BARBIE "See You Later, Christmas Gator" Part 2: Special Delivery & Part 3: The Present

When Last We Left the World's Most Famous Fashion Doll...

 ...on Christmas Eve, Santa Claus runs into trouble when he's forced down over Florida by a tropical storm!

Luckily, Barbie is nearby...

Normally, we'd run Part 3 next week, but the chapters are so short, we're going to present it now...

Written by Angelo DeCesare, penciled by Mario Capaldi, and inked by John Lucas, this never-reprinted tale from Marvel's Barbie #50 (1995) was typical of the kool flights of fancy the series specialized in.

Barbie, and its' sister title Barbie Fashion, were two secret success stories for Marvel in the 1990s.

Because they weren't superhero titles, the hardcore (mostly male) fans never even noticed them, but the two books ran an impressive 63 and 53 issues respectively at a time when many titles lasted 12 issues...or less!

MERRY
CHRISTMAS

Friday Holiday Fun BARBIE "See You Later, Christmas Gator" Part 1: the Journey Begins

Ah, a universe where Santa Claus is real...

...that's my kind of place!

Written by Angelo DeCesare, penciled by Mario Capaldi, and inked by John Lucas, this never-reprinted tale from Marvel's Barbie #50 (1995) was typical of the kool flights of fancy the series specialized in.

Barbie, and its' sister title Barbie Fashion, were two secret success stories for Marvel in the 1990s.

Because they weren't superhero titles, hardcore, mostly male, fans never even noticed them, but the two books ran an impressive 63 and 53 issues respectively at a time when many Marvel titles lasted 12 issues...or less!

Next Week:

The Poignant Conclusion to this Yuletide Tale!

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Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories

Friday Fun CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST "Premiere"

Here's the first appearance of a comics legend (over 100 series with his name in the title)...

...who, at the time this came out, was already an animation mainstay!

Utilizing story elements from Casper's first cartoon (1945's Paramount NovelToon "The Friendly Ghost", written by Seymour Reit and Joe Oriolo) this opener written by Isadore Klien and likely illustrated by one of the cartoon series' animators appeared in St John's Casper the Friendly Ghost #1 (1949)

Interestingly, though Harvey Comics acquired the character rights from Paramount Pictures and continued the series after St John went out of business, they never reprinted the covers or stories of the five issues by St John!   

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Casper the Friendly Ghost

60th Anniversary Special

Monday Mars Madness ALARMING TALES "Hero"

Here's a short (in more ways than one) space-opera tale...

...though you won't get my pun until the end...

This story of size and space travel from Harvey's Alarming Tales #2 (1957) was produced by writer Jack Oleck, and illustrator Marvin Stein (with what appears to be uncredited layout help by Jack Kirby).

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3

Monday Mars Madness MAN FROM S.R.A.M. "vs the Devil Man from S.U.N.E.V.!"

A couple of weeks ago we presented the Man from S.R.A.M. in his only published adventure!

...but there's one more tale to be told...that wasn't told!

Written by Otto Binder (with re-write by Editor Joe Simon?) and illustrated by George Tuska, this story produced for Harvey's never-published Jigsaw #3 features a different Martian form for the protaganist, as well as a different vehicle from the previous chapter!
At the same time, Tuska also drew all three issues of Harvey's SpyMan, another cross-genre (super hero/spy/sci-fi) series just before moving on to a long run as Marvel's primary Silver Age Iron Man artist after Gene Colan!

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Hero-a-Go-Go

Campy Comic Books, Crimefighters, and Culture of the Swinging Sixties

Monday Mars Madness MAN FROM S.R.A.M. "Madhouse in Hollywood!"

In the Silver Age, comics mixed genres with wild abandon...

...as this tale, which combines no less than three of them demonstrates, albeit a bit ham-handedly!

When the protaganist has to spend half the story explaining his name, you know the writer's really desperate.

Which is surprising since the guy who penned this tale is Otto Binder, a prolific sci-fi writer who not only scripted classic Superman and Golden Age Captain Marvel stories (including The Monster Society of Evil serial!), but also wrote the first Marvel Comics novel, The Avengers Versus the Earth-Wrecker!

But this never-reprinted, Carl Pfeufer-illustrated tale from Harvey's Jigsaw #2 (1966) is so incredibly-silly that it's surprising Binder was so over-the-top!

Personally, I suspect editor Joe Simon rewrote the story, inserting the SRAM = MARS explanation on practically every page.

Note: Though identified as "Jigsaw" in the indicia, the book's working title was apparently "Big Hero Adventures", which appears as a sub-title on both issues' covers and title pages as well as on the original art for the first issue.

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Hero-a-Go-Go

Campy Comic Books, Crimefighters, and Culture of the Swinging Sixties

Monday Mars Madness: a Twice-Told Tale INVASION!

One of the best-known Mars invasion tales is Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio show...

Edited version

...which this twice-told tale "updates" to the television era!

But, it's radically-altered from it's first appearance, and that the original version had never been reprinted!

First the toned-down version, then the original, scarier version...

Original version

 Note in the original version, both the wife and singer on tv show a lot more cleavage!

Edited version

Original version

Again, more cleavage in the original version...

Edited version

Original version

Oddly enough, the wife's cleavage is unchanged, but the look of terror in the last panel is toned down!

Edited version

Original version

Panel four in the original version is much more gruesome than the edited version.  Note the dialogue balloon is unchanged, even though there's no actual weapons fire in the edited version!

Edited version

 This last page is radically-different! Prepare yourself!
Ready?
Proceed...but remember, I warned you...

Original version

Wow!

The edited pages were from Race for the Moon #1 (1958), which was reprinted in Shocking Tales Digest #1 (1981)

The original story was from Witches' Tales #21 (1953)

As you can see, the Comics Code Authority insisted on some major redos, including most of the last page!

What do you think, fans!

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The Chilling Archives of Horror Comics: Volume 2

Bob Powell's

Terror

Reading Room ALARMING ADVENTURES "Secret of the Mountain"

Many people believe we've explored every inch of our home world, the Earth.

They'd be totally-wrong, as shown in this tale from Harvey's Alarming Adventures #3 (1963).

Penciled by Al Williamson and inked by Angelo Torres, this tale was probably intended for the never-published Race for the Moon #5.
The scripter is unknown, but it might have been Joe Simon, who was "packaging" the book after his partnership with Jack Kirby ended!

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