Monday Madness MIGHTY MARVEL COMICS STRENGTH AND FITNESS BOOK "Posture and Balance Exercises from The Silver Surfer"

 The full title is Stan Lee Presents the Mighty Marvel Comics Strength and Fitness Book...

...but that was too long for the post header!

The book is actually pretty clever and its' use of specific characters for particular easy-to-do exercises is nicely done!

Written by Ann Picardo and illustrated by Joe Giella, this never-reprinted 1976 trade paperback from Fireside/Pocket Books was part of their extensive line of Marvel titles that included the original Stan Lee/Jack Kirby Siver Surfer: the Ultimate Cosmic Experience graphic novel, the four-volume Origins reprints series, and assorted individual character reprints as well as How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way and oddball titles like Marvel Fun Book and Mighty Marvel SuperHeroes' Cookbook!

Trump Reading Room "Sinner"

If you wonder what sort of mindset would allow "God-fearing" evangelicals...

...to support a proven heathen like Don da Con, as The Chosen of the Lord, perhaps this over half-century old tale will offer some insight...

In case you have trouble reading the marker, here it is...enlarged...

Originally published in the wonderful Silver Age prozine, Witzend #1, in 1966, this Archie Goodwin-scripted and illustrated tale has also appeared in Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction Special #1 (1976) and Epic Illustrated #2 (1980), never losing it's impact!

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Best of Witzend

Monday Madness BIZARRE ADVENTURES "Slay Bells!"

This never-reprinted tale is rendered in black and white...and red!

Lots of red!

No, there never was a "Weird Easter" issue.

In fact, this issue (#34 [1983]), was the final one of Bizarre Adventures!

Apparently, "Slay Bells!" writer/artist Mike Carlin, and the rest of the contributors decided to let it all hang out in this "Hate the Holidays" issue!

After all, the book was being cancelled...what was anybody going to do about it?

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Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories

Reading Room WORLD OF FANTASY "Clock Strikes NEVER!"

Here's a fascinating Silver Age tale about time travel...

...from the period when Atlas Comics was transitioning into Marvel Comics!

Penciled and inked by Steve Ditko, this story from Atlas' World of Fantasy #18 (1959) has some intriguing concepts, including the idea that nothing can travel back before its' creation date, which would rule out time travel into the distant past (before the temporal travel device was created)!
But my big question is...who is "Fate"?
He pops up at the beginning of Page 4 and remains lurking in the background for the rest of the story, becoming a second narrator!
Besides looking visually-kool, what's his purpose?
He doesn't interfere...or even warn/advise the protaganist!
Since the story's narrator refers to Fate in the third person, we know the blue guy is not the one hosting the tale!
Like the identity of the story's writer, it's a mystery that'll never be solved...

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Marvel Masters of Suspense

Steve Ditko

Volume 1

Monday Madness CHAMBER OF CHILLS "Delusion for a Dragon Slayer"

The late Harlan Ellison wrote the novella this adaptation was based upon...

...and considering he had already written a couple of scripts for Marvel, I'm not sure why he didn't pen this retelling of his own tale...under this slightly-misleading (though really kool) Gil Kane/Tom Palmer cover...

This cover-featured adaptation of Harlan Ellison's novella "Delusion for a Dragon Slayer" by writer Gerry Conway and artist Syd Shores in Marvel's Chamber of Chills #1 (1972) was part of editor Roy Thomas' attempt to do new comic adaptations of prose tales by big-name sci-fi/fantasy authors in a group of anthology titles.

Sadly, none of the books survived past the first year without going totally-reprint, or switching over to featuring new horror characters like The Living Mummy. 

This particular tale shows the weaknesses of the project all too well, with the art failing to really separate Warren Glazer Griffin's fantasy world from the real one, thereby weakening the whole point of the narrative!

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I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

by Harlan Ellison

(which contains the short story this comic tale is adapted from!)

Reading Room UNKNOWN WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION GIANT-SIZE SPECIAL "Threads"

An alien invasion may not be in the form of hulking monsters and heavily-armed spacecraft...

...but something subtle and unseen...

This oversized special, published in 1976 after Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction was cancelled, ran previously-unpublished material like this story...except for the tales "Arena" which had appeared in the color Worlds Unknown title (You can read it HERE and HERE.), and "Sinner", previously-published in the pro-zine witzend.
The writer of this tale, listed here as "Mat Warrick", may be the same person as "Mal Warrick" and "Mal Warwick", as stories under all three names appeared during the mid-1970s in various titles from Marvel, Star-Reach, DC, Red Circle, and Charlton.
Artist Adrian Gonzales was part of the wave of Philippine artists who contributed work to American comics from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s.
In 1985, he turned from print comics to doing character design and storyboards for animation studios until his passing in 1998.

Monday Madness FLYING SAUCERS x FOUR #4 "Impossible Spaceship!"

The final version of the "sentient flying saucer" story doesn't even include the words "flying saucer" in the title...

...and the ship design itself is closer to classic Star Trek or 1960s Italian sci-fi like Planet of the Vampires (one of my all-time faves)...

Published in the back of Marvel's Strange Tales #101 (1962), this MadMan-era, never-reprinted, Don Heck-illustrated, Stan Lee-scripted tale was the final version of a Stan Lee plot involving sentient alien spacecraft first used in 1953 (HERE), then re-used in 1958 (HERE), and 1960 (HERE).

NOTE: Atlas had given way to Marvel several months earlier with Amazing Fantasy #15 (first Spider-Man) and Fantastic Four #1 in 1961.

(When Spider-Man received his own title a year later, the FF were cover-featured guest-stars!)

BTW, the cover feature for this issue was the introduction of the Human Torch's short-lived solo strip!

Weird Trivia: All four of the issues these stories originally appeared in had a number "1" in the issue numbering (21, 1, 11, 101)!

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3