Showing posts with label black americana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label black americana. Show all posts

Friday, February 26, 2021

Friday Fun FAST WILLIE JACKSON "Jabar in The Good Old Days"

From the premiere issue of Fitzgerald's Fast Willie Jackson...

...comes this never-reprinted two-pager by editor/writer Bertram Fitzgerald and artist "Gus LeMoine" that makes a serious point in a humorous way!.
Published by Black-owned company Fitzgerald Publications (who had previously published the Golden Legacy non-fiction comic series about Black history), Fast Willie was their entry into the mass market.
(There were no comic book stores at the time)

Though not Comics Code-approved, it received newsstand distribution, and sales were climbing for each successive issue.
Unfortunately, it reached break-even only with the seventh (and final) issue, when other matters caused Fitzgerald Publications to cease producing new material for an extended period. When Fitzgerald briefly resumed publishing, Fast Willie was not among the titles.
Written by publisher/editor Bertram Fitzgerald, illustrated by "Gus LeMoine".
Note: There's no record of Gus LeMoine outside of a brief comics career for Archie and Fitzgerald which coincidentally ends with superb Dan DeCarlo mimic Henry Scarpelli leaving his staff position at DC and becoming a full-time staff artist at Archie...at which point LeMoine's credits disappear!
Most artists in the comics field do other (fine or commercial art) work before and/or after their stint in comics.
There's no trace of Gus' work anywhere else!
If anybody can provide a link to his pre/post-comics work or some sort of biography I've missed, I'd be extremely grateful for the info!

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Thursday, February 25, 2021

Reading Room UNKNOWN WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION "Occupation Force"

From the mind of Frank Herbert, creator/author of the Dune series...
...comes a tale of how the concept of a screwed-up government bureaucracy is literally, universal!
This never-reprinted tale from Marvel's sci-fi anthology magazine Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #3 (1975) is an extremely-faithful adaptation by writer Gerry Conway, penciler George Perez, and inker Klaus Janson of the Frank Herbert short story that originally appeared in Ziff-Davis' sci-fi pulp Fantastic #V4N5 (1955).
In a kool touch, the creatives took the originally all-Caucasian Krolians...
...and made them an inclusive, interracial group.
Humans are humans, no matter their skin color, after all...
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Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Baker Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Green Fog!"

Before a long-haired hippie (hey, it was the Swinging Sixties) with a hammer took over the book...
....Atlas-Marvel's Journey into Mystery was first a horror, then sci-fi anthology featuring some of the best work of the era...quite a bit of it never-reprinted, like this tale from #50 (1959), penciled by the legendary Matt Baker and inked by Vince Colletta!
The scripter is unknown, but probably isn't editor Stan Lee, who tended to incorporate his distinctive signature into the title page when he wrote the story.
You'll note the inking is much more detailed here than in the previous Baker Reading Room story, also inked by Colletta, but published by Charlton!
Atlas' reproduction quality was better than Charlton's, so art studio owner/inker Colletta (who packaged stories for Atlas, Charlton, Dell and others) put more effort into the final product.
The Marvel Masterworks: Journey into Mystery reprint series ended with Volume Four (2012), which only reprinted up to #40, so almost all the non-Thor and Tales of Asgard material since #40 (including this story) hasn't been seen since original publication!

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Monday, February 22, 2021

Monday Madness HEAVY METAL "Mara's Edge"

Here's a retro-kool short story illustrated by one of the most underrated comic creators currently working...

As you might have guessed, Knight was heavily-influenced by 1920s-40s animators including the Fleisher Brothers, Tex Avery, and Chuck Jones.
He's worked in comics, animation, magazine illustration, commercial art, even CD and LP album cover graphics!
Though he collaborated with writer Steve Riggenberg on this tale never-reprinted tale from Heavy Metal V9N7 (1985), Knight usually scripts his own material.
Check out his website HERE!
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Volume 3
(Featuring Milton Knight Jr's graphic adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston's classic "Poker!")

Monday, February 15, 2021

Monday Madness FAST WILLIE JACKSON "Introduction" & "Jabar in The One and Only"

In the 1970s, there was an Archie-style comic aimed at Black audiences...
...and though it used artists who worked for Archie Comics, it wasn't published by Archie Comics!
Fast Willie Jackson was published  by Black-owned publisher Fitzgerald Publications who had previously published the Golden Legacy non-fiction comic series about Black history.

