Showing posts with label Charles Dickens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charles Dickens. Show all posts

Sunday, December 8, 2024

Holiday Reading Room presents MARVEL CLASSIC COMICS' "A Christmas Carol"!

There have been numerous comic adaptations of Charles Dickens' legendary Yuletide ghost story...
...but this never-reprinted one from (believe it or not) Marvel Comics, has the distinction of being illustrated by more artists than any other version!
Credited to "Diverse Hands", the art styles I recognize include Bob Hall, Frank Giacoia, Frank Springer, Dave Cockrum, Marie Severin, Carmine Infantino, Steve Leialoha, John Romita Sr, Al Milgrom, Mike Esposito, and probably anybody who wandered into the Bullpen while this book was in production in 1978!
Trivia: 
This was the final title in the Marvel Classics Comics line which had started out as color reprints of the early '70s b/w Pendulum Press "comic adaptations of classic stories" series.
After a dozen issues, Marvel began doing their own adaptations, continuing for another two dozen issues.
Scripter Doug Moench was no newcomer to adapting prose to comics having worked on comics versions of literary properties including Doc Savage, The Shadow, James Bond, and Fu Manchu!
Colorist Francoise Mouly later became the art editor of The New Yorker, co-creator of the legendary comic anthology Raw, and is currently the publisher/editorial director of Toon Books.
You can read this HTF story by clicking HERE for Stave One, then just clicking the links at the bottom of each post!

Friday, December 22, 2023

Friday Holiday Fun BOYS' LIFE "A Christmas Carol"

A Couple of Weeks Ago, We Presented What We Believed was the Shortest Version of This Oft-Told Tale!
We were WRONG!
Craig (Golden Age Sandman) Flessel told the tale (with, admittedly, a lot of editing) in two pages, as shown in the Yuletide issue of Boys' Life Magazine (December 1952)!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Monday, December 18, 2023

Monday Madness ESQUIRE "Return of A Christmas Carol"

The tale of Scrooge's Yuletide redemption has been told and re-told ad nauseum since 1843...
...but never quite like this updated version from Esquire Magazine (December, 1961).
Adapted/laid-out by Harvey Kurtzman and illustrated by David Levine, this re-telling is loaded with Mad Men-era pop culture and political references you'll have to Google to understand if you didn't live through the era!
Consider it our Monday Madness Xmas gift!

Sunday, December 3, 2023

Design of the Week "BAH, HUMBUG!"

For the Christmas season, we've brought back one of our most popular features: posting a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another!
This week...
Express your true feelings about the holiday season!
None of this "Happy Holidays!" or "Good will towards men!" BS!
Say what you feel!
"Bah, Humbug!"
Say it on hot cocoa mugs, ornaments, sweatshirts, hoodies (both light AND dark!), and MANY other goodies!
Give the gift that keeps on giving, even if you, personally, don't!
And "Bah, Humbug!" to all this Holiday Season!

Friday, November 24, 2023

Friday Holiday Fun CHRISTMAS TREASURY "Christmas Carol"

Here's a "Reader's Digest" condensed version of Charles Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol...

...in only 10 pages, illustrated by Mike Sekowsky and adapted from the novelette by an unknown scripter.
This was included in Dell's 100-page one-shot anthology, Christmas Treasury, published in 1954.
It included a wide range of material from a graphic story retelling of the birth of Jesus Christ, to a tale about Santa Claus, to actual Christmas carols (complete with sheet music), to Clement Clarke Moore's "Night Before Christmas", to features about "Christmas Around the World", to this Dickens story!
Usually, a comic adaptation of A Christmas Carol takes anywhere from 30 to 50 pages, like the Marvel Classics Comics version we presented HERE.
But this one is pretty concise, leaving out only a couple of details, and hitting all the major plot points!

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics this Christmas!

