Friday Fun SUPERMAN GOES PLOP!

From DC's Plop! #5 (1974)...

Easily one of the funniest gags about Clark Kent/Superman and Lois Lane ever told!

Though the writer of this short is unknown, the art is by long-time DC artist Murphy Anderson!
Trivia: The piece was actually conceived and illustrated as a one-pager, as shown in the original art below!

Note that the original panel six, showing Clark climbing back through the office window is omitted in the final version!
Blue pencil/marker didn't show up under the cameras that were used to shoot line art as film or photostats, so, while it looks a little tacky, it was common practice to mark corrections/alterations using them directly on original art!
(Nobody in those days was concerned about reselling original art to collectors/fans!)
The feature been reprinted twice since Plop!, but only in digest-sized comics, which muddy a lot of the detailed Sergio Aragones background art!

See Superman the Movie!

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder ACTION COMICS "Superman in '100 Years...Lost, Strayed or Stolen!' "

We Don't Usually Run Superman Stories...

...but this never-reprinted Silver Age Superman tale (yes, there are a few of them) under a Carmine Infantino laid-out/Neal Adams penciled-inked cover, from DC's Action Comics #370 (1968) is so truly unique that it stuck in my head ever since I read it brand-new, plucked from a candy store comic spinner rack!
(And no, I'm not telling you how old I am!)

And here's the really-kool part!
It's not a dream!
Not a hoax!
Not an Imaginary Story!
In fact, it was canon...until Crisis on Infinite Earths!

With reviewers comparing the new Superman movie to a really-good Silver Age comic, now is the time to read this time-lost mini-epic that, if done today, would be a six-issue mini-series and at least a couple of one-shot tie-ins!

Enjoy a unique World of Wonder...

Yeah, there are a couple of leaps in plot logic and amazing coincidences, but it's an absolutely-amazing bit of science-fantasy by writer Cary Bates, penciler Curt Swan and inker Jack Abel that holds your attention start-to-finish!
And isn't that what you want when you enter a World of Wonder?

See Superman the Movie!

The REAL Superman Returns...

The Buzz is BIG for James Gunn's new Superman movie...

....comparing it favorably to the two Richard Donner Superman films starring Christopher Reeve, returning the character to the wholesome embodiment of, well, "Truth, Justice, and the American Way"!

And in these cynical times, we certainly need that!

Bring that guy back!

I'm looking forward to it!

Here's a, dare I say, SuperCut of the best of the numerous trailers...

Go See It!

Happy New Year's Day!

 Happy New Year!

from Superman & Atomic Kommie Comics™!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Taking the day off to celebrate...

...despite the temperature hitting record highs!
But,what could even the Man of Steel do about the menace of...
Climate Change???

See you tomorrow...

Happy Birthday to Me!

Taking the day off to celebrate...

...being finally able to receive a lot more discounts!

See you tomorrow...

Oh, yeah, it's Father's Day, too!

Celebrate...

Or Else!

Happy New Year's Day!

Action Comics #81. Art by Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye
One of the coolest New Year's Eve/New Year's Day covers ever!

Friday Fun FUNNYMAN: the Other SuperHero from the Co-Creators of Superman!

 

What do you do after you've created the ULTIMATE comics character...and lost the rights to him?

Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster faced that problem in 1947!
When they sued DC Comics (then National Periodicals Publications), they lost all the assignments (both individually and as a team) they were working on.

To pay the bills, they solicited work from other comics companies both on existing characters and, in one case, creating a NEW character...FunnyMan for Magazine Enterprises!

FunnyMan was Larry Davis, a comedian looking for a shtick.

His girlfriend / agent June suggested a publicity stunt with Larry dressing in his trademark clown outfit, "accidentally" coming upon a (staged with actors) "crime scene" and disarming and capturing the "criminals" using his props, all the while being photographed by conveniently-placed cameramen.

As you might have guessed, Larry stumbled on a real crime in progress, and thinking it was the pre-planned stunt, captured a real criminal!

When he discovered he had captured an actual criminal, Larry decided to continue battling crime, using mocking humor and embarrassing tricks to punish evildoers!

Trivia:

The editor at Magazine Enterprises who bought FunnyMan was Vin Sullivan, who also bought Superman from Siegel & Shuster when he was an editor at National Periodical Publications!

Larry Davis, FunnyMan's civilian identity, was based on movie / radio comedian Danny Kaye!

It was a clever idea, and pretty well executed.

Unfortunately, it didn't catch on.

