Showing posts with label Larry Hama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Larry Hama. Show all posts

Thursday, March 12, 2020

CoronaVirus Comics PLANET OF VAMPIRES "Long Road Home" Conclusion

Art by Pat Broderick and Neal Adams
...well, that kool cover says it all, doesn't it?
BTW, though the cover says six astronauts, we only see five, including Dr Ben Levitz, who was killed by savages when the crew first reached shore after crash-landing off Coney Island!
The "sixth astronaut" is never mentioned by name...or even shown in the background...anywhere in the issue!
In 2008, a team of astronauts exploring Mars lose contact with Earth.
After a two-year voyage, they return to find most of the planet devastated and the survivors apparently devolved to primitive savages!
However, some people in Manhattan managed to keep technology functioning and a relatively-civilized society going under an impenetrable dome...but at what cost to their humanity?
This never-reprinted first issue of Atlas/Seaboard's Planet of Vampires (1975) was Larry Hama's intro to comic scriptwriting.
Hama had been a penciler/inker apprenticing under Wally Wood before landing his first ongoing gig; penciling Iron Fist in Marvel Premiere.
But when John Byrne was given Iron Fist (which moved into its' own comic), Hama was without steady work.
The brand-new Atlas/Seaboard company welcomed the young creative with open arms, giving him two books: Planet of Vampires, which he scripted, and Wulf the Barbarian, which he both wrote and penciled.
Larry ended up leaving both the books (and the company) when the publisher refused to allow leeway on the deadlines when Hama's mother was dying, forcing the young writer/artist to bring in a host of pro friends to meet the deadlines while he dealt with the personal loss and handled funeral arrangements.
Hama went on to much bigger things like GI Joe, while Atlas/Seaboard went out of business within a year.
Next Wednesday:
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Visit Amazon and Order...
(the graphic novel verson of the novel, adapted into the then-current movie Omega Man, which "inspired" this series!)

Tuesday, March 10, 2020

CoronaVirus Comics PLANET OF VAMPIRES "Long Road Home" Part 1

Remember when a pandemic created vampires who took over the world in 2010?
No, I don't mean the Twilight or True Blood franchises...
Be here Next Wednesday, as the astronauts are forced to chose sides.
The early 1970s was one of the more pessimistic periods in pop culture.
Between pollution/ecology concerns, potential overpopulation, and possible war, fear was running wild in pop culture, in particular, movies.
The near-future was believed to be a potential Hell on Earth, with movies like A Clockwork Orange (crime and violence held in check only by mind-control), Soylent Green (overpopulation and food shortages relieved by using humans as food), ZPG (controlled breeding to avoid overpopulation), and Omega Man (man-made plague kills most of humanity and leaves remainder as mutant ghouls).
Even films about the distant future like Zardoz and the Planet of the Apes series showed humanity as either decadent and collapsing, or under control of other species!
Writer Larry Hama and penciler Pat Broderick combined several of the concepts in Seaboard's Planet of Vampires #1 (1973).
It was one of the stronger titles of the new company formed to compete with Marvel and DC, but both internal problems between the publishers and creatives as well as failure to gain newsstand space (there were no comic shops at the time), doomed the company to a short life.
Next Wednesday
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Order...
(the graphic novel verson of the novel, adapted into the then-current movie Omega Man, which "inspired" this series!)

Friday, August 11, 2017

Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "Over and Under"

In a "split screen" tale by Neal Adams and Larry Hama & Ralph Reese...
...we witness a typical day (and night) in NYC told from opposite ends of the social and financial spectrum.
Unfortunately, it's so sordid and sleazy we can't show it to you here, so you'll have to go over to our "brother" blog Not Safe for Work Comics to read this never-reprinted tale from 1975!
And you better be 18 (or over)!
(Note: Link fixed) 
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Order...

Friday, June 9, 2017

Friday Fun is HERE This Summer!

Whenever possible, I try to run at least one ongoing weekly feature.
Art by Larry Hama, Paul Kirchner, Stu Schwartzberg, Wally Wood
This summer it'll be Friday Fun featuring Big Apple Comix!
It was an underground comic anthology produced in 1975 featuring an incredible range of NYC-based comics talent (including many DC and Marvel contributors, all paying tribute to the city "so nice, they named it twice!"
The book was sold in head shops, porn shops, and other off-the-beaten track venues in NYC, SF, and other cities where there was a major counter-cultural presence. 
(The first comic book shops were just starting up, and some didn't want to carry "adult" material.)
As Denny O'Neil explains...
Art by Denny O'Neil

...Flo, BTW, was Stan Lee's right-hand woman at Marvel during the Silver Age of Comics, and she had both the publishing experience and the contacts to put together this one-of-a-kind project!
The best part is...none of the material in this 40+ year old book has ever been reprinted, so, for a lot of you, it'll be a look at work by some of your favorites that you've never seen before!
For the record, we ran one of the stories several years ago. You can see it HERE.
Be here next Friday for...FUN!
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Order...

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Reading Room PLANET OF VAMPIRES "Long Road Home" Conclusion

Art by Pat Broderick and Neal Adams
...well, that kool cover says it all, doesn't it?
BTW, though the cover says six astronauts, we only see five, including Dr Ben Levitz, who was killed by savages when the crew first reached shore after crash-landing off Coney Island!
The "sixth astronaut" is never mentioned by name...or even shown in the background...anywhere in the issue!
In 2008, a team of astronauts exploring Mars lose contact with Earth.
After a two-year voyage, they return to find most of the planet devastated and the survivors apparently devolved to primitive savages!
However, some people in Manhattan managed to keep technology functioning and a relatively-civilized society going under an impenetrable dome...but at what cost to their humanity?
This never-reprinted first issue of Atlas/Seaboard's Planet of Vampires (1975) was Larry Hama's intro to comic scriptwriting.
Hama had been a penciler/inker apprenticing under Wally Wood before landing his first ongoing gig; penciling Iron Fist in Marvel Premiere.
But when John Byrne was given Iron Fist (which moved into it's own comic), Hama was without steady work.
The brand-new Atlas/Seaboard company welcomed the young creative with open arms, giving him two books: Planet of Vampires, which he scripted, and Wulf the Barbarian, which he both wrote and penciled.
Larry ended up leaving both the books (and the company) when the publisher refused to allow leeway on the deadlines when Hama's mother was dying, forcing the young writer/artist to bring in a host of pro friends to meet the deadlines while he dealt with the personal loss and handled funeral arrangements.
Hama went on to much bigger things like GI Joe, while Atlas/Seaboard went out of business within a year.

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Reading Room PLANET OF VAMPIRES "Long Road Home" Part 1

Remember when vampires took over the world in 2010?
No, I don't mean the Twilight or True Blood franchises...
The early 1970s was one of the more pessimistic periods in pop culture.
Between pollution/ecology concerns, potential overpopulation, and possible war, fear was running wild in pop culture, in particular, movies.
The near-future was believed to be a potential Hell on Earth, with movies like A Clockwork Orange (crime and violence held in check only by mind-control), Soylent Green (overpopulation and food shortages relieved by using humans as food), ZPG (controlled breeding to avoid overpopulation), and Omega Man (man-made plague kills most of humanity and leaves remainder as mutant ghouls).
Even films about the distant future like Zardoz and the Planet of the Apes series showed humanity as either decadent and collapsing, or under control of other species!
Writer Larry Hama and penciler Pat Broderick combined several of the concepts in Seaboard's Planet of Vampires #1 (1973).