Showing posts with label Gold Key. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gold Key. Show all posts

Friday, January 3, 2025

Friday Fun MODNIKS "Noel Talent: the Most Unkindest Cut"

By the early 1970s, Jack Davis was an established, successful, and busy, commercial artist...
...so when was this weird filler piece, published in 1970, created?
Written by Gary Poole and illustrated by Davis, this one-off tale appeared in the second (and final) issue of Gold Key's Modniks in 1970.
But here's the weird part...
The previous issue of this title appeared three years earlier...in 1967!
That's a loooonnng time between issues!
Plus, Davis had never done any work for Gold Key, and it had been years since Jack had done any work for Dell (which Gold Key split off from)!
And, Poole didn't start working in comics until the mid-1960s, after GK had split from Dell, so this wasn't inventory from that period!
Did Davis know Poole (who had been a radio/tv writer for years before coming to comics) and illustrated this as a favor for a friend entering the field?
We'll never know...
Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Order...

Friday, April 12, 2024

Friday Fun HOLY CREAM-FILLED PASTRY!

When Hostess Baking ceased operation in 2012, a chapter of comics history ended...
This wonderfully-looney series of ads featuring all the major comics characters from Archie to Spider-Man to Casper the Friendly Ghost to Wonder Woman appeared in comics for almost a decade, featuring some of the best artists in the business including Neal Adams (above with Dick Giordano), Gil Kane, John Romita Sr, Curt Swan, Jim Starlin, and Frank Miller doing the rendering!
Note: You can see a complete set of the Marvel and DC ones HERE!
Bonus: the original art for this ad...

BTW, Hostess' nigh-indestructible pastries have since returned to supermarket shelves...but the comic advertising never did!

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Reading Room UFO FLYING SAUCERS "Life on Other Worlds"

Specifically-themed anthologies are difficult to keep going for more than a few issues at a time...
...but Gold Key's UFO Flying Saucers / UFOs and Outer Space managed an impressive 25-issue run!
The series combined stories using documented UFO sightings with features based on reasonable speculation and tales that were flights of sheer fantasy,
Written by Leo Dorfman and illustrated by Luis Dominguez, this short from  UFO Flying Saucers #1 (1968) falls into the "reasonable speculation" category...albeit with aliens who look like refugees from a Golden Age (1920s-1940s) pulp magazine!
BTW, Gold Key's former publishing partner Dell, had their own 1960s anthology, Flying Saucers, which began before UFO Flying Saucers, but only managed five issues!
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics!
Visit Amazon and Buy...

Monday, September 18, 2023

Monday Medical Madness TWILIGHT ZONE "Plague"

Submitted for your approval...
...a tale so frightening, it couldn't be told on TV...but it did appear in comic books...in The Twilight Zone!
There wasn't a sequel to this never-reprinted story by writer Leo Dorfman and illustrator Joe Orlando (with an assist from Mike Sekowsky) from Gold Key's Twilight Zone #20 (1967)!
Perhaps it's best we never know,,,
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics!
Visit Amazon and Order...
and the sequel

Saturday, February 18, 2023

Space Hero Saturdays FLASH GORDON "Return to Mongo" Part 2: MindLife!

When Last We Left Flash, Dale, and Zarkov...
...Ming the Merciless has been freed from exile and returned to the throne of Mongo!

Our heroes, unaware of this development, have been ambushed and shot down over Mongo's "Lost Continent", where they've been captured by a band of Lizard Men and their queen, the priestess Silith!
Flash Gordon Will Return!
Bonus: the original, uncropped cover art by the prolific George Wilson who illustrated a lot of Gold Key comic covers, as well as numerous paperbacks..including the Flash Gordon novels from Avon Books in the mid-1970s.
Note that, according to the hand-written text at the bottom, it's supposed to be for Flash Gordon #2, not #19!
That's because this was, in fact, the second Gold Key issue of Flash Gordon!
The first was a one-shot in 1965.
But, in 1978, King Features (which owns Flash Gordon) insisted Gold Key continue the series numbering which began in 1965 with a short-lived King Comics series with a new #1, then continued when Charlton Comics took over the book as of #12 and ended with #18 in 1970!
The numbering continued to Gold Key's final issue, #37 in 1982.
Since then, every new Flash Gordon series from Marvel, DC, Dynamite, Ardden, etc, began with #1s!

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Buy...
(which includes this issue)

Saturday, February 11, 2023

Space Hero Saturdays FLASH GORDON "Return to Mongo" Part 1

In 1978, with production of both a Flash Gordon feature film and an animated TV series under way...
...Gold Key decided to revive Flash's comic book series which had been on hiatus since 1970!
To Be Concluded...
Next Saturday!
Writer John Warner and illustrator Carlos Garzon took their story cues for this tale from Gold Key's Flash Gordon #19 (1978) from the classic Alex Raymond comic strip.
Writer Warner had extensive experience scripting entertainment properties at Gold Key, including Star Trek and Dark Shadows, as well as Planet of the Apes and Doc Savage at Marvel!
Artist Garzon had worked with Al Williamson on multiple projects including Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and the Flash Gordon newspaper strip.
Both were ideal choices for the project!
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Buy...
(which includes this issue)