The book only lasted six issues.

There was also a short-lived newspaper strip.

After FunnyMan failed and Siegel & Shuster lost their lawsuit, they went their separate ways.

But...FunnyMan has NOT been forgotten!

There's a book about the character--Siegel & Shuster's Funnyman: the First Jewish Superhero from the Creators of Superman by Thomas Andrae and Mel Gordon!

Besides the actual comic stories, there's a wealth of background info about Siegel & Shuster, the Danny Kaye connection, as well as the cultural influences that inspired the character!

Plus: we've brought FunnyMan back with a line of kool kollectibles (including mugs, t-shirts, iPad bags, etc.) in our Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics™ collection!

So why not get a gift set of the new book and one of our collectibles for the pop culture aficionado in your life?
What could it hurt? ;-)

Sean Connery (1930-2020) in Comics

Only one of the late, great Sean Connery's James Bond movies was adapted into comics...

...the first one, Doctor No!

Published in England as part of Gilberton's Classics Illustrated series, it was considered too lowbrow by the publisher's American editors.

They shopped it around to US publishers, almost all of whom passed on it...except DC Comics, who ran it (with Comics Code-approved changes) as part of their Showcase anthology comic!

Ironically, DC released the comic in January, 1963...but the movie wasn't in American theatres until May, 1963, by which point the bi-monthly comic was off the newsstands two issues and four months ago!
Remember, no internet, streaming video, DVD/BluRays, or even video cassettes at that time!

As you may have guessed, it sold poorly, and DC never picked up the option to do other James Bond movie comics...though their contract gave them the rights for a decade!

(Haven't you ever wondered why Gold Key, the leading movie-tv comic adaptor didn't do 007 comics?)

But that didn't mean Sean Connery (or his likeness) didn't appear in DC books!

In 1965, DC launched a futuristic spy series, Interplanetary Investigations in Mystery in Space.

Though the lead character, Jan Vern, was a typical blond, square-jawed comic hero (who looked in some panels like Robert Shaw, Connery's nemesis in From Russia with Love), supporting character Agent X aka Damos was a dead ringer for Sean...

Sadly, the never-reprinted series ran only two issues, but you, dear fan, can see them HERE and HERE!

(and, yes. both chapters feature Damos!)

In the early 1970s, Connery's appearance as Zed in the movie Zardoz...

...inspired (if that's the word) the look of a new Superman character...

...Vartox, a hero from another planet, who, after the misunderstanding on the cover of DC's Superman #281 (1974) was cleared up, became a staunch ally to the Man of Steel!

He's guest-starred ever since in various DC titles in basically the same outfit!

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics

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Connery

A biography in Graphic Novel Format

Most Excellent! Bill & Ted's Never-Repinted Adventure and Other Blogathon Goodies!

With the new Bill & Ted flick, Face the Music, dropping August 28th...

...we thought it only appropriate to re-present the never-reprinted hard-to-find adaptation of their first cinematic adventure...for comparison, of course!

Note: it was published as a tie-in to the videotape's (remember those?) release, after the movie appeared in theaters!

Behold this most excellent tale starting Monday the 24th at Secret Sanctum of Captain Video!

Meanwhile...

Superman gets better, but has to deal with a plethora of other Supermen at Hero Histories!

Hard-boiled lawyer Perry Mason kicks butt in "Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe" at Crime and Punishment!

The CW's favorite superheroine, Supergirl, has an unhappy anniversary at Heroines!

Surgeon X's scientist sister explains the secret of the near-future pandemics that will devastate the Earth in Medical Comics and Stories!

It's not Labor Day yet, so the RetroBlogs Summer Blogathons continue apace!

Don't Miss Them"

Can Your Heart Take the Conclusion of the Greatest Superman Story...that Nobody Remembers?

It's coming this week...

...as Superman faces death by disease, while Earth's superheroes face a world (in pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity) without a Superman to protect it!

Meanwhile, Supergirl faces the only super-villain worse than Lex Luthor...his niece...

...and shows Brainiac that payback is a super-bitch when he screws with her love-life!

Kung-Fu Fighter makes his debut...at DC after first appearing at Marvel!

(Weird, huh?)

Finally, in the pandemic-ridden near future, Surgeon X decides who lives and who die, via a multi-media presentation that'll blow your mind!

Plus, This Week...

The Return of Hard-Boiled Lawyer (Yes, it's a thing!) Perry Mason in Another Never-Reprinted Comic Adaption of an early Erle Stanley Gardner Novel!