...and it's going to be tasty, indeed!
Perhaps the onlyRed Sonja-related comic to never be reprinted after its' initial publication, the adaptation of the 1985 movie was presented in two formats...
a magazine-sized Marvel Super Special, and a two-issue comic book-format mini-series.
As usual, we'll be presenting elements from both versions in our usual serialized format starting on Thanksgiving Day and running daily through Sunday through two RetroBlogs:Secret Sanctum of Captain Video and Heroines! Don't Miss Them! Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics! Visit Amazon and Order...
...run Monday through Friday on FIVE different blogs!
This Week...
MONDAY
Secret Sanctum of Captain Video runs comic adaptations of AIP's 1960s "Edgar Allan Poe" films...currently presenting the Vincent Price/Boris Karloff/Peter Lorre/Jack Nicholson comedy The Raven!
TUESDAY
Seduction of the Innocent presents the premiere psychedelic adventure of Victorian monster fighter Sir Leo!
WEDNESDAY
True Love Comics Tales begins the Halloween Season with a Silver Age inter-comics company romance!
THURSDAY
Hero Histories premieres the introduction of the time-lost WereWolf Hunter!
The never-reprinted apocalyptic adventures in the original, 1980s Walking Dead b/w comic! FRIDAY FUN
Stan Lee's humorous look at classic horror/sci-fi movies and tv shows from the never-reprinted Monsters to Laugh With & Monsters Unlimited!
That's eight days of posts in only seven days! How do we do it???
Starting October 1st, we'll be posting stuff once a week on five different RetroBlogs, so there'll be daily posts from us Monday thru Friday!
Monday
Secret Sanctum of Captain Videokicks off the week with adaptations of two of American International's 1960s "Edgar Allan Poe" flicks...
The Raven, starring Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Jack Nicholson!
War-Gods of the Deep, which is actually an original sci-fi screenplay set in the early 1900s, making it a "steampunk before it was steampunk" flick!
Tuesday
Seduction of the Innocent continues the horror with the psychedelic adventures of the British Victorian-era monster-fighter Sir Leo...
...yeah, it's as weird and off-beat as it sounds!
BTW, there are several never-seen-in-the-US tales in this batch, so there's another good reason not to miss this one!
Thursday Hero Histories covers the first few, never-reprinted appearances of plainclothes monster-fighter Werewolf Hunter...
...who had a surprisingly-long run in the back of Fiction House's military-orientedRangers Comics!
Friday
We end the week with the comic book adventures of real-life magician and debunker Dr William (Bill) Neff in Horror Comics of the 1950s!
The series has links to the pulp-radio-comic character The Shadow, since creator Walter Gibson (aka Maxwell Grant) wrote all the stories and Bob Powell, who illustrated a number of The Shadow's pulp and comic book tales during the Golden Age also drew Neff's adventures!
Plus, here at Atomic Kommie Comics, our three ongoing features will be horror-themed!
Monday Madness posts will be the never-seen-in-America Dracula humor strips from the original Spanish-language Dracula comic from 1971!
Note: the 12-issue magazine series was translated and reprinted in England, then the first 6 issues were packaged as a trade paperback by Warren(Creepy/Eerie/Vampirella)Publications!
But neither English-language version ran these one-pagers despite the fact the strip is wordless!
Wednesday Worlds of Wonder will peek into the apocalyptic future of...The Walking Dead!
No, not that Walking Dead!
This one...
Yes, gang, we're returning to the never-reprinted originalWalking Dead, from 30 years ago, over a decade before the one the TV show is based on!
And our Friday Fun posts will be covers and pages from the never-reprinted humor magazines Monsters to Laugh With / Monsters Unlimited and Monster Madness, featuring scripting/captioning by the late, great Stan Lee!
Starting October 1st, we'll be posting stuff once a week on five different RetroBlogs, so there'll be daily posts from us Monday thru Friday!
In addition, our own Monday Madness posts will be the never-seen-in-America Dracula humor strips from the original Spanish-language Dracula comic from 1971!
