Showing posts with label Bill Ely. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bill Ely. Show all posts

Thursday, January 29, 2026

Reading Room CONQUEST "Beowolf the Mighty"

How do you liven up those boring, tired old ancient myths?
...why, turn the story's antagonist into a Tyrannosaurus Rex, of course!
Note, the monster is a lot bigger inside the story than portrayed in the symbolic splash panel!
Usually, Grendel is a demonic or ape-like beast.
Certainly, he's never been portrayed as a dinosaur before (or since)!
Conquest, a 1955 one-shot from Eastern Color which featured tales of real-life adventurers...except for Beowolf (which is usually spelled "Beowulf").
We don't know who the writer is so there's no way to tell if it was his/her idea or artist Bill Ely's to make Grendel a dinosaur!
BTW, Ely had a lot of experience rendering dinosaurs in sci-fi tales for almost every comics company of the 1950s and 60s, including a stint as the artist for DC's resident time-traveler, Rip Hunter: Time Master!
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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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