HOLY CAMP CLASSICS!!! Are You Ready for the Next RetroBlog Blogathon Entry?

Go back 55 years when BatMANIA swept the country, and join us as we relive...

...a Batman adventure unlike any other!

Scripted by pulp/paperback/comic book writer William Woolfolk under the pen-name "Winston Lyons", it's a fascinating mash-up of the TV and comic versions of the Caped Crusader, Robin the Boy Wonder,  and a trio of arch-villains!

You might note that The Riddler (who was the TV Batman's premiere nemesis, isn't in the story.

That's because the book was written before the show aired, and the Prince of Puzzles had appeared in only three comics stories before 1966!
He wasn't considered a major nemesis by comics fans or creators until after the show began!
Start the adventure now by clicking HERE!

Monday Mars Madness: a Twice-Told Tale INVASION!

One of the best-known Mars invasion tales is Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio show...

Edited version

...which this twice-told tale "updates" to the television era!

But, it's radically-altered from it's first appearance, and that the original version had never been reprinted!

First the toned-down version, then the original, scarier version...

Original version

 Note in the original version, both the wife and singer on tv show a lot more cleavage!

Edited version

Original version

Again, more cleavage in the original version...

Edited version

Original version

Oddly enough, the wife's cleavage is unchanged, but the look of terror in the last panel is toned down!

Edited version

Original version

Panel four in the original version is much more gruesome than the edited version.  Note the dialogue balloon is unchanged, even though there's no actual weapons fire in the edited version!

Edited version

 This last page is radically-different! Prepare yourself!
Ready?
Proceed...but remember, I warned you...

Original version

Wow!

The edited pages were from Race for the Moon #1 (1958), which was reprinted in Shocking Tales Digest #1 (1981)

The original story was from Witches' Tales #21 (1953)

As you can see, the Comics Code Authority insisted on some major redos, including most of the last page!

What do you think, fans!

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The Chilling Archives of Horror Comics: Volume 2

Bob Powell's

Terror

A Hallmark Channel-type Christmas Tale...in Comic Book Form!

Ever watch a romantic Hallmark Channel Christmas movie?

Well, our "sister" RetroBlog, True Love Comics Tales, is presenting a novel-length comic story that reads exactly like one of those astonishingly-popular tearjerker flicks!

Big city girl unable to find a romantic partner journeys to the countryside to spend Christmas with relatives!

She meets a guy who she had briefly (and klutzilly) encountered back in the city!

Note: he's the very image of a potential lover she had been dreaming about for months! (hence the title)

Is it fate they encounter each other?

Or will his dark secret drive them apart?

Click HERE to find out!

Friday Fun YAK YAK "How to Win Friends"

Sometimes, we need to get away from current events...

...and just enjoy a good laugh, courtesy of legendary writer/artist Jack Davis!

From Dell's Four-Color Comics #1186 (1961)

Dell gave MAD mainstay Jack Davis his own title in the Four Color Comics series, to do with as he pleased.

The series, Yak Yak (subtitled "A Pathology of Humor") only ran two issues, but they were pure Davis, who wrote, penciled, inked, and colored the whole project as well as providing painted covers for both issues!
It's never been reprinted, except for excerpts here and there.
Hopefully, somebody will do so in the near future...

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Visit Amazon and Order...

Art of Jack Davis

There's NO Stopping the RetroBlogs Summer Blogathons!

There's so much kool stuff, it's literally pouring out of the Web onto your screens...

...starting with the Kryptonian version of CoronaVirus destroying Superman from within...

...Supergirl trapped in an intergalactic women's prison...

...and then freed from a marriage she wants to happen...

...a Civil War-era Confederate officer with his own 1950s TV series...

...and a nurse who's life reads like a soap opera!

There's Much More Coming, So DON'T Miss Them!

He's NOT Your Father's Perry Mason...

...but he is your grandfather's!

...as these 1940s graphic adaptations of two of Erle Stanley Gardner's novels show!

Note: these are reformattings of the Perry Mason newspaper comic strip!

The new HBO series draws on several sources including the early novels, the newspaper comic strip, a six-film 1930s b-movie series adapting the books, and a long-running 1940s-50s radio show!

Trivia: the serialized radio show spawned a live daytime TV-show spinoff which Gardner disapproved of, so the character of Mason was replaced by Mike Karr and the show premiered as the soap-opera The Edge of Night (1956-1980)!

