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

Sunday, December 8, 2024

Holiday Reading Room presents MARVEL CLASSIC COMICS' "A Christmas Carol"!

There have been numerous comic adaptations of Charles Dickens' legendary Yuletide ghost story...
...but this never-reprinted one from (believe it or not) Marvel Comics, has the distinction of being illustrated by more artists than any other version!
Credited to "Diverse Hands", the art styles I recognize include Bob Hall, Frank Giacoia, Frank Springer, Dave Cockrum, Marie Severin, Carmine Infantino, Steve Leialoha, John Romita Sr, Al Milgrom, Mike Esposito, and probably anybody who wandered into the Bullpen while this book was in production in 1978!
Trivia: 
This was the final title in the Marvel Classics Comics line which had started out as color reprints of the early '70s b/w Pendulum Press "comic adaptations of classic stories" series.
After a dozen issues, Marvel began doing their own adaptations, continuing for another two dozen issues.
Scripter Doug Moench was no newcomer to adapting prose to comics having worked on comics versions of literary properties including Doc Savage, The Shadow, James Bond, and Fu Manchu!
Colorist Francoise Mouly later became the art editor of The New Yorker, co-creator of the legendary comic anthology Raw, and is currently the publisher/editorial director of Toon Books.
You can read this HTF story by clicking HERE for Stave One, then just clicking the links at the bottom of each post!

Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder WORLDS UNKNOWN "Black Destroyer!" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...
Art by Gil Kane & Frank Giacoia
While exploring an alien world, the crew of the Space Beagle encounter Coeurl, who looks like a Terrestrial panther or lion...with the addition of tentacles!
But this is not a friendly housecat!
It's a primitive, but sentient, being who can not only reason, but deceive...

Trivia: The announced adaptation of Day of the Triffids ended up as the cover-featured tale in the premiere issue of Worlds Unknown's b/w magazine successor, Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction...
...under a misleading, but undeniably-kool cover by Kelly Freas!
In fact, an adaptation of Theodore Sturgeon's KillDozer ran in the next issue of Worlds Unknown...
Meanwhile, back with Black Destroyer...
Roy Thomas was concerned that the finale as shown in the adaptation wasn't clear enough, so he included an explanation on the letters page...
Bonus #1: You can read the complete original short story HERE.
Feel free to compare and contrast!
Bonus #2: here are the illustrations from the original pulp magazine, so you can see how closely Dan Adkins and Jim Mooney kept to the pulp magazine "feel" of the tale!

"Black Destroyer" was later incorporated with later short stories about the exploratory vessel Space Beagle into the novel Voyage of the Space Beagle, which is a tribute to Charles Darwin's scientific exploratory ship, "The Beagle".
BTW, Van Vogt sued 20th Century Fox over the 1979 movie Alien, claiming that it ripped off elements of "Black Destroyer" and "Discord in Scarlet", both of which were adapted into Voyage of the Space Beagle.
Fox settled out of court.
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Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder WORLDS UNKNOWN "Black Destroyer!" Part 1

A 1930s pulp story adapted into comic form in the 1970s...
...and a clear inspiration for aspects of movie and tv science fiction ranging from Forbidden Planet and Alien to Star Trek and Space: 1999 (among others)!
Will Coeurl deceive the crew and return with them to Earth?
Or will he simply kill the humans and commandeer the ship?
Find out in the conclusion next Wednesday, plus read some kool background info about the comic adaptation!
This tale from issue 5 (1974) of Marvel's short-lived science fiction anthology Worlds Unknown was adapted by Roy Thomas and illustrated by Dan Adkins & Jim Mooney.
It's based on "Black Destroyer", A E Van Vogt's first published story, which appeared as the cover story (a rare honor for a writer's premiere tale) in Astounding Science Fiction (July 1939).
It was later expanded in Vogt's novel Voyage of the Space Beagle, which continued the voyages of the starship and crew!
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Voyage of the Space Beagle
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Thursday, May 23, 2024

Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Filbert's Frightful Future!"

After Mighty Thor began his run in Journey into Mystery as of #83......
...and before Norse mythology-related backup series like Tales of Asgard began, the one-shot shorts like this never-reprinted tale continued to fill the back of the book until the inventory was used up!
Don Heck penciled and inked this story from Marvel's Journey into Mystery #85 (1962).
Stan Lee plotted it, but experts are not sure if he scripted it.
Lee usually co-signed the later shorts he scripted, but only Heck's signature is here.
Just about everything Lee didn't script at this point was handled by his brother Larry Lieber.
(Stan's birth name is Stanley Leiber. He used "Stan Lee" on his comics work because he wanted his real name on the Great American Novel he planned to write.
When he finally realized he would be forever known for his comics and not any prose novel he might write, he legally changed his name to "Stan Lee".)
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featuring the Thor stories that appeared in front of the never-reprinted tales we present!
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Tuesday, May 21, 2024

Reading Room / Tales Thrice Told TALES OF SUSPENSE "Last Rocket!"

Marvel's Tales of Suspense #39 (1963) is famous for it's cover story...
...but that oft-retold tale is not what we're looking at today!
Instead, we're presenting one of the backup stories...the third and final version of the "Adam & Eve on past/future Earth" trope plotted and/or scripted by Stan Lee.
You can read the previous two tales HERE and HERE.
Ok, I'm willing to believe that, with 1960s-level technology, all of Mankind could pull off a When Worlds Collide-style evacuation of the planet...though how they'd survive to reach another solar system several light-years distant is questionable.
I'm even willing to accept a couple of ecology-oriented sorts being stubborn (and let's face it, suicidal) enough to remain on their home world to the bitter end.
But an "exploding star" close enough to warm and light the planet, yet totally-unknown to anyone before that?
C'mon!
And one more thing...couldn't the space fleet just turn around and return when they noticed the "exploding star" behind them?
In this "Adam and Eve" retelling, it's believed that Lee plotted the story and his brother, Larry Lieber, scripted it.
But it's a fact that the legendary Gene Colan penciled and inked the absolutely beautiful art!
It makes the rather silly story bearable.
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Thursday, May 16, 2024

Reading Room / Tales Thrice Told STRANGE TALES "A Thouand Years Later..."

...today we give you the second version, by the legendary team of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko!
Written by Stan Lee and illustrated by Steve Ditko, this story from Marvel's Strange Tales #90 (1961) is the second time in two years that Lee produced a story based on the "Adam and Eve on past/future Earth" cliche, this time adding the plot element of an immortal man who didn't fit in with society.
Lee would reuse the "Adam and Eve" concept one more time two years later...as we shall see Tuesday!
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AMAZING FANTASTIC INCREDIBLE
A MARVELOUS Memoir

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Friday, April 12, 2024

Friday Fun HOLY CREAM-FILLED PASTRY!

When Hostess Baking ceased operation in 2012, a chapter of comics history ended...
This wonderfully-looney series of ads featuring all the major comics characters from Archie to Spider-Man to Casper the Friendly Ghost to Wonder Woman appeared in comics for almost a decade, featuring some of the best artists in the business including Neal Adams (above with Dick Giordano), Gil Kane, John Romita Sr, Curt Swan, Jim Starlin, and Frank Miller doing the rendering!
Note: You can see a complete set of the Marvel and DC ones HERE!
Bonus: the original art for this ad...

BTW, Hostess' nigh-indestructible pastries have since returned to supermarket shelves...but the comic advertising never did!