Monday Monster Madness MONSTERS TO LAUGH WITH / MONSTERS UNLIMITED & MONSTER MADNESS

Besides comic books, Marvel made occasional forays into the b/w magazine market...

..with this seven-issue 1965-66 title being their longest-lasting Silver Age series!
(Note: with the second issue, Stan Lee's name was added to the cover as a selling point!)

Other mags had used the gimmick of captioning old movie and tv photos for a feature in a magazine...but never an entire magazine!

At this point, the book changed it's title...

...nobody's really sure why, but it seemed to work!

One of the koolest aspects was that Stan Lee wrote the captions...

...bringing the same kitchy vaudville-level humor that he used for decades in Marvel's humor comics!

I'm not sure if declining sales or Stan Lee's increasing workload caused the cancellation!
(Besides his writing/editing duties, he was now the public face of Marvel, giving interviews, making appearances on tv, even touring college campuses where Marvel Comics were the "in" thing!)
In 1973, when Marvel unleashed an entire line of b/w magazines, ranging from horror to kung fu to Planet of the Apes...

...they revived the concept, still written by Stan Lee!

...but this time, the book was the least-successful of the b/w line!
It was re-tooled into a Famous Monsters of Filmland/Castle of Frankenstein format, adding features about both old and current films and tv shows...

...but the alteration didn't help and the book was cancelled.

Marvel tried again, later that year with a Famous Monsters of Filmland/Castle of Frankenstein clone called Monsters of the Movies, which lasted for eight regular issues and an Annual.

Starting next Monday, through the rest of October, you'll be seeing the best (IMHO) of Monsters to Laugh With and Monsters Unlimited!

Don't Miss It!

Best of Wednesday Worlds of Wonder MARVEL CLASSICS COMICS "War of the Worlds"

We Wind Up Our Month-Long Retrospective with a Halloween Season Treat (No Trick)...

...HG Wells' best-known novel, The War of the Worlds...told the Marvel Way!

Adapted by Chris Claremont, penciled by Yong Montano, and inked by Dino Castrillo, this almost half-century-old book-length tale is a pretty straightforward adaptation of the original novel, which was the basis for Marvel's just-cancelled KillRaven: Warrior of the Worlds series, which was a sequel featuring a second Martian invasion in 2001!

Note: this was not meant as a tie-in to that series, so Dave Cockrum, who was aiding Art Director John Romita Sr as his Associate Art Director while also drawing the All-New X-Men, deliberately designed the tripods and Martians to look different from the ones appearing in KillRaven and other Marvel Universe titles!

Part I: the Coming of the Martians!
Part II: the Conquest of Earth!
Part III: the Rout of Civilization!
Part IV: Earth Under the Martians!
Part V: End of the Invaders!

Best of Wednesday Worlds of Wonder TALOS OF THE WILDERNESS SEA

It was Going to be an Epic 12-Issue Mini-Series...

...but cutbacks at DC dictated that the already-penciled and scripted first two issues Jan Strnad & Gil Kane (the guys who had revamped The Atom into a high-adventure/barbarian hero in two Sword of the Atom mini-series) be combined into a double-length one-shot whose sales would determine if the project would continue.

Unfortunately, despite the genre pedigree both creatives had, the unknown character didn't attract a large enough audience (as The Atom had), and only the single, open-ended, never-reprinted issue exists!

Here are links to the almost 40-year old "lost" project!
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Friday Fun HARVEY "Saps on Skates!"

This Ain't the Movie Rollerball...

...which wouldn't even come out until three years after this never-reprinted story from Marvel's Harvey #4 (1972)!

Written and laid out by Stu Schwarzberg, finished pencils and inks by Henry Scarpelli!

Stan Lee wrote and Stan Goldberg illustratd the first couple of issues, then turned it over to Schwarzberg as writer and Scarpelli as artist for the remaining four issues!
Trivia: Marie Severin did touch-ups on Scarpelli's first issue to keep characters "on-model".

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Archie's Rivals in Teen Comics

1940s-1970s

An Illustrated History
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Best of Wednesday Worlds of Wonder SPACE CLUSTERS by Arthur Byron Cover & Alex Nino

It's a Time-Lost, Totally-Original, Never-Reprinted Graphic Novel...

 by noted sci-fi novelist Arthur Byron Cover and incredibly-unique graphic illustrator Alex Nino, which you've likely never seen!
It's Weird!
It's Wild!
It's the Very Embodiment of a World of Wonder!
So What Are You Waiting for?
Here are the Links...
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Best of Wednesday Worlds of Wonder CARSON OF VENUS

For September, we're presenting compilations of previous series you may have missed!

