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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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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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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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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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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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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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

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Space Hero Saturdays LOST WORLDS "Man Who Didn't Know Venus"

Nedor/Better/Standard Comics produced several sci-fi anthologies...

...none of which lasted more than three issues.

But it certainly wasn't due to lack of quality.

With a contributor list that included Alex Toth, Ross Andru, Mike Sekowsky, Nick Cardy, and Jack Katz, you're talking some of the great and soon-to-be-great storytellers of comics history!

But, there was one other sci-fi creator who did a story for Lost Worlds, one of only four tales he did for comic books.

Jerome Bixby, novelist and short-story writer, as well as screenwriter whose credits include...

IT! the Terror from Beyond Space!

Fantastic Voyage

Star Trek "Mirror, Mirror"*, "By Any Other Name", "Requiem for Methuselah" and "Day of the Dove"

and the short story "It's a Good Life" which was adapted on both the original Twilight Zone tv series (by Rod Serling) and the 1983 feature film (by Richard Matheson).

BTW, around the time he wrote this, Bixby had just left his position as editor of the Planet Stories pulp magazine at Fiction House, where he also contributed a couple of text pieces to Planet Comics and Indians (his only non-genre text story)!

*The Mirror Universe created by Bixby in "Mirror, Mirror" has proven to be so popular that it has reappeared in almost all the spin-off series spanning almost all of Federation and StarFleet history!

And let's not get into the numerous (sometimes contradictory) novels and comics about the concept...

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Masters of Science Fiction Volume 2
Jerome Bixby
"One Way Street" and Other Tales
Note: "One Way Street's" concept of being transferred to another universe was the thematic basis for "Mirror, Mirror"!
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Reading Room WORLD OF FANTASY "What Went Wrong?"

You think you've prepared for every contingency...but is that truly possible?

Can anyone always account for the "human" factor?

Illustrated by Bob Forgione, whose credits at Timely/Atlas included a number of sci-fi stories including an issue of Speed Carter: SpaceMan, this never-reprinted tale from Atlas' World of Fantasy #1 (1956) is one of those "average guy inadvertently saves the world" tales that writers (in this case, unidentified) love to tell.

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Mars in the Movies

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Reading Room: WEIRD TALES OF THE FUTURE "Plaything"

Ever feel like you're totally-insignificant?

Well, there might be a very good reason, as shown in Key's Weird Tales of the Future #6 (1953)!

"As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods. They kill us for their sport."

–Shakespeare "King Lear"

While the writer is unknown, the artist was Tony Mortellaro, who did hundreds of tales in various genres for Key and Atlas/Marvel, (where he became Associate Art Director under John Romita in the 1970s).

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Sci-Fi Art: a Graphic History
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Reading Room FLASH GORDON COMICS "Stories Behind the Stars"

This was an ongoing feature about the mythological origins of the constellations...

...which has never been reprinted since its' appearance in Harvey's Flash Gordon #2, #3, and #4 (1950).

Ever wonder what the actual legend behind Clash of the Titans was?

You'll note the "monster" is not the movie's Kraken, which was a mythological Norse creature based on sailors' sightings of huge octopi.

Ray Harryhausen let his imagination run wild, producing a far more interesting creature than the usual fire-breathing lizard.

Last, but hardly least, here's a popular mythological creature who's been "retconned" in movies and tv...

...but this never-reprinted one-pager from Harvey's Flash Gordon #4 (1950) gives you the original version of the story!
Note, again, Ray Harryhausen presents the (for many of us) definitive cinematic version of the creature, but substituting Jason (the leader of the Argonauts) for Hercules...

All illustrated (and likely written) by by Bob Powell!

Friday Fun FAST WILLIE JACKSON "Jabar in 'No Way Out' "

In the 1970s, there was an Archie-style comic aimed at Black audiences...

...from the publishers of the Golden Legacy series which featured factual stories about Black historical figures!

Though it looks like it, Fast Willie Jackson was not published  by Archie Comics, but by Black-owned publisher Fitzgerald Publications who had previously published the Golden Legacy non-fiction comic series about Black history.

Fast Willie was their entry into the mass-market comics market.

Though not Comics Code-approved, it received newsstand distribution, and sales were climbing for each successive issue.

Unfortunately, it reached break-even only with the seventh (and final) issue, when other matters caused Fitzgerald Publications to cease producing new material for an extended period.
When Fitzgerald briefly resumed publishing, Fast Willie was not among the titles.

Written by publisher/editor Bertram Fitzgerald, illustrated by "Gus LeMoine".

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Politics of Race and Representation
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