Showing posts with label dc comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dc comics. Show all posts

Thursday, June 2, 2022

Reading Room TIME WARP "Return to the Stars"

As various countries (including us, due to Don da Con) plan to weaponize Outer Space...
...take a look back to when we weren't trying to act like total idiots outside of our planet's atmosphere and threats to peace were only from our own species.
Using both established pros and talented newcomers, this oversized anthology (68 pages for $1 when the standard comic was 36 pages for 40¢) presented all-new material, almost all of which (including this story) has never been reprinted!
While Howard Chaykin certainly is an "established pro", writer Wyatt Gwyon, who might qualify as a newcomer, is a mystery.
With less than two dozen stories to his credit, Gwyon came onto the comics scene in 1977 scripting horror and sci-fi stories for various DC anthology titles until he disappeared in 1983.
There was no sign of him in comics...or anywhere else...until he popped-up again...with a one-page Wolverine story in Marvel's What If...? #34 (1992)!
Was "Wyatt Gwyon" a pseudonym?
Probably, since Wyatt Gwyon was the protagonist of William Gaddis' acclaimed 1950s novel The Recognitions.
He's a frustrated fine artist with a gift for imitating the styles of Old Masters.
Unscrupulous art dealers and critics use him to create phony "undiscovered Old Masters" they sell for huge prices!
Was Wyatt a novelist/poet/movie-TV scripter who decided to try his hand at comics?
Or was he a DC or Marvel staffer who wanted to make some extra cash?
We'll probably never know...
...or will we?
According to Martin O'Hern, comics creator detective, the Who's Who created by mega-fan Jerry Bails (aka the Father of Comic Book Fandom) identifies "Gwyon" as long-time DC scripter Martin Pasko...but with a "?" by his name, probably because it's never been fully-confirmed.
Note that Mike Kaluta, definitive artist for the comic version of The Shadow, provided pulp-style covers for the entire run.
While they had no relation to any of the stories in the book, they were spectacular!
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Thursday, May 12, 2022

George Perez (1954-2022)

One of the most-successful of the second wave of fans-turned-pros...

...George Perez became his generation's Jack Kirby*, producing a massive (and magnificent) body of work spanning decades and genres**, yet never losing his modesty about his accomplishments...
...or his fanboy sense of humor, as this piece, done during his run on the Logan's Run comic demonstrates!
Besides super-heroes and tv/movie adaptations, George drew almost anything he was asked to do...including the massive JLA/Avengers crossover (two different versions) and the continuity-redefining Crisis on Infinite Earths!
He even did two Beatles-themed projects...
...The Beatles Story and the unreleased-in-America Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band**!
We've presented a few of his lesser-known stories...
...and next Tuesday and Thursday we'll present a couple more rarely-seen tales illustrated by George.
*To be fair, Kirby created far more characters than Perez, who specialized in revamping/revitalizing characters!
**Curiously, though he did numerous super-hero tales involving romantic relationships, George
never did an actual romance comic story!
***Sgt Pepper was released in Europe (including England) and Asia.

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder ADVENTURERS' CLUB "Whick! Whock! Whick! Whock!"

Let's end the too-brief run of this retro (even when it was published almost 50 years ago) series...
...with a story about the world's most unique timepiece as we present the final chapter of The Adventurers' Club!
This never-reprinted story from DC's Adventure Comics #430 (1973) featured a new creative team, writer Arnold Drake and artist Luis Dominguez (who had illustrated the only cover the Adventurers' Club appeared on as shown last week) and an oddly-red-headed Nelson Strong!
Though the Adventurers' Club strip ended, Nelson Strong would reappear a couple of decades later in DC's Swamp Thing #145-150 (1994-5) as a big-game hunter attempting to capture Swampy.
Nelson dies in the attempt and is briefly resurrected as an Elemental!
Bet that would've been a helluva Adventurers' Club story, eh?
Next Wednesday
A New World of Wonder!

Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder ADVENTURERS' CLUB "Voodoo Lizards!"

