Showing posts with label black history month. Show all posts
Showing posts with label black history month. Show all posts

Friday, February 28, 2025

Friday Fun / Baker Reading Room MGM's LASSIE "Down to the Sea"

As a dog owner, I say, there's nothing more fun than a playful dog!
Especially one who can do almost anything, except administer CPR!
Note: the b/w page is the comic's inside back cover, which was usually b/w or two-color.
The last page is the comic's back cover!
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 MGM's Lassie #20 (1955) is from the first issue of Matt's three-issue tenure as the feature's primary artist.
The writer is unknown.

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Thursday, February 27, 2025

Baker Reading Room: VOODAH "Monster Fish"

One of the first Lords of the Jungle was Black...
...and illustrated by a Black artist, specifically the legendary Matt Baker!

Illustrated by Matt Baker (who most fans know was one of the premiere Good Girl artists of the '40s-'50s, but don't know was one of the few African-American comic artists of the era), the idea of a non-White jungle hero seems obvious today, but was extremely-daring in the 1940s!
In fact, it was so daring that Voodah slowly became paler over the next few issues, eventually becoming just another White guy bossing the locals around!
Compare Voodah here with his first appearance in the previous issue of McCombs' Crown Comics HERE!
BTW, the "Clarence Ramon" credit at top is a house pseudonym.
Baker is the artist.
The writer is unknown.
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Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder AIRSHIP ENTERPRISE "Infernal Machine" Conclusion

It's all been leading to this...

...as Captain Janus Tibbs, in a last, desperate move, has her steampunk airship do what, apparently, every flying vehicle named Enterprise can do...separate the saucer (er...discus) section from the rest of the ship!






"And the Adventure Continues..."
Sadly, no!
While there is a graphic novel compilation of the mini series, there hasn't been a follow-up since initial publication in 2014!
Next Week:
A New World of Wonder!

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Graphic Novel re-presenting the mini-series along with additional goodies
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Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Baker Reading Room UNUSUAL TALES "Bordoni the Great"

Charles Nicholas and Vince Alascia's cover introduces a never-reprinted Matt Baker-penciled story...
..and there's not a single Baker-trademark beautiful woman in sight!
Cue The Twilight Zone music...
Writer Joe Gill and inker Vince Colletta join penciler Matt Baker in a simple, but effective story from Charlton's Unusual Tales #16 (1959) that could've worked as a standard-budget TV episode in the 1950s!
The tale reads like a set of storyboards with dramatic camera-angles and lighting effects!
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Sunday, February 23, 2025

Jackie Robinson Comics Covers

With Spring Training for Baseball Season in Full Swing...

...here's a bunch of serious collectibles!
Not baseball cards, but baseball comics!

These are the covers of the never-reprinted series that ran from 1949 to 1952 about the exploits of legendary player Jackie Robinson!
Not only was he Rookie of the Year, National League MVP, National League Batting Champion, two-time National League Base-Stealing Champion, a six-time All-Star, and a Baseball Hall of Famer (as if that wasn't enough)...

...he was also the man who made history in 1947 as the first Black player in the major leagues!
He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1947 through 1956 before retiring due to the effects of diabetes on his performance.
 
During that period, this series from Fawcett Comics came out each summer and fall from 1949 through 1952.
Besides being sold in newsstands and candy stores, it was also sold at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn where the Dodgers played home games.
Trivia: Babe Ruth was the only baseball player to have a longer-running comic than Robinson, but his mag, Babe Ruth Sports Comics was an anthology covering numerous sports with Babe himself appearing in only one story per issue for 11 issues!
There was a 1950 movie about Jackie, The Jackie Robinson Story, where he played himself (as an adult)!
In 2013, Chadwick (Black Panther) Boseman superbly-portrayed Jackie in the movie 42: the Jackie Robinson Story!
To this day, Jackie Robinson is remembered as one of the greatest players in baseball history!

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(BioPic starring Chadwick [Black Panther] Boseman)
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Saturday, February 22, 2025

Space Heroine Saturdays / Baker Reading Room MYSTA OF THE MOON "Prison Break on Paladnor!"

The February Matt Baker Posts have been Space-Oriented...

...but our final one goes full-on SPACE OPERA...starring a beautiful woman as the protagonist!
Surprise!






Though he didn't create Mysta of the Moon, Matt Baker demonstrates a wonderful "feel" for the character!
Makes me wish he had a chance to do more stuff for Planet Comics!
This tale from Fiction House's Planet Comics #58 (1949), was the first of two consecutive stories he penciled, inked by long-time associate Ray Osrin.
The script was by ongoing series writer Ross Galun.

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Matt Baker