Space Hero Saturdays FLASH GORDON by Dan Schkade

There's currently a lot of new Flash Gordon material from several different publishers...

...but the one that's a must-see is the hardest to find!
Yes. visually, it's not the minutely-detailed Alex Raymond/Austin Briggs/Mac Raboy/Al Williamson "classic" series (which, for the record, I revere)!

But it is a stylized semi-reboot that King Features decided to implement after almost 20 years of reprints!

I'm gonna give you an analogy...

If the original Flash Gordon was the Neal Adams/Jim Aparo/NormBreyfogle Batman...

...the current Flash is the Bruce Timm version!

Are you gonna tell me you don't like (if not love) Bruce Timm's take on the Caped Crusader???

He's visually-different, but incredibly-respectful to the "classic" vision!

That's the near-impossible feat Schkade's pulling-off six days a week...and Sundays!

Dan believes everybody knows the basic premise, and if you've seen the 1980 movie...

(and/or the first Buster Crabbe serial)...

...you know the basic plot!

The series follows-though with the history of Mongo shortly after Ming's fall, and carries on from there.

Here's a link to a superb interview with Dan from The Comics Journal.
And here's a link to Schkade's own feed on BlueSky, where he not only posts the strips every day, and offers backstory, but also interacts with the audience!
He goes the extra mile because he loves the series and wants it to find as big an audience as possible!
So do I!
Sadly, too few newspapers are carrying the strip.
So hit those links and/or go directly to Comics Kingdom!

Monday Madness OZARK IKE

As SuperBowl Sunday approaches...

...lets see how rurals, including hillbillies, outside the big cities, play football...in the comics, of course!

The rest of the issue deals with the multi-talented Ike playing baseball, so we'll run it during baseball season.

Yes, the King Features strip was created in the mid-1940s as a competitor to Al Capp's wildly-successful Li'l Abner series!

No, it was nowhere near as successful.

The only known licensed spin-offs were this one-shot reprint collection in Dell's Four Color Comics #180 (1948), a subsequent short-lived 1950s comic series for Standard/Better/Nedor. and a couple of 1980s reprint paperbacks from Blackthorne Publishing.

Writer/artist Ray Gotto, though not a familiar name to comics fans today, achieved sports immortality for designing one of the iconic graphics in baseball history...still in use 61 years later:

The New York Mets' logo!

BTW, this month's Monday Madness theme is SPORTS!

Please Support

Atomic Kommie Comics

Visit Amazon and Order...

Best of Li'l Abner

by Al Capp

Space Hero Saturdays THE SECRET ORIGIN ( NO LIE) OF FLASH GORDON!

Because it's Thanksgiving weekend, and we're out shopping...

..due to the Dreaded Deadline Doom, we're re-presenting a classic (but rarely-seen) Flash Gordon tale...

...the previously-untold story of Flash Gordon's first encounter with the inhabitants of Mongo!

Wow!

Writer Mark Schultz and artist Al Williamson pulled off what many these days would consider to be impossible...a retcon that doesn't contradict any of the previous stories, nor requires a reboot of the character's entire history!

(I thought only Rascally Roy Thomas was capable of such a feat!)

Not only that, but it includes visual Easter Eggs relating to various past versions of Flash, including the Clay People from the second movie serial, Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars, spaceships from the 1930s serials and the 1979 animated series, Flash's father (named "Alex" after artist Alex Raymond) looking remarkably like Buster Crabbe (the actor who played Flash in all three serials), and a young Dr Zarkov based on Al Williamson himself!

You can read the entire mini-series from the start by clicking HERE!

It's well worth your time to do so!

Support Atomic Kommie Comics

Visit Amazon and Buy...

Al Williamson's

Flash Gordon

(which reprints the mini-series, but in black-and-white!)

Reading Room: FLASH GORDON "Chapter 4.1: the Man Who Would be Ming!"

We Have Already Seen...

...all you really need to know is Flash Gordon and Ming the Merciless are finally about to meet face-to-face!

A classic high-adventure tale by writer Mark Schultz and illustrator Al Williamson, little-seen in either its' first publication in Marvel's Flash Gordon #2 (1995) or the reprint in the HTF Flesk Publications' Al Williamson's Flash Gordon: a Lifelong Vision of the Heroic (2009).
We have more rarities coming up, so watch for them!

Support Atomic Kommie Comics

Visit Amazon and Buy...

Al Williamson's

Flash Gordon

(which reprints the mini-series, but in black-and-white!)
Paid Link

Reading Room: FLASH GORDON "Chapter Four: Showdown in Syk"

With the repressed memory of their decades-earlier encounter with Queen Azura restored...

...Flash and Zarkov, along with Dale, spring into action!

Next Week:

It's the thrilling conclusion that we just had to call...

The Man Who Would be Ming!

Support Atomic Kommie Comics

Visit Amazon and Buy...

Al Williamson's

Flash Gordon

(which reprints the mini-series, but in black-and-white!)
Paid Link

Reading Room: FLASH GORDON "Chapter 3.1: the Secret Origin of Flash Gordon!"

It's all been building up to this...

The wraparound inside cover for #2 by Al Williamson

...the untold story of Flash Gordon's first encounter with the inhabitants of Mongo!

Wow!

Writer Mark Schultz and artist Al Williamson pulled off what many these days would consider to be impossible...a retcon that doesn't contradict any of the previous stories, nor requires a reboot of the character's entire history!

I thought only Rascally Roy Thomas was capable of such a feat!

Not only that, but it includes visual Easter Eggs relating to various past versions of Flash, including the Clay People from Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars, a spaceship from the 1979 animated series, and Flash's father looking remarkably like Buster Crabbe, the actor who played Flash in all three serials!

Be here next week as Flash returns to Azura's capital in Syk!

Support Atomic Kommie Comics

Visit Amazon and Buy...

Al Williamson's

Flash Gordon

(which reprints the mini-series, but in black-and-white!)
Paid Link