Friday Holiday Fun BOYS' LIFE "A Christmas Carol"

A Couple of Weeks Ago, We Presented What We Believed was the Shortest Version of This Oft-Told Tale!

We were WRONG!

Craig (Golden Age Sandman) Flessel told the tale (with, admittedly, a lot of editing) in two pages, as shown in the Yuletide issue of Boys' Life Magazine (December 1952)!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Monday Madness ESQUIRE "Return of A Christmas Carol"

The tale of Scrooge's Yuletide redemption has been told and re-told ad nauseum since 1843...

...but never quite like this updated version from Esquire Magazine (December, 1961).

Adapted/laid-out by Harvey Kurtzman and illustrated by David Levine, this re-telling is loaded with Mad Men-era pop culture and political references you'll have to Google to understand if you didn't live through the era!
Consider it our Monday Madness Xmas gift!

Visit our

A Christmas Carol / Scrooge

Collectibles Store!

Design of the Week...REDUX! SANTA'S WORKSHOP IS A SWEATSHOP???

Normally, each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another!

In this case, the response has been so overwhelming, we're going to keep the design up until Christmas!

(BTW, you'll note that the cover is dated January, 1939.

But it was actually on sale in November, 1938! 

Publishers used to cover-date comics and pulps two to three months ahead of the actual on-sale date to keep the books on the stands for as long as possible!)

Pick up this kool design on mugs, greeting cards, and other Yuletide collectibles NOW!

Christmas will be here before you know it!

Space Hero Saturdays JOURNEY INTO UNKNOWN WORLDS "They Wait in the Shadows!" & JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Monsters on Mercury!"

Sometimes "heroes" are everyday people...

...placed in unique situations, like colonizing a distant world, as in the tale behind a very misleading (but extremely-kool) Bill Everett cover!

Illustrated by Bob Forgione and scripted by an unknown writer, this story from Atlas' Journey into Unknown Worlds #47 (1956) is more "hard" science-fiction and less "science-fantasy" than this later tale by a pair of Silver Age legends following the same basic plot...

This long-forgotten Stan Lee/Steve Ditko (You've heard of them, right?) tale from Atlas' Journey into Mystery #78 (1962) amps up the humans' paranoia, but plays down scientific accuracy!
(Even in 1962, we knew Mercury was unlivable for humans without extensive protective equipment and clothing!)

But, to be fair, both tales are equally-good at getting the Yuletide message across, eh?

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Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories

Monday Madness MYSTIC "Help Wanted"

A Christmas tale that begins, weirdly enough, just before Easter...

...proves it didn't pay to be a Scrooge in the 1950s...or today!

Mort Lawrence illustrated this tale of Xmas justice from Atlas' Mystic #19 (1953) including a rather...unusual-looking...demon.

This proved a tad problematic when editor Roy Thomas made the tale the cover feature for an issue of Marvel's 1970s horror reprint anthology Vault of Evil!

Penciller Gil Kane and inker John Romita Sr followed the demon's design perfectly...but someone forgot to tell the cover copywriter what the story was about!

There's no story in #6 (1973) even vaguely-related to insects!

And detail-obsessed Roy Thomas is the last person you'd expect to allow such a mistake!

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Krampus

Design of the Week! SANTA'S WORKSHOP IS A SWEATSHOP???

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another!

This week...go back 85 years ago, to November 1938 and see...when elves were part of the 99%!

(You'll note that the cover is dated January, 1939.

But it was actually on sale in November, 1938! 

Publishers used to cover-date comics and pulps two to three months ahead of the actual on-sale date to keep the books on the stands for as long as possible!)

And it looks like the elves aren't going to settle for sweatshop wages and conditions at the North Pole anymore!

Pick up this kool design on mugs, greeting cards, and other Yuletide collectibles NOW!

Christmas will be here before you know it!

Have Yourself a Star Wars Christmas with...CHRISTMAS IN THE STARS!

Click on the pic to see the superb Ralph McQuarrie cover art in all it's glory!

You were expecting the Star Wars Christmas Special?

Here's John (Finn) Boyega hearing this album for the first time!
(For the record, I got the album when it came out..and still have it!)

CURIOUS CASE OF SANTA CLAUS

My all-time favorite Doctor Who is #3, played by Jon Pertwee...

Jon as The Doctor with Eizabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, his final companion

...so when this documentary about Kris Kringle, packaged as a tale featuring Pertwee as a psychiatrist with a patient (James Coco) who thinks he's Santa Claus, ran on A&E in the late 1980s, I taped it and showed it every Christmas...until the tape jammed!

Now I (and you) can enjoy it once more... 
Merry Christmas!!!

Space Celebration Saturday COMICO CHRISTMAS SPECIAL "Traditions Everlasting"

Beneath this never-reprinted Dave Stevens cover...

...lies the polar opposite of the cynical Christmas tale we told yesterday!

See?

There is hope for Christmas (if not humanity) after all!

Written by Doug Wheeler, illustrated by Steve Rude and Bret Blevins, this cover-featured tale from Comico Christmas Special #1 (1988) is this perfect closer to our little blogathon of Christmas-themed stories!
Now get out there, finish your last-minute shopping, and spend the evening with the family!

Space Hero/Heroine Saturdays will return after the New Year!

Holiday Reading Room CHRISTMAS CARNIVAL "Santa's Red Red Nose"

What happens if Kris Kringle gets sick on Christmas Eve?

This tale from St John's Christmas Carnival (1952) 100-page one-shot gives you the answer!

It was all a dream!

Thank Heavens!

The thought of a Christmas without Santa is just too much to bear! ;-)
This tale (and the entire Christmas Carnival 100-page 25-cent book) were published twice!
Once in 1952 by Ziff-Davis and again in 1955 by St John Publishing, which bought the Ziff-Davis comics line's material when the publisher liquidated that division after the "Seduction of the Innocent" witch hunt!
Ironic, since Ziff-Davis Comics was one of the least-offensive publishers on the magazine racks!
The writer and artist(s) are unknown.

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Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories

Holiday Reading Room SPELLBOUND "When You Believe"

Considering A Christmas Story was directed by the guy who directed the original Black Christmas (1974)..

...it's almost a miracle that holiday classic didn't end up like this Xmas tale of a boy and his toy gun!

Rendered beautifully by Bill Everett, this Yuletide tale from Atlas' Spellbound #16 (1953) appeared during the height of the horror comics craze of the early 1950s.

The identity of the writer is, sadly, unknown.

When the story was reprinted in Marvel's Weird Wonder Tales #3 (1974), only the first panel of the opening page was slightly-modified, eliminating almost all the text!

I have no idea why!

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Black Christmas (1974)

Directed by Bob Clark (A Christmas Story)

or

Black Christmas (2006)

The Unrated, Gorier Remake!
or

Black Christmas (2019)

The Even Gorier Semi-Remake!