Veterans' Day Special: Comic Books Played a Major Part...

...in shaping the public's impression of our troops during World War II!

Tribute to the Navy Air Corps
featuring F6F Hellcat fighters.
Issue #11

Tribute to the Army Air Force

featuring B-24 Liberator heavy bombers.
Issue #10

Tribute to the Marine Air Corps
featuring F4U Corsair fighters.
Issue #9

Among the classiest were these three beautiful covers for Aviation  Press' Contact Comics.
Spectacular, intense, eye-catching color highlights these poster-style pieces of art by artist LB Cole.
Each one paid honor to the aviation division of one of the three armed forces branches. (The Air Force as a separate branch didn't come about until after WWII)

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Black Light

World of L.B. Cole
Paid Link

Reading Room D-DAY with BLACKHAWK, SGT FURY, and SGT ROCK!

It was damned crowded 80 years ago today at Normandy Beach!

Blackhawk and his team were there, battling (what else?) giant Nazi war machines and revealing their secret origin!

Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos were there (although the cover was a "cheat", since they swam in using SCUBA gear a couple of nights before, knocked out Nazi defenses and communications, then proceeded to the invasion site from inside France)!

And Sgt Rock was there, leading Easy Company into the thick of it!

Click on the links and enjoy!

It's Memorial Day!

Remember the guys who went thru THIS for us!
A public service message from your pals at
Atomic Kommie Comics™

Space Hero Saturdays FLASH GORDON: THE GREATEST ADVENTURE OF ALL

Before Flash Gordon the Movie came to movie screens in 1980...
...another Flash-related project came to fruition!
No, not the animated TV series!
A self-contained, feature-length, animated movie!

It was conceived and written by Sam (Classic Star Trek "Where No Man Has Gone Before") Peebles as a prime-time live-action feature, not a Saturday morning animated kiddie series!
But the budget required for the script would've been $30,000,000 (almost $100,000,000 in 2024 dollars!)!
So, it was decided to do the project using classic cel animation, including rotoscoping for both character movement and spaceship action!

Note: Heavy Metal; the Movie, in production at the same time, utilized the same approach!
But they had to use several different studios, working together, to complete their feature film!
Though a lot of the footage from Greatest Adventure of All was recycled, over half is exclusive to the feature, including Flash in a Doc Savage-style torn shirt and jodpurs for the first 2/3rds of the film!
That footage was re-drawn for the series with Flash in his red and blue Mongo uniform.
It's the way Flash was drawn in the first few weeks of the newspaper strip, and Buster Crabbe followed suit in the first couple of chapters of the first movie serial!

BTW, the film starts out in Warsaw, Poland at the beginning of World War II before heading to Mongo, and all the Earth-based technology, including Zarkov's ship, are contemporary to what was shown in sci-fi magazines and flix of the era!

Now, with pardonable pride, we present the complete feature film which is unavailable on American physical media sources and only aired once, on late night TV in 1982.

Note the cameos by Adolph Hitler, to whom Ming is supplying weapon and rocket technology!

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Check out our Flash, Buck, Brick and other Space Hero goodies at...

Thrilling Fantasy Tales

Celebrate D-Day...by Reading Comics/Graphic Novels!

It's the anniversary of D-Day, when the Allies, led by America, invaded Fortress Europa...

...and we at Atomic Kommie Comics had our "brother-in-arms" RetroBlog War: Past Present and Future post numerous graphic tales of that epic day, beginning with Marvel's Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos hitting the beach on D-Day!

Yes, it was reprinted in a Marvel Masterworks over a decade ago, but those are extremely-expensive and didn't sell very well, so most of you have never seen this tale from over a half century ago!

We gave equal time to Fury's DC counterpart, Sgt. Rock, presenting his never-reprinted D-Day adventure...which was also the final story illustrated by his co-creator Joe Kubert!

It was really crowded at Normandy on June 6th, 1944 since Blackhawk and his team were also there, so it's only fair we present their never-reprinted D-Day adventure...which also doubles as their previously-unrevealed origin...at Hero Histories!

The EC Comics crew, best known for sci-fi and horror, also did a story about D-Day...by three ex-military personnel as seen HERE!

And one of their crew, who served in the Merchant Marine before becoming a paratrooper, did this tale  about our paratroopers on D-Day...

We here at the "parent" RetroBlog joined in with both a brief three-pager...

...and a multi-part retelling courtesy of Gilberton, the publisher behind Classics Illustrated and World Around Us!

Enjoy, and if you have a friend or family member who's a D-Day veteran, tell him "Thank You" for us!

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Essential Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos

by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers and others

And

Showcase Presents Sgt Rock

by Robert Kanigher, Joe Kubert and others

Space Hero Saturdays SPACEHAWK "Scraches of Doom" & "Moon Justice"

Our final Spacehawk post for the foreseeable future involves two text stories written and illustrated by Basil Wolverton!

You may remember there was a previous two-parter that he neither scripted nor rendered!
Whether he was unhappy with the result, or was simply irritated that the publisher let someone else handle the character, he produced these two rarely-seen tales...

...from Target Comics #10 (above) and Target Comics #15 (below)

And so ends SpaceHawk's adventures as a Saturday Space Hero!
Be here next Saturday as another character gets his (or her) chance to be a Space Hero!

Space Hero Saturdays SPACEHAWK "and the Uncanny Underwater Tank!"

As we saw last time, SpaceHawk was reassigned by Uncle Sam himself to protect Earth......specifically, the United States of America, from harm...as you can tell from the strip's new sub-head!

Here's where the problem begins!

It's clear the underwater tank's crew are unfamiliar with rocket ships!