Saturday, December 21, 2019

Holiday Reading Room TREASURE CHEST "A Christmas Carol"

There have been numerous comic adaptations of this Dickens classic tale...
...but this version is probably the shortest I've ever seen!
The Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact was a comic published bi-weekly during the school year (September thru June) and distributed to Catholic churches and schools from 1946 to 1972, featuring wholesome stories about historical, scientific, and sports subjects, adaptations of famous fictional works, and a number of original series.
(Click HERE to read "Kidnapped by a Spaceship", one of the sci-fi series that appeared in the book.)
Many well-known Golden and Silver Age creators contributed work to the title including Joe Sinnott, Reed Crandall, Jim Mooney, Graham Ingels, Bernard Bailey, Bob Powell, Fran Matera, and Frank Borth,
It became a year-round bi-weekly from 1966 to '68 (mailing summertime copies to kids' homes), reverting in '69 to school year-only until it's cancellation in 1972.
This adaptation appeared in Vol 2 #9 (Dec. 24, 1946).
I believe the artist is Mabel Olsen, whose signature is visible in the next-to-last panel of the last page.
Support Small Business this Christmas!

Monday, December 16, 2019

Monday Madness HUMBUG "A CHRISTMAS CAROL"

Here's one of the koolest adaptations of Dickens' classic story...
...and most people don't even know it exists!
Note: the interior pages were two-color instead of the usual comic book-style four color.
The next-to-last page of the story is from the one-color inside front cover, while the final page was the four-color back cover of the magazine!
Illustrated by Arnold Roth, it's never been established who wrote this tale from Humbug! #6 (1958)!
It could be Roth, Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, Al Jaffee, or even all of them in a collaboration!

Saturday, December 14, 2019

HUMBUG!

Not just Scrooge's favorite phrase...
Art by Jack Davis
...for just over a year in 1957-58, it was a kool humor magazine edited by Harvey Kurtzman after the cancellation of TRUMP, a magazine Kutzman intended to be a more adult version of MAD.
For their Christmastime issue, they, of course, adapted Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
See it here, on Monday...

Friday, December 13, 2019

Friday Fun A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1971)

The Definitive Animated Version...
...starring Alistair Sim as the Voice of Scrooge!
It won both the Oscar and Emmy for best animated short subject.
Based on the illustrations for the first edition of the book by John Leech, animator Richard (Pink Panther movies) Williams' film is a superb condensation of the novella into only 25 minutes!
And both Alistair Sim (as Scrooge) and Michael Hodern (as Marley) reprise their roles from the classic 1951 live-action movie!
Go "full screen" and enjoy!

AND...IT'S NOT AVAILABLE ON DVD or BLU-RAY!
Support Small Business this Christmas!

Thursday, November 29, 2018

The Dead Walk at Christmas...

There have been numerous comic adaptations of Charles Dickens' Christmas ghost story...
...but this never-reprinted one from (believe it or not) Marvel Comics, has the distinction of being illustrated by more artists than any other version!
Credited to "Diverse Hands", the art styles I recognize include Bob Hall, Frank Giacoia, Frank Springer, Dave Cockrum, Marie Severin, Carmine Infantino, Steve Leialoha, John Romita Sr, Al Milgrom, Mike Esposito, and probably anybody who wandered into the Bullpen while this book was in production!
Trivia: 
This was the final title in the Marvel Classics Comics line which had started out as color reprints of the early '70s b/w Pendulum Press "comic adaptations of classic stories" series. After a dozen issues, Marvel began doing their own adaptations, continuing for another two dozen issues.
Scripter Doug Moench was no newcomer to adapting prose to comics having worked on comics versions of literary properties including Doc Savage, The Shadow, James Bond, and Fu Manchu!
Colorist Francoise Mouly later became the art editor of The New Yorker, co-creator of the legendary comic anthology Raw, and is currently the publisher/editorial director of Toon Books, an imprint of Candlewick Press. She is the creative partner (and spouse) of Art Spiegelman.
What are you waiting for?
Support Small Business this Christmas!

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Holiday Reading Room: A CHRISTMAS CAROL "Stave Five"

Ebenezer Scrooge despised and loathed Christmas.
Not just the holiday, mind you, but also any and all who celebrated it!
But, thanks to what we today would call an "intervention" by the ghost of his business partner, Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning, profoundly changed...
Adapted by Doug Moench, based on the novella by Charles Dickens.
Credited to "Diverse Hands", the art styles I recognize include Bob Hall, Frank Giacoia, Frank Springer, Dave Cockrum, Marie Severin, Carmine Infantino, Steve Leialoha, John Romita Sr, Al Milgrom, Mike Esposito, Tom Palmer, Ron Wilson, and probably anybody who wandered into the Bullpen while this book was in production!
Support Small Business this Christmas!