Showing posts with label Dan DeCarlo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dan DeCarlo. Show all posts

Monday, January 4, 2021

Monday Madness JETTA OF THE 21st CENTURY "Pardon My Power!"

It's January, 2021, so it's the season for FOOTBALL!
...or football as shown in the "future" (our present), as presented in 1952...69 years ago!

If the art style of this tale from Standard's Jetta of the 21st Century #6 (1953) looks familiar, it's the work of Dan DeCarlo, who helped establish the iconic "look" of Archie Comics!
Dan actually started at Atlas Comics (the 1940s-50s predecessor to Marvel Comics) doing a variety of humor strips before beginning a long-term run on various Archie titles in 1951.
Even then, he continued to work for a number of other publishers, including Standard Comics, who asked him to create, write, and illustrate a teen-humor series.
(Every publisher had at least one of them!) 
Exactly whose idea it was to set it in the "far future" of the 21st Century is unknown, but the resultant strip, though extremely derivative of Archie, was unique in the teen-humor genre for it's Jetsons-style setting and "futuristic" slang.

Friday, June 12, 2020

Friday Fun / CoronaVirus Comics CHILLING ADVENTURES IN SORCERY TOLD BY SABRINA "Ultimate Cure"

Archie Comics doing a horror comic isn't unusual...
....but AfterLife with Archie, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina or even Jughead: the Hunger this ain't!
Not exactly the usual wholesome Archie fare, eh?
Written by Frank Doyle, penciled by Stan Goldberg, and inked by Jon D'Agastino, this lead story from Archie's Chilling Adventures in Sorcery Told by Sabrina #2 (1972) was their contribution to the industry-wide "monsterization" bright on by the loosening of restraints by the Comics Code Authority in 1971.
Why it was deliberately-done in the Archie "house style" remains a mystery to this day!
(To be fair, when Archie jumped on the Batman/James Bond fad of the mid-1960s, their comics featuring the Riverdale crew as either super-heroes or spies were also illustrated in the humorous "house style"!)
After two issues, the book was reformatted as a realistically-illustrated traditional horror comic, running nine more issues.
Sabrina didn't appear in them...
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(reprinting the two Archie-style issues as well as the best of the retooled 1970s series)

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Stan Lee (1922-2018) IN the Comics (Part 2)

As we have previously seen, the late, great Stan Lee would occasionally cameo in the books he wrote and/or edited...
...as in this tale from Atlas' Astonishing #4 (1951), written by Hank Chapman (who's the protaganist) and illustrated by Wayne (Superman) Boring!
The snarky Stan Lee we all knew and loved finally appeared in several stories illustrated by Dan (Archie) DeCarlo...
...like this one from Atlas' Casper the Friendly Ghost imitator Homer the Happy Ghost (V1N18 in 1958)...
...and this never-reprinted tale from Atlas' My Friend Irma #41 (1954), based on a then-popular radio/tv/movie character!
As the Silver Age dawned, Stan continued to appear in more "breaking the fourth wall" stories, including this one from Atlas' Amazing Adult Fantasy #12 (1962) rendered by co-star Steve (Spider-Man/Dr Strange) Ditko...
Note the story's title is "Something Fantastig!"
Sometimes Stan didn't properly proofread his own work!
There's more, gang. but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see them!
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Friday, April 13, 2018

Friday Fun JETTA OF THE 21st CENTURY "Music from Afar"

Teenagers and pop music have gone hand-in-hand since the Jazz Era of the 1920s...
...so why should the mid-21st Century (as seen from the mid-20th Century) be any different?
Our final Jetta tale, from Standard's Jetta of the 21st Century #6 (1953), scripted and penciled by Dan DeCarlo and inked by Fred Eng, is a fun story with a silly ending that doesn't work if you think about it.
(How could the two-headed singer from Planet X not know most other beings have only one head per person...and how could the humans not know people from Planet X had two heads?)
But, in the context of a punch-line for a humor story, it works fine!
Be here next Friday when we take a look at another short-lived, time-lost series!
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Dan DeCarlo's Jetta

Friday, March 30, 2018

Friday Fun JETTA OF THE 21st CENTURY "Hot Rod Rocket"

Like most comics of the era, Jetta of the 21st Century had text stories...
...to qualify for second-class (magazine) mailing rates!
The text stories featured other characters from the "Jetta-verse"!
Written by "Dixon Wells" (a pen-name used only for Jetta text stories), this never-reprinted piece from Standard's Jetta of the 21st Century #6 (1953) would've made a pretty good comic story.
Perhaps it was scripted by Dan DeCarlo?
The artist, who used a more "realistic" style than Dan DeCarlo or Fred Eng, is unknown!
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Dan DeCarlo's Jetta

Friday, March 16, 2018

Friday Fun JETTA OF THE 21st CENTURY "Zoomer: Time Out for Trouble"

Let's look in on other teens in the future Jetta universe...
...and see how they react to being transplanted to the (then) current time period of 1953!
While we're nowhere near the "future" as shown in this never-reprinted story from Standard's Jetta of the 21st Century #6 (1953) by penciler (and probable writer) Dan De Carlo with inks by Fred Eng, there are elements of truth in the tale, including many Millennials' inability to prepare a meal from scratch!
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Dan DeCarlo's Jetta

Friday, March 9, 2018

Friday Fun JETTA OF THE 21st CENTURY "Act Your Age!"

The more things change, the more they stay the same...
...as this tale of 21st Century teen-agers from 1953 proves!
I'm positive writer/penciler Dan DeCarlo re-used this concept for an Archie story using Dilton Dooley as the creator of the aging/de-aging device!
I know I've seen a story with younger versions of Principal Weatherbee and Miss Grundy almost becoming a couple, before reverting to their present-day older selves.
Anybody know what my failing memory vaguely recalls?
It's a shame this was from the final issue of Standard's Jetta of the 21st Century (#7 in 1953).
(Despite that issue number, there were only three issues, #s 5 to 7!)
Guess the concept was too "far out" for early 1950s readers!

BTW, we'd like to extend our thanks to the amazing Kracalactaka, heroic and voluminous contributor to both the Digital Comic Museum and ComicBookPlus, for these Jetta scans and the previous ones in the series!
It's people like him who assure that comic book art will be appreciated for generations to come!
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Dan DeCarlo's Jetta