Reading Room MY GREATEST ADVENTURE "We Were 20th Century Cavemen"

Prepare to Be Pterrified...

Art by Bob Brown

...because this week we're presenting a pair of ptales of...pterodactyls!

Illustrated by Ruben Moreira and scripted by an unknown writer, this never-reprinted tale from DC's My Greatest Adventure #27 (1959) was typical of their output during the 1950s, imaginative concepts, but only occasionally actually exciting.

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Mysteries in Space

The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics

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Reading Room MYSTIC "Dinosaur"

We Recently Ran a Dinosaur-Themed Story Illustrated by the Amazing Bernie Krigstein HERE...

...and this one, done around the same time, is so totally-different, we felt we had to present it!

(BTW, when we ran the previous Krigstein dino-story "Lair of the Thunder Lizard" back in May, we were planning a totally-different Halloween blogathon!)

Note: While Krigstein superbly-illustrated this kool tale from Atlas Comics' Mystic #56 (1957) about a dinosaur you never see, the writer is currently-unknown, but might be the comic's editor Stan Lee!

Sadly, we'll never know!

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Messages in a Bottle

Comic Book Stories by B Krigstein

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Reading Room STRANGE TALES "Fear Walks on Four Feet!"

When a Never-Reprinted Story Comes to Our Attention...

...especially one about this month's featured subject, you can bet we're going to present it!

Scripted by Carl Wessler and illustrated by Al Eadeh, this entertaining featurette hasn't seen the light of day since it was published in Atlas' Strange Tales #51 (1958), almost 70 years ago!

And we're going to repeat this feat on Thursday, with another dinosaur-themed, never-reprinted, hidden gem, this time from DC!

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3

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Reading Room: When Frank Miller Did a Story About Dinosaurs...with a Delicious Ending!

Since One of the Criteria for our Halloween Dinosaur Blogathon is Only Earth-Based Dinos...

...we're re-presenting this titillating tale from Space Hero Saturdays which featured Frank Miller's redneck Space Hero, Lance Blastoff before we flood the Internet beginning on October 1st!

All I'm going to say is..."Just read it!"

And Join RetroBlogs Starting October 1st for a Halloween Season Blogathon Starring

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Tales to Offend

The Kool Comic featuring Lance Blastoff by Frank Miller
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Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "New York City: the Future"

In 1975, this is what we thought were headed for...

Written and illustrated by Paul Kirchner, this never-reprinted piece from Big Apple Comix (1975) is somewhat, but not totally prophetic.

Odd, though, how the armored character in the last panel looks like a Cylon, eh?

(Battlestar Galactica was created several years later...)

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Big Apple Comix
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Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "Lotsa Yox featuring Rodger Farnsworth USAAF"

After Binging in July on King Kong Films from the 1933 Original...

...to the various sequels and remakes up to Godzilla x Kong: the New Empire, we nostalgically flashed-back to the "good old days", when cinematic giant apes just had to come to NYC and climb whatever the tallest building was at the time!

But, because creatives Herb Trimpe and Wally Wood insisted on including a nude woman in this strip which illustrates that concept, you'll have to see this never-reprinted classic in our adult "brother" blog Not Safe for Work Comics!

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Big Apple Comix
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Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "Man Without a City!"

To a true New Yorker, there's no fate more frightening...

...than to be (gasp) forever exiled from the Big Apple!

I speak from first-hand experience.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, I went to high school in Manhattan and lived there after graduating college until 1999, when I began commuting between NYC and Chicago, eventually settling in Chi-town full-time.

Only taking occasional trips back to the Land of My Birth to see clients and family helps me keep my sanity!

Lord knows what condition I'd be in if I were exiled like the story's protaganist!

Written by Marvel's main production person for several decades, Stu Schwartzberg (who was also a Shazam Award-winning scripter of Crazy Magazine), penciled by Stu and the multi-talented Marie Severin and inked by Marie, this never-reprinted tale from Big Apple Comix #1 (1975) perfectly captures the "Noo Yawker" love-hate dichotomy!

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Big Apple Comix
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Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "My Word"

The legendary Wally Wood contributed several pieces to this historic one-shot comic...

...but none was better than his New York City-themed re-do of one of his most famous tales...

...from EC's Weird Science #22 (1953) and written by Al Feldstein, not Wood.

Unfortunately, due to nudity and naughty words, we can't run it here, but you can find it on our "brother" blog Not Safe for Work Comics!

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Big Apple Comix
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Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "Battery's Down"

Like many people, Chicagoan Alan Weiss came to New York City to seek fame and fortune...

...and the Midwestern man who became an established comics illustrator shared a (supposedly only-slightly exaggerated version of his first days in NYC in the late 1960s...

Note: may by NSFW due to a couple of common-to-the-era racial stereotypes in this never reprinted tale.

A link to a website selling Alan's originals HERE!

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Big Apple Comix
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Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "A Nice Place to Visit, But..."

We New Yorkers are proud of our metropolis...

...and we deal appropriately with those who put it down, as exemplified by this short scripted and illustrated by Marvel writer/editorial assistant Linda Fite, who, no doubt, based it on real-life visits from irritating out-of-towners!

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Big Apple Comix
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Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "Silent Majority"

I believe it was the legendary Will Eisner who said...

"If you can tell a tale without word balloons or captions, you've succeeded as a graphic storyteller!"

Appropriately enough, this almost totally-silent story from Big Apple Comix #1 (1975) is by Mike Ploog, who broke into comics assisting Eisner on the military publication P.S. Magazine! before becoming Marvel's primary "monster" artist doing Man-Thing, Monster of Frankenstein, Werewolf by Night, and Ghost Rider during the Bronze Age.

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Big Apple Comix
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Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "Peep Shows"

I can tell you from first-hand experience...

...this is, in fact, an extremely accurate look (except for the last four panels in the story)...

...at what visiting 42nd Street west of Times Square in the 1970s and 80s was like!

My high school was nearby (West 54th between 5th and 6th Avenues), and I discovered that, when you wore a sports jacket or leisure suit (which I had to wear daily because it was a prep school), you could pass as over 18, even if you were only 15!

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Big Apple Comix
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Reading Room STRANGE STORIES OF SUSPENSE "Beware...a Martian"

Here's a tale of racism and innuendo involving an "illegal alien"...

...that all Reich-wingers should take note of!

Written by Carl Wessler, penciled by Al Williamson, and inked by Ralph Mayo, this never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Strange Stories of Suspense #14 (1957) uses science fiction to tell a civil rights parable, substituting a Martian (and the paranoia about his race) for a African-American, Hispanic, Japanese, or other minority group about whom equally-inane fantasies have been concocted!

Note: it's interesting that Nardo the Martian has the same appearance as DC's J'Onn J'Onzz: the Martian Manhunter (except for skin color), as well as MM's specific ability to shape-shift, not a talent usually attributed to inhabitants of the Red Planet!

Note: J'Onn had debuted almost two years earlier!

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Mars in the Movies

A History
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