This cover scene by Luis Dominguez does not appear in the comic!
...where the requirement for entry was a tale about an "exciting or unusual adventure".
Note: though Carter states he's getting "great action pictures" for his publisher (indicating a print magazine or book), he's using a movie camera, not a standard "still-photo" camera!
This never-reprinted story from DC's Adventure Comics #427 (1973) could be considered either science fiction or fantasy with a horror twist.
Either way, writer John Albano and artist Jim Aparo did a great job evoking mood and telling a cohesive story in only 8 pages, eh?
Trivia: Luis Dominguez, who illustrated the cover above (the only cover the Adventurers' Club was ever featured on) took over the art for the next (and last) tale featuring the group.
You'll see it next Wednesday.

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder ADVENTURERS' CLUB " 'Scortch' Jordan's Tommy Gun"

The first ongoing feature during Adventure Comics' short-lived 1970s return to an anthology format...
...was this strip with a Boris Karloff-lookalike host.
It's unclear whether writer John Albano (who had been scripting Supergirl until it left Adventure) or Adventure Comics editor Joe Orlando conceived the series.
This never-reprinted tale from DC's Adventure Comics #426 (1973) clearly shows the "ghost" to be of non-supernatural origin, but later stories lean towards supernatural elements.
When The Spectre was reintroduced in Adventure, for a memorable run by Michael Fleisher and Jim Aparo, the cover title (though not indicia) became Weird Adventure Comics.
I mentioned the visual of the host, Nelson Strong, was "Karloff-esque".
Here's Karloff from his one-season 1950s tv series Colonel March of Scotland Yard.
Does he look like the visual inspiration for Nelson Strong?
I'd be willing to bet on it...

Sunday, April 24, 2022

The Comic Book Trade Paperback You SHOULD have Bought...but DIDN'T!

Remember this spectacular wraparound cover?
This superb, never-reprinted Murphy Anderson illustration encapsulates what made DC's science fiction line in the 1950s and 60s so entertaining!
  • Adam Strange and Alanna! (DC's premiere Silver Age space-going heroes!)
  • Winged Apes! (DC was famous for using apes almost anywhere you could think of!)
  • A ridiculous, physically-impossible image (giant arrow thrown by aforementioned winged [but normal-sized] ape through the Earth) that you just must know the story behind! (Though, sadly, in this case, there's no actual story behind this particular piece!)
Fireside's Mysteries in Space (1980), a $7.95 trade paperback reprint compiled from Strange AdventuresMystery in SpaceTales of the Unexpected, and From Beyond the Unknown came and went quickly through bookstores.
Sadly, it didn't sell well, and many copies were returned to the publisher and pulped!
It's not available in e-book form, and a different 1999 trade paperback, Mystery in Space, doesn't reprint any of the stories featured in this compilation!
When you can find a copy now, it runs from $30 to $100, depending on condition!
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Thursday, April 14, 2022

Reading Room SENSATION MYSTERY "Vengeance of the Invisible Men!"

Here's a kool, never-reprinted, 1950s sci-fi tale...
...using a combination of different genre cliches!
Illustrated by the legendary Murphy Anderson, this story from DC's Sensation Mystery #110 (1952) combines the following cliches:
Glasses that enable somone to see things nobody else can see!
Creatures from the center of the Earth rising up to attack up!
A heroic human in alien/creature form stopping the enemy from destroying/enslaving humanity!
All of which leads me to believe the unknown writer of this tale is Gardner Fox, who was also working for DC as well as being well-versed in such concepts because he was both an established pulp and paperback novelist and an avid sci-fi fan!
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Wednesday, March 23, 2022

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder ATARI FORCE Part Two "Chapter Three: Spoils of War"

When Last We Left the Mysterious Woman in Dark Burgundy...

...(who actually was Atari's Security Chief), had started relating the "back story" about her experiences in 1998's Five Day War that almost destroyed the Earth...
Written by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, penciled by Ross Andru, and inked by Dick Giordano and Mike DeCarlo, this tale, included with the Atari Berzerk video game cartridge in 1982 is completes the background about both the crew and their mission.
The remaining three comics in the series (also included with VG cartridges) are about their adventures in various universes.
Note: the next chapter of Scanner One's travels (which we'll present in the near future) is not named after the game it's included with!
That honor went to a tale that, while part of this series, featured a new group of characters who were native to one of the universes and was published as a separate graphic novel!

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Art of Atari