...starting with the never-reprinted DC adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "scientific romance" (as they called it back then) Carson of Venus by Len Wein & Michael J Kaluta!

Click on the Links to Enjoy!

"Mars--or Bust!"

"Girl in the Garden"

"Battle Cry!"

"Gathering Tarel"

"Terror from the Sky!"

"Mutiny at Sea"

"Duare: Princess of Venus"

"Catastrophe!"

"Into the Land of Noobol"

"Lost on Venus"

"Babes in the Woods"

"Into the Noboolian Valley"

Sadly, the series ends on a cliffhanger...

Friday Fun HARVEY "Playing Post Office!"

We Suspect a Lot of Millennial (and Younger) Readers...

...will be confused by the plot (and even the concept) of this never-reprinted story from Marvel's Harvey #2 (1970)!

Written by Stan Lee and illustrated by Stan Goldberg (doing s superb Dan DeCarlo imitation), this book and Mille the Model were Marvel's last attempt at trying to hold onto the teen humor market that Archie Comics had dominated since the mid-1960s.

By 1973, both books were gone from the newsstands, and Stan Goldberg, as well as his successor, Henry Scarpelli, had moved over to Archie, where they were kept very busy until they retired!

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Archie's Rivals in Teen Comics

1940s-1970s

An Illustrated History
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Monday Mecha Madness WORLDS UNKNOWN "Farewell to the Master" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

Cover art by Rich Buckler & Wayne Howard (with additional art by John Romita Sr)

Reporter Cliff Sutherland and photographer Ann O'Hara may be on to the scoop of the century.

An alien robot, which went inert after Klaatu (the alien humanoid it accompanied) was shot and killed (without provocation) when he tried to initiate contact with people of Earth isn't as unmoving as the US government believes!
The duo conceal themselves nearby, hoping to catch the automaton in motion...which they do!
They witness the robot enter the alien vessel...which sealed up and apparently deactivated after Klaatu was killed.

And now things get really weird...

Cue the Twilight Zone theme...

The original story by Harry Bates appeared in Street and Smith's Astounding Science Fiction V26N2 (1940) with the following illustrations by Frank Kramer...all of which feature Gnut!

"Farewell to the Master" has been reprinted numerous times, usually in anthologies about Astounding Science-Fiction magazine, or compilations of stories which were adapted into films or TV shows.

But the graphic adaptation from Marvel's Worlds Unknown #3 (1973) has never been reprinted, and no other comic book/comic strip version has ever been done!
However, there was another prose adaptation of the short story...

This book, written by Arthur Tofte, published by Scholastic Books in 1976, combined "Farewell to the Master" with the screenplay for the 1951 movie into a new novel which presents Klaatu and a rather verbose Gnut (not "Gort") as a pair of equal partners, representing their respective civilizations within a galactic organization calling themselves "The Watchers"!
Finally, Lux Radio Theatre produced a one-hour radio adaptation in 1954, narrated by Paul Frees and starring Michael Rennie as Klaatu!
Regrettably, it doesn't use Bernard Herrmann's magnificent soundtrack but it's still worth listening to.
You can link to it HERE!

KLATTU BARADA NIKTO!

Which translates to:

Shogun Warriors Return Next Monday!

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Day the Earth Stood Still

3-Disc Blu-Ray Special Edition

(Contains both the 1951 and 2008 versions plus kool extras)

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Monday Mecha Madness WORLDS UNKNOWN "Farewell to the Master" Part 1

You know the story...sorta.

You've seen (and/or heard) the story adapted...sorta.

Now read the most faithful adaptation of the tale...short of the original novelette!

And before you go any further, "Gnut" is pronounced "Nut".

That's one of the reasons it was changed when the story by Harry Bates was adapted in 1951 into a movie...

Aw, you guessed!

As you've surmised, there were quite a few changes made when the silver screen version was created and produced!

And, when writer Roy Thomas, penciler Ross Andru and inker Wayne Howard went back to the source material for the never-reprinted Marvel's Worlds Unknown #3 (1973)...well, let's let Rascally Roy himself tell you about that...

Be here NEXT MONDAY for the ASTOUNDING conclusion...plus some kool extras (which will explain why I capitalized "astounding"!)

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Day the Earth Stood Still

3-Disc Blu-Ray Special Edition

(Contains both the 1951 and 2008 versions plus kool extras)

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