Atomic Kommie Comics: Thanksgiving

Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts

Thursday, November 28, 2024

Holiday Reading Room EVERY DAY IS A HOLLY DAY "Thanksgiving Day" & HUMBUG "Like How to Carve Turkey"

A look at Thanksgiving...including before it was Thanksgiving!

Note there is a historically-inaccurate aspect below...

Interestingly, this page from Brevity Inc's one-shot giveaway Every Day is a Holly Day (1956) plays up the fallacy that turkeys were served at the first Thanksgiving, when the primary dish was eel!
In fact, Benjamin Franklin wanted the wild turkey to be America's official bird and you don't eat your official bird!

Why is this comic entitled "Every Day is a Holly Day" instead of "Every Day is a Holiday"?

Because it was given away to kids by grocers who sold Holly Sugar!

Illustrated by John Rosenberger, it's a unique pamphlet covering a number of American holidays, including both Lincoln and Washington's Birthdays (before they were combined into "Presidents' Day"), Mothers' Day (though not Fathers' Day), Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and a couple of holidays we've largely abandoned...Pan-American Day and American Indian Day!

Now, let's switch from reverence to sarcasm, with a never-reprinted one-pager by Arnold Roth from Humbug Publications' Humbug #5 (1957) covering a major culinary conundrum...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thursday, November 23, 2023

Holiday Reading Room UNCANNY TALES "Executioner"

This may not appear to be a holiday tale...

...but it is...for everyone except the unseen (until the end) victim!

Could you tell that this Myron Fass-illustrated story from Atlas' Uncanny Tales #9 (1953) was done during the horror comics craze of the early 1950s?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Monday, December 6, 2021

Monday Mars Madness SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS

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 cinema, Long Island New York (in an unused airplane hanger!

Starring a host of tv and b-movie actors including handsome-but-wooden Leonard Hicks as the benevolent Martian leader 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 Martian villain, Voldar, and John Call as a pretty damn convincing Santa Claus, the flick is touted these days as the debut of future talentless chantuse Pia Zadora as Kimar's daughter Girmar.
(Thankfully, she has rather limited screen time.)

The plot's pretty simple.

The children of Mars are in a funk.

The adult Martians deduce it's due to the children's strict and sterile upbringing, and that to "normalize" them, the kids must have fun!

And what could be more fun than celebrating Christmas?

But, to do a proper Christmas, you need a Santa Claus!

Thus, the Martians journey to Earth to kidnap Santa Claus and force him to create a Christmas celebration on Mars!

Then, as they used to say in TV Guide's plot listings, hilarity ensues! (well, sorta)

As an example of low-budget filmmaking, it's amazingly-effective.

Every penny (what few of them they had) is up on the screen.

The costuming and Santa's Workshop and Mars sets are as good as those of tv shows of the period.

(The Martian robot is probably the weakest element from a design and execution standpoint, but, hey, nobody's perfect!)

There's extensive use of military stock footage (from Dr. Strangelove, no less).

And, the idea to utilize the Wham-O Air Blaster toy guns as 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 and BluRays 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 our Cool Christmas collection on stuff including kid and adult sweatshirts, hoodies, mugs and coasters, tree ornaments, throw blankets and snugglies, and greeting cards!

BTW: The image is from the comic book tie-in. There was also a 45rpm single of the theme, a spoken-word LP album of the movie's dialogue, and a novelization, all of which are HTF...and expensive when you do find them!

Be Here Next Monday,

when we begin our re-presentation of the comic book adaptation of the movie!

Now I can't get that damn theme out of my head..."Hoo-ray for Santy Claus..."

AARRRGGGHHH!

Thursday, November 25, 2021

Holiday Reading Room HUMBUG "Voyage of the Mayflower II"

Here's a look from Humbug #3 (1957) at how a trend begins...

...which writer/artist R. O. Blechman derived from the real-life adventure of the Mayflower II, which apparently made a boodle of cash and inspired construction (and exploitation) of replicas of other famous sailing vessels!

Utilizing reconstructed ship blueprints held by the American museum Plymouth Plantation, and hand-built by English shipbuilders using traditional methods, the sea-worthy vessel actually sailed the Atlantic from England to Plymouth Rock, Mass, where it's been a tourist attraction ever since.

The Mayflower II is currently drydocked and undergoing restoration.
Happy Thanksgiving!