Fast Willie was their entry into the mass-market comics market.
Though not Comics Code-approved, it received newsstand distribution, and sales were climbing for each successive issue.
Unfortunately, it reached break-even only with the seventh (and final) issue, when other matters caused Fitzgerald Publications to cease producing new material for an extended period. When Fitzgerald briefly resumed publishing, Fast Willie was not among the titles.
Written by publisher/editor Bertram Fitzgerald, illustrated by "Gus LeMoine".
Note: There's no record of Gus LeMoine outside of a brief comics career for Archie and Fitzgerald which coincidentally ends with superb Dan DeCarlo mimic Henry Scarpelli leaving his staff position at DC and becoming a full-time staff artist at Archie...at which point Lemoine's credits disappear!
Most artists in the comics field do other (fine or commercial art) work before and/or after their stint in comics.
There's no trace of LeMoine's work anywhere else!
If anybody can provide a link to his pre/post-comics work or some sort of biography I've missed, I'd be extremely grateful for the info!

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics!
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Thursday, February 11, 2021

Baker Reading Room MGM's LASSIE "Isle of Adventure"

Besides being a superb "good girl" artist, Matt Baker was also a superb nature illustrator!

This tale from the era between the movie series and the TV show demonstrates Baker's amazing artistic range!
This page is black-and-white because it's the inside back cover.
Dell (and most comic publishers) printed the inside covers as b/w or two-color to save money.
After the last movie in the original series came out in 1951, the comic continued, with Lassie linked to new humans, including photographer Rocky Langford and his girlfriend Gerry Lawrence on their trip to South America!
Penciled by Matt Baker and inked by long-time artistic partner Ray Osrin (who inked, among other Baker stories, It Rhymes with Lust), this tale from Dell's Lassie #22 (1955) is from the final issue of Matt's three-issue tenure as the feature's primary artist.
The writer is unknown.

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Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Did You Know a Black Artist Penciled the FIRST Graphic Novel from a Comics Publisher?

Graphic Novels are the standard format for innovative storytelling today...
But "back in the day", as they say, it was an untried concept!
Written by Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller (as "Drake Waller"), illustrated by penciler Matt Baker and and inker Ray Osrin, the digest-sized 1950 one-shot from St John Publications is a pulpish "film noir" tale at its' coolest!
Dark Horse Comics (which published a high-quality reprint available below) explained it thusly...
In 1950, writers Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller, both attending college on the G.I. Bill, envisioned a sophisticated, novel-length comic tailored to their peers. Collaborating with comics art master Matt Baker, known for singularly defining the genre of "good girl art" on titles such as Phantom Lady, they crafted a film-noir inspired masterwork of romance, intrigue, and moral relativity. When cynical newspaperman Hal Weber reunites with old flame Rust Masson, he finds the beguiling widow of a mining magnate willing to do anything to undermine the local political machine--her only opponent for total control of Copper City!
Though not specifically-mentioned, penciler Matt Baker was one of the few Black artists of both comic books' Golden and Silver Ages!
It Rhymes with Lust was the basis of our 2017 Summer Blogathon spanning several RetroBlogs!
Start at True Love Comics Tales and experience not only comics history, but Black history as well!
Note: The thanks of a grateful nation go to Kracalactaka, who found the scans of the St John first edition in the wilds of the internet, cleaned them up, and made them available!
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Friday, February 5, 2021

Friday Fun CALVIN: Marvel's First African-American Humor Character!

The Black Panther was not the first Black Marvel character to get a cover-featured series!
He wasn't even the second!
He was the third!
First was Luke Cage, who received his own title...
Note: Though the series has ended, two of the stars have gone on to headline new CBS series!
Simone Missick (Misty Knight) on All Rise and Mike Colter (Luke Cage) on Evil!
Plus Rosario Dawson (Claire Temple/Night Nurse) is appearing on The Mandalorian!
The second character was...
WHO???
Several months before Prince T'Challa took over a reprint book, Jungle Action, and began a memorable series that served as part of the plot of the billion-dollar blockbuster movie...
...this character took over another reprint book and began a series that nobody remembers!
[You can read every never-reprinted tale featuring Calvin and his buddies HERE!]
What makes the strip even more fascinating, beyond the vaudeville-level humor, is the identity of the writer-artist behind it!
"Kevin Banks" was not a pseudonym for an already-established creative, but an editorial staffer at Marvel in the early 1970s who received his "big break" with this strip!
Trivia: Kevin was the first (and so far, onlyMarvel creator to have a head shot illustration on an on-going series!
Even the ever-amazing comics researcher Nick Caputo could find little about the mysterious Mr Banks, as seen HERE.
What did Banks did after working at Marvel?
Did he work in advertising?
Become an art instructor?
Switch careers and become an accountant or fireman?
We may never know the answer...