Note: the 12-issue magazine series was translated and reprinted in England, then the first 6 issues were packaged as a trade paperback by Warren(Creepy/Eerie/Vampirella)Publications!
But neither English-language version ran these one-pagers despite the fact the strip is wordless!
And our Friday Fun posts will be covers and pages from the never-reprinted humor magazines Monsters to Laugh With and Monster Madness, featuring scripting by the late, great Stan Lee!
We'll have links to the other blogs along with the schedule and details about each one's features...
He's the Jolly Old Elf in a red suit!
They are BIG Green Men from Mars with an even BIGGER robot!
Before Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, they were the ingredients for the weirdest Christmas movie ever!
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians was filmed in 1964 in that bastion of the cinema, Long Island (in an unused aircraft hangar).
Starring
a host of tv and b-movie actors including handsome-but-stiff Leonard
Hicks as the Martian Leader (and kids' father) Kimar, 60s
villain/voiceover artist Vincent Beck (who did lots of work for Irwin
Allen's sci-fi shows) as the film's mustache-twirling villain, Voldar,
and John Call as a pretty damn convincing Santa Claus, the flick is
touted as the debut of future talentless chantuse Pia Zadora as Martian
Kid Girmar. Thankfully, she has rather limited screen time.
As an example of low-budget filmmaking, it's actually pretty effective.
Every penny (what few of them they had) is up on the screen.
They make good use of stock footage (from Dr. Strangelove, no less).
And
the use of then-popular Wham-O Air Blaster toy guns as the Martian
weapons was either a stroke of marketing genius or clever use of limited
funds. Either way, sales of the guns shot thru the roof after the film
hit the kiddie matinee circuit!
If you're between 3-9 years old, the flick's a lot of fun.
If you're between 10 and whatever the local drinking age is, it'll drive you nuts, especially the theme song!
If
you're over the local drinking age, do so before watching! It's
available on a host of public domain dvds as well as one of the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 snarkfests.
And you just knew we at Atomic Kommie Comics™ were going to include Santa Claus Conquers the Martians in ourCool Christmas collection on stuff including kid and adult sweatshirts and hoodies, mugs and coasters, tree ornaments, and greeting cards!
BTW:
The image above is from the comic book tie-in, which you can read in three parts...
There was also a single of the
theme, a spoken-word LP album of the movie's dialogue, and a
novelization!
Now I can't get that damn theme our of my head..."Hoo-ray for Santy Claus..." AARRRGGGHHH!
An early Christmas gift from us to you:
The Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version of the film (don't tell Dr Forrester)...
...Seduction of the Innocent, which showed a Ditko tale that was later re-drawn!
(Who would have the chutzpah to think they could do a better job than Sturdy Steve???)
...Hero Histories, which features one of his greatest co-creations, Captain Atom, one of his greatest creations, Mr A, as well as his only story co-starring The Batman!
...our "brother" RetroBlog, Secret Sanctum of Captain Video is re-presenting the long out-of-print (since 1982) and hard-to-find comic adaptation by Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson!
This summer, each RetroBlog presented a different mini-Blogathon, with some crossing-over between blogs...
The biggest Blogathon was the complete presentation of what many consider to be the first true graphic novel... the 132-page St John's digest-sized b/w one-shot It Rhymes with Lust by writers Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller and illustrator Matt Baker!
..and its' companion strip Dollar Bill Ca$h!
Plus: the final, never-published Lone Tiger tale, scanned from the original art!
And with the passing of Jerry Lewis, Secret Sanctum of Captain Video dropped it's look at the never-reprinted adventures of Captain Justice...based on the lost TV series Once a Hero...
...to present never-reprinted classic team-ups of DCheroines...
Still to come...Superman and the 1960s Batman & Robin!
BTW, Captain Justicewill pop up before Christmas!
We don't want to miss the show's 30th Anniversary!
Sadly, due to the crush of work...and some serious vacation partying...we weren't able to do how the Comics Code altered reprints in sometimes ridiculous ways at Seduction of the Innocent!
