COMIX "Token"

In the early 1970s, there were a lot of underground / alternative comics...
...but this HTF 1975 one-shot is one of the koolest, if only for it's awesome lineup of big-name New York-based comics talent including:
Wally Wood (who did the amazing cover above as well as a NSFW spoof of his classic "My World" strip, plus he wrote a second strip and inked a third.)!
Al Williamson, who illustrated the NSFW strip written by Wood, illustrating a Roy Thomas-lookalike nerd thrust into a world of barbarians, nude princesses, and monsters, becoming a loincloth-wearing, sword-wielding hero!
Plus: Neal Adams, Larry Hama, Ralph Reese, Paul Kirshner, Archie Goodwin, Marie Severin, Mike Ploog, Alan Weiss, Stu Schwarzberg, Linda Fite, and Herb Trimpe.
Edited and published by Flo Steinberg (known as "Fabulous Flo" when she was Stan Lee's Gal Friday during the Silver Age), the comic was sold primarily in "head shops" and sleazy bookstores since the direct market was in it's infancy and there were maybe two dozen comic book shops in the entire country!
The comic is a tribute to New York City, the city we love, the city we hate, the city we love to hate and hate to love.
(Yeah, I'm born and raised in NYC...Brooklyn, to be exact!)
There's lots of venting of cynicism and irritation, like the cover with commuters just standing there with an "It's always something!" attitude instead of fleeing in terror as most populaces do at the sight of giant monsters tearing up the skyline.
And then there's the gentle, poetic side as shown by the highly-underrated Herb Trimpe's visual treat...
BTW, the object in question is a subway token.
Their use was discontinued almost a decade ago in favor of "smart cards", so there are probably readers of this blog who have never used, or even seen them.

Penciler/inker Herb Trimpe, who fell into disfavor with Marvel in the 1990s, despite trying to adapt by becoming a Rob Liefield clone, was as much a part of their Silver and Bronze Age success as the Buscema brothers, Don Heck, John Romita Sr, Dick Ayers, Frank Giacoia, Joe Sinnott, or any of the other hardworking craftsmen of the era.
He's still around, making a living as a teacher, and occasionally doing some comic book work.

We'll be presenting the family-friendly stories from this landmark title over the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for them!