Showing posts with label Mike Esposito. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mike Esposito. Show all posts

Thursday, June 24, 2021

Reading Room FANTASTIC WORLDS "Ace of Space"

Not to be confused with Space Ace (who went through several different incarnations)...
...this guy is a Cold War fighter pilot-type transposed to a Star Wars setting!

Darn those aliens!
Sending robot "drones" to do their fighting instead of going man-against-lizard as God intended!
Though the scripter for this tale from Standard's Fantastic Worlds #7 (1952) is unknown, the artwork is by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, with a couple of panels redrawn by Mike Sekowsky!

Thursday, April 22, 2021

Earth Day Reading Room NIGHTMARE "Pollution Monsters!"

"The Devil made it do it!" is given new meaning...
...in this never-reprinted tale from 51 years ago (the year Earth Day was first celebrated) which reads like one of Atlas' (pre-Marvel Comics) late 1950s-early 1960s monster stories!
Before we continue, two points:
1) Penciler Don Heck was one of the primary artists of both Atlas era and Silver Age Marvel comics stories, including numerous giant monster tales.
(Inker Mike Esposito, though he entered the field at the same time as Heck, didn't do much work for Atlas or Marvel until the late 1960s.)
2) The story is broken into two parts, even though it's only 10 pages, much like those Atlas Comics stories.
Is it a deliberate homage?
Writer Mike Freidrich was one of the first generation of comic fanboys turned professional creatives, so he was very familiar with the inherent tropes...





One big difference between this story and those Atlas-era giant monster stories...we don't win!
We might, but there's no guarantee in this cover-featured tale from Skywald's Nightmare #1 (1970)!
It's over 50 years later...and it's still frightening!
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Friday, August 14, 2020

Friday Fun GET LOST! "Ride in the Subway"

As a longtime New Yorker (and now Chicagoan)...
...I can attest to the accuracy (and only slight exaggeration) of this pre-Covid-19 tale by native New Yorkers Ross Andru and Mike Esposito!
This short from Mikeross' Get Lost #3 (1954) was typical of the title, one of the better MAD color comic clones.
Andru and Esposito wrote and illustrated almost everything, giving it a cohesion most other title didn't have.
Mikeross was a small publisher, who, unfortunately, didn't survive the Wertham "Seduction of the Innocent" purge of the mid-1950s, despite the fact they didn't publish any horror comics!
Besides Get Lost!, all they did was romance comics as shown HERE!
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Monday, March 16, 2020

Monday Madness GET LOST "The Circle, the Triangle and the Square"

Sometimes, a comic tale doesn't need perspective, anatomy, or even characters to tell a story...
...as this classic bit of storytelling from Mikeross' Get Lost #3 (1954) proves!
The graphics are simple, but effective...but the key is the captions and their use of slang to deliver the punchline!
Though it only lasted three issues, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito's Get Lost was one of the best of the MAD comic knock-offs, never quite hitting the heights of Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder's lunacy, but coming close with several tales, including this one!
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Saturday, March 3, 2018

The SEQUEL to the Swinging Seventies Black Super-Hero You NEVER Heard of...ACE OF SPADES II!

In 1971, two years before The Black Panther received his own series...
...a Black Super-Hero hit the newsstands of America for a two-issue run almost nobody remembers!
Who is he?
Where did he come from?
And why don't even the most obsessive comics fans remember him?
These, and other equally-valid questions are now answered at...
Warning!
The Answers May NOT Be Suitable For the Faint-Hearted!
Click HERE at Your Own Risk!

Saturday, February 24, 2018

The Swinging Seventies Black Super-Hero You NEVER Heard of...ACE OF SPADES!

In 1971, two years before The Black Panther received his own series...
...a Black Super-Hero hit the newsstands of America for a two-issue run almost nobody remembers!
Who is he?
Where did he come from?
And why don't even the most obsessive comics fans remember him?
These, and other equally-valid questions are now answered at...
Warning!
The Answers May NOT Be Suitable For the Faint-Hearted!
Click HERE at Your Own Risk!

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Reading Room ASTONISHING TALES "Doctor Doom: Tentacles of the Tyrant!"

There are some all-but-forgotten Silver and Bronze Age stories featuring the title character of...
including this tale behind a "split cover" by penciler John Buscema and inker Frank Giacoia!
You'll note the cover text mentions "T'Challa", not "The Black Panther", even though he's in costume!
When this issue of Marvel's Astonishing Tales (#6) came out in 1971,  controversies involving the political movement known as the Black Panthers were at their peak, such as this murder/kidnapping trial which ended in a mistrial.
Marvel was in a bit of a bind, as they had been developing plans to give T'Challa a higher profile thanks to his ongoing appearances as a member of The Avengers (which, at that point, featured characters who didn't have their own series).
So, when the Panther guest-starred in other titles (like here), or was cover-featured in The Avengers...
...he was promoted as "T'Challa", not the "Black Panther"!
When he appeared in Fantastic Four #119 (1972), though cover-featured as "T'Challa"...
...he proclaimed himself "Black Leopard", instead of "Black Panther".
But that's a story for another time...
Meanwhile, Doctor Doom scripter Larry Lieber (who hadn't handled the Black Panther previously) seems woefully uninformed about Wakanda in general and Vibranium in particular, with the most obvious fact being the Vibranium Mound isn't a volcano!
Two trivia notes:
Larry Lieber had written and penciled the first half of Doom's full-length cover-featured story in Marvel Super-Heroes #20 (1969), which would explain why he got the nod to write the ongoing Doom strip in Astonishing Tales a year later!
Penciler George Tuska would draw Dr Doom's two-issue encounter with Marvel's other major Black hero in Luke Cage: Hero for Hire #8 & #9 (1973)
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(which reprints this story...but in black-and-white!)

Friday, January 27, 2017

Reading Room TALES TO ASTONISH "Monstrom! The Dweller in the Black Swamp!"

Last week, a mini-series debuted...
Art by Francesco Francavilla
...featuring Marvel's heroes and heroines vs monsters from the company's pre-superhero "Atlas Comics" days in the 1950s!
So, what we're going to do over the next few Fridays for the run of the title is present the first appearance of the cover-featured monster!
Art Adams
(Yes, the first issue was last week, but we had a different bloated orange swamp monster to deal with that Friday!)
So let's play "catch up" with..."Monstrom!The Dweller in the Black Swamp!
This story from Atlas' Tales to Astonish #11 (1960) by writer Stan Lee, penciler Jack Kirby, and inker Dick Ayers has been reprinted a number of times, almost always as the cover feature...
Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers
Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, and Marie Severin
Ron Wilson, Mike Esposito, and Frank Giacoia
Monsters Unleashed looks like a lot of fun, so get it at your local comic shop...NOW!
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