But the SpaceHawk strip was set in the future, where the entire solar system (including Earth) utilized advanced technology!
The previous story offered no indication that SpaceHawk was in the 1940s instead of his own time, but this tale from Novelty's Target Comics V2N3 (1941), showing an American fleet of battleships with smoke-spewing engines, and crewmen of an underwater tank who don't know about rockets, is a pretty clear indication our Space Hero is now in the "present day" (1940)!
BTW, the fact the underwater tank exists isn't proof the series is still in the future!
Pop culture (including comics, pulps, movies, and radio shows) showed both the Allies and Axis using advanced weaponry during WWII (as shown HERE and HERE)! 
In review the remaining SpaceHawk tales, we see our hero remains Earthbound for the remainder of the run, thus, he's no longer a "Space Hero"!.
So it is with a heavy heart that we'll be discontinuing his adventures after one final appearance two weeks from now!

But why are we waiting?

Be here in two weeks to see!

X

Space Hero Saturdays TARGET COMICS "SpaceHawk Answers Uncle Sam's Call!"

Pretty appropriate for the 4th of July weekend, eh?
...as the realities of pre-Pearl Harbor America interrupt Spacehawk's fictional far-future exploits!
The story's about to take a sharp turn for SpaceHawk as things get multiversal, kiddies!
Oddly, the 1861 image, showing the Civil War, doesn't show a cavalryman wearing either Union blue or Confederate gray...but green, which wasn't an official uniform color during that period in American history!

In 1940, with World War II underway, most Americans accepted it was only a matter of time until we were drawn into the war.

As the government began to scale up military preparations, the entertainment media started turning their characters towards dealing with the potential threats from across both oceans!
Comic book and pulp heroes began encountering thinly-disguised surrogates for German, Japanese, and Italian spies and soldiers.
In perhaps the best-known of these stories, Superman invaded Germany and Russia, grabbing Hitler and Stalin, and brought them to trial!
(And this was in 1940!)
As for this tale from Novelty Press' Target Comics V2N1 [13] (1941), though the writer is unknown, it may be editor David Adams.
Illustrator Ben Thompson likely was assigned the cover and short feature because he wasn't the artist on any of the series, but made an effort to deliberately match the various styles of the other artists on their respective characters.
SpaceHawk didn't begin his assignment immediately, as he was finishing up a two-part story on Neptune, as we showed HERE!
With the next issue, though, he jumped into the fray!
But, due to racial stereotypes common to World War II entertainment media, we can't show it to you on this blog!
You'll have to go HERE to see it!

 

Monday Military Madness D-DAY with Blackhawk, Sgt Fury and Sgt Rock!

It was damned crowded at Normandy Beach on June 6, 1944!

Blackhawk and his team were there, battling (what else?) giant Nazi war machines and revealing their secret origin!

Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos were there (although the cover was a "cheat", since they swam in using SCUBA gear a couple of nights before, knocked out Nazi defenses and communications, then proceeded to the invasion site)!

And Sgt Rock was there, leading Easy Company into the thick of it!

Click on the links to enjoy!

Salute to the Veterans!

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day!

A sincere 

Thank You

for your service, men and women of our Armed Forces, past and present, for your dedication and sacrifice!

Friday Fun SANTA CLAUS FUNNIES "Santa's Jeep!"

One of the koolest Christmas covers ever...

...which most people don't realize is a wraparound, since they've only seen the front and, as a result, don't get the joke!

This cover for Dell's Santa Claus Funnies #1 (1942) has never been reprinted in full!

I've seen the front cover in a number of reference books, but never the back one.

BTW, the reason Santa's driving a Jeep is, well, let Santa himself explain on the inside front cover...

"Too bouncy", eh?
Though the artist is considered "unknown" by the Grand Comics Database, it looks a lot like Walt (Pogo) Kelly, who was working at Dell, and contributed a couple of stories to the book.
(Yeah, I know it's after Christmas, but it's before New Year's, so if you can leave the tree and decorations up, I can do a couple more Yuletide-themed posts!

The Mini-Blogathons Return...

Starting next week, our annual Mini-Blogathons will be back...

We had so much D-Day material available, that we've decided to use some of it for the blogathons, beginning with Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos hitting the beach on D-Day!

Yes, it was reprinted in a Marvel Masterworks a decade ago, but those are extremely-expensive and didn't sell very well, so most of you have never seen this tale from 53 years ago!

We're giving equal time to Fury's counterpart, Sgt. Rock, presenting his never-reprinted D-Day adventure!

Both of these sagas will appear at (where else) War: Past, Present & Future!

It was really crowded at Normandy on June 6th, 1944 since Blackhawk and his team were also there, so it's only fair we present their never-reprinted D-Day adventure...which also doubles as their never-revealed origin...at Hero Histories!

Since we're phasing back in to regular blogging after the harrowing events of the past few months, we're limiting the Blogathons, which, while fun, tend to be exhausting to produce!

Starting Monday, we'll be back to daily posts here at Atomic Kommie Comics, continuing the ongoing features where we left off!

In addition, True Love Comics Tales will return to weekly posting on Wednesday, beginning with our usual Summertime "beach read", a book-length Gothic novel!

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics!

Visit Amazon and Order...

Essential Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos

by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers and others

And

Showcase Presents Sgt Rock

by Robert Kanigher, Joe Kubert and others

D-Day 75th Anniversary "Part 5: The Landing"

The greatest invasion in history is underway...

...and the action is about to get hot and heavy!

Let's dive right in!

Illustrated by the highly-underrated George Evans, this chapter appeared as a backup in Gilberton's World Around Us #31 (1961).

This particular issue was subtitled "Hunting", but the stand-alone lead tales in the front had little relationship to the serials in the back of the book!

To see Part 6: Beachhead...click HERE!

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Six Days

The Incredible Story of D-Day's Lost Chapter

by Robert Venditti, Kevin Maurer & Andrea Mutti