Space Hero Saturdays WHACK "Flush Jordan"

Yes, it's a Flash Gordon spoof...

..but it has a cultural reference readers under 50 won't recognize!

Ming the Merciless usually looks like this...

...so who's "Bing", the golf-playing guy in the Hawaiian shirt and porkpie hat?

He's Bing Crosby, singer, comedian, obsessive golfer, and (when this comic was published) a pop culture icon!

With that in mind, please read...

The guy at the end, whining about "Thanks for the Memory" is comedian Bob Hope...

...Bing's co-star/rival in the 1940s-50s "Road to..." movie series as well as a pop culture legend in his own right!

Note: Thanks for the Memory" was Hope's personal theme song, used primarily to close his radio show, live appearances, and TV specials!

This never-reprinted story from #2 of St John's MAD clone WHACK was illustrated by William Overgard for 3-D use, but the collapse of the 3-D comic market forced St John to publish it in regular color comic format!

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Monday Maternity Madness MAD "Mad's All-Inclusive Do-It-Yourself Abortion Newspaper Story"

With minor updating, this never-reprinted two-page feature...

...written by long-time contributor Frank Jacobs from EC's MAD Magazine #324 (1994) could be used today!

Sad, isn't it?

Space Hero Saturdays SMASH GORDON "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Mongo!"

It starts out as a typical day for our Space Hero... 

...but as much as we want to tell you the rest of the story, this tale written and illustrated by Frank Brunner involves (gasp) nudity (but extremely-tasteful and not lascivious nudity), so you'll have to go to our "brother" RetroBlog, the appropriately-named

Not Safe for Work Comics

right now to see the rest!

And wait until you see who cameos on the final page!

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Mythos: Fantasy Art Realms of Frank Brunner

Friday Fun RIOT the Complete "Why Izzit?"

Appearing in Atlas' Riot #5 and #6 (1956)...

...these never-reprinted features by writer Stan Lee, penciler Dan DeCarlo, and inker Rudy Lapick...

...were designed as fillers for use at any point the book's page count came up short!

Were more created...but never used?

Or are these four pages all that exist?

I suspect we'll never know the answer...

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Friday Fun RIOT "Mother Goosepimple's Nursery Rhymes" Parts 1 & 2

Atlas Comics' numerous 1950s MAD comic clones...

...gave the company's creatives a chance to flex their artistic muscles in ways rarely-seen by their readers!

This never-reprinted short from Atlas RIOT #5 (1956) gave amazingly-versatile artist Joe Maneely a chance to show his rarely-seen humorous side.

The second, final, also never-reprinted installment in this series features an artist who already had a rep doing humor, John Severin, best known for his serious Western and War comics work at Harvey and EC!

He was also brother of EC Comics colorist Marie Severin, who later became Marvel's resident caricaturist (among her many other talents)!
I suspect this was going to be an ongoing series featuring rotating illustrators, but since Riot was cancelled as of this issue (6) in 1956, we'll never know!
BTW, if the writing style for both stories feels "familiar", that's because it was by snarky Stan (the Man) Lee!

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Friday Fun CRAZY "Hollywood Extra"

With the movie industry retrenching as audiences continue to not return to theaters...

...let's take a satirical look at how the film industry reacted the first time that phenomenon happened!

Writer Stan Lee and illustrator Russ Heath show, in this never-reprinted story from Atlas' MAD comic clone Crazy V1N7 (1954), that the movie business was losing customers to the then-new entertainment technology of television...and that was with TVs that had 15 inch (or less) screens and had only black-and-white transmissions (even when they broadcast color movies)!

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Monday Madness CRAZY, MAN, CRAZY "Pocket Book Covers"

How do we get today's would-be readers to actually read the "classics"?

Do what artist Vince Fodera and an unknown writer suggest in this never-reprinted two-page spread from Charlton's MAD Magazine clone Crazy Man Crazy V2N2 (1956)...

BTW, "pocket books" were how what we now call mass-market paperbacks were referred to until the 1960s!

In fact, the first American mass-market publisher to use the format (in 1939) was named "Pocket Books"...a name they utilize to this day!

Who says comics ain't educational???

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Friday Fun ZANY "Li'l Abnrr"

Unseen since 1959, a look at how comics...

...and by extension, media in general, change to reflect pop culture trends!

Comics, in particular, jump on the latest fad, sometimes revamping the book or strip almost beyond recognition!
The classic example was the mid-1960s "New Blackhawk era", when the middle-aged WWII veteran flyers, published continuously since 1942, became superhero/spies...because the two hottest pop culture trendsetters at the time were Batman and Bond!
(Think I'm joking?
You can read the transition story beginning HERE!)
BTW, both the artist who did a dead-on imitation of Al Capp's style and the scripter for this never-reprinted Li'l Abner spoof (with a cameo by creator Al Capp himself) from Candar's Zany #4 (1959) are unknown!

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Li'l Abner: the Frazetta Years Vol 1

Legendary artist Frank Frazetta ghost-illustrated the Sunday strip from 1954 to 1961!

Monday Madness LUNATICKLE "Horrible Comic Story Behind the Horror Story Comic Books!"

I'll let the original editors introduce you to today's Monday Madness...

"This, then, is the true tale of the Comic Book Industry’s brief but shocking plunge into the Witches Brew of gore and bloodshed.

Presented herewith is an authentic documentary of how it came about and how it ended—And how it ended!
The names, dates, and places given are all factual and for real! Any reference to certain persons is strictly intentional,

Only the prices have been changed because it’s after five o’clock!
-the editors"

Created by two horror comics veterans; writer Jack Mendelsohn and illustrator Lee Elias (in a very Jack Davis-esque style), this never-reprinted story from the second (and final) issue of Whitestone Publishing's short-lived MAD magazine clone Lunatickle is a bittersweet, but amazingly-accurate look at how the comics industry almost disappeared in the mid-1950s!

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Ten-Cent Plague

The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America

Friday Fun THIS MAGAZINE IS CRAZY "Fact Realism vs TV is 'em Real"

Old West humor, illustrated by the legendary Jack Davis...

...but NOT from MAD!

It's from Charlton's This Magazine is CRAZY! V4N8, a MAD imitator which lasted only seven issues!

Both as a color comic and a b/w magazine, MAD inspired many imitators.

Some, like Cracked, are going even today (albeit on-line, not in print).
Others, like This Magazine is CRAZY, were short-lived, but able, from time to time, to get work from MAD's regular contributors, almost all of whom were freelancers.
This particular piece from 1959 apparently was a satirical response to TV's sanitizing the images of both cowboys and Indians in ongoing series.
Westerns were the most popular scripted genre at the time, dominating almost half of both the prime time and syndicated schedules.
The writer is, regrettably, unknown but it could be Davis himself, who utilized this format in both issues of his own short-lived color comic humor anthology Yak Yak, as seen HERE and HERE!

The writer is, regrettably, unknown.

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