You can read both of the never-reprinted 1940s comics after the July 4th Weekend as part of our usual Summer Blogathon, spread out between this blog and "brother" RetroBlog Crime & Punishment!

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics!

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Perry Mason

Warner Brothers Movie Collection

Monday Madness YAK YAK "TV for All!"

Those of you who grew up with a smart phone in your hand...

...will probably not understand a single thing (either in terms of technology or pop culture) in this feature about living in a household with only one screen and a limited selection of programming!

Ironically, cross-genre programming has become something of a staple in our media-dominated world!

Dell gave MAD mainstay Jack Davis his own title, to do with as he pleased.

The series, Yak Yak (subtitled "A Pathology of Humor") only ran two issues, but they were pure Davis, who wrote, penciled, inked, and colored the whole project as well as providing painted covers for both issues!

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics!

Visit Amazon and Order...

Art of Jack Davis

It's 2020, and the Dinosaurs are About to Return...

...according to the sadly OOP series Xenozoic Tales!

Why hasn't this series, which combined the apocalypse, classic cars, and prehistoric monsters along with excellent writing and art, ever been a multi-media, mass-market favorite like Walking Dead or Game of Thrones?

How did all this come about?

This video (ironically, from the video game) explains quite succinctly how in 2020 the world we know will end!

Plotwise and chronologically, this story from Kitchen Sink's Xenozoic Tales #1 (1987), written and illustrated by Mark Schultz, is the first story in the series, featuring Hannah Dundee's introduction to the people of the City in the Sea.

Note: A tale (entitled "Xenozoic") introducing the series to the public, but published a couple of years earlier in Kitchen Sink's Death Rattle #8 (1985) takes place after this story.

When the entire series was reprinted in story-chronological order in Dark Horse hardcovers in 2003, the Death Rattle tale was placed between two stories in Xenozoic Tales #2.

The comic inspired a video game and well-done, but short-lived, animated TV series.

Despite those successes, it still has yet to hit the public consciousness the way other graphic novel properties have.

Perhaps now's the time to revive it?

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics!

Visit Amazon and Order...

Xenozoic Tales

Volume One: After the End

Give Your Loved One a Batman Christmas!

Want to give your Batman-obsessed loved one (and we all have at least one) a "Batty" Christmas?

Combine the blu ray (or dvd) set ...

...with a not-available-in-stores digitally-restored reproduction of a 1966 Carmine Infantino/Murphy Anderson promo piece...

...created in 1966 to hype the then-new tv show!

Ironically, the visual looks more like a huge flat-screen tv than the small cathode-ray tv tubes of the 1960s!

Available in a variety of formats to fit both decor and budget!

Friday Fun MONSTERS TO LAUGH WITH / UNLIMITED & MONSTER MADNESS

Besides comic books, Marvel made occasional forays into the b/w magazine market...

..with this seven-issue 1965-66 title being their longest-lasting Silver Age series!
(Note: with the second issue, Stan Lee's name was added to the cover as a selling point!)

Other mags had used the gimmick of captioning old movie and tv photos for a feature in a magazine...but never an entire magazine!

At this point, the book changed it's title...

...nobody's really sure why, but it seemed to work!

One of the koolest aspects was that Stan Lee wrote the captions...

...bringing the same kitchy vaudville-level humor that he used for decades in Marvel's humor comics!

I'm not sure if declining sales or Stan Lee's increasing workload caused the cancellation!
(Besides his writing/editing duties, he was now the public face of Marvel, giving interviews, making appearances on tv, even touring college campuses where Marvel Comics were the "in" thing!)
In 1973, when Marvel unleashed an entire line of b/w magazines, ranging from horror to kung fu...

...they revived the concept, still written by Stan Lee!

...but this time, the title was the least-successful of the b/w line!
It was re-tooled into a Famous Monsters of Filmland/Castle of Frankenstein format, adding features about both old and current films and tv shows...

...but the alteration didn't help and the book was cancelled.

Marvel tried again, later that year with a Famous Monsters of Filmland/Castle of Frankenstein clone called Monsters of the Movies, which lasted for eight regular issues and an Annual.

Starting next Friday, through November, you'll be seeing the best (IMHO) of each issue!

Don't Miss It!