Showing posts with label tv. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tv. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Twice-Told Tale of Terror 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 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 Harvey's Race for the Moon #1 (1958), which was reprinted in Harvey's Shocking Tales Digest #1 (1981)
The original, never-reprinted, story was from Harvey's 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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Terror
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Monday, September 29, 2025

Monday Monster Madness MONSTERS TO LAUGH WITH / MONSTERS 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 to Planet of the Apes...
...they revived the concept, still written by Stan Lee!
...but this time, the book 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 Monday, through the rest of October, you'll be seeing the best (IMHO) of Monsters to Laugh With and Monsters Unlimited!
Don't Miss It!

Friday, August 15, 2025

Friday "Fun" HEE-HAW "Cornfield Chatter"

With Don da Con now Dictating Receivers of the Kennedy Center Awards...
...we are sincerely-surprised the cast of this surprisingly long-running rural "humor" anthology TV series isn't included in the first batch!
Both these two-page spreads are from Charlton's Hee Haw comics derived from the syndicated TV series.
These examples of the show's "humor" were written and illustrated by Frank Roberge and based on an ongoing skit featuring the entire cast (plus guest stars) in a cornfield popping up and doing jokes and one-liners!
The series ran a surprising twenty-six seasons from 1969 to 1995, though the comic only lasted for seven (never-reprinted) issues!
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Sunday, June 1, 2025

Added to the 2025 RetroBlog Summer Blogathon...BATMAN VS THE THREE VILLAINS OF DOOM...ENHANCED!

 A Couple of Years Ago...

...we re-presented this never-reprinted, original 1966 novel by "Winston Lyon" (actually noted Golden Age/Silver Age comics writer William Woolfolk) which combined elements of both the comic book and TV series versions of the Caped Crusader starting HERE!
What we didn't realize at the time, was how much of the comic book version was actually taken directly from the comics!
Just as numerous plots of the TV show's first season were based on comic books, three chapters of the novel took their main plots...crimes by specific sinister super-criminals...from three different comics guest-starring those baleful baddies!
You'll see the specific chapters...along with the comic stories, on Sundays in August, right here!

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Sunday, May 25, 2025

The RetroBlogs 2025 Summer Blogathons are Coming...

Starting July 1st, we're running several blogathons...
With Fantastic Four: First Flight finally incorporating the characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we're presenting this long-OOP (almost a half-century) premiere prose novel (as compared to graphic novel) about them right here at
Atomic Kommie Comics
The legendary Man of Bronze takes on the Nazis at the 1936 Olympics as they put up an athlete who was trained from birth using the same techniques that Dr Clark Savage Sr used for Doc in this never-reprinted, almost 40 year-old extra-long comic!
Guest appearances by historical figures including Jesse Owens and Adolf (You Know Who)!
See the Nazi-Punching action at
Hero Histories and Medical Comics and Stories
Almost 40 years ago, there was a "high-concept" series about a tired, disillusioned comic book creator whose characters (a wholesome, upright superhero and hardboiled private detective) entered the real world!
With only seven episodes produced (four unaired), it's been largely-forgotten.
But there was a never-reprinted 2-issue adaptation of the pilot episode!
You'll see that at
Secret Sanctum of Captain Video
Here's a never-reprinted 1994 graphic novel based on Peter O'Donnell's first Modesty Blaise book, which provided about as much a basis for the 1966 movie as Ian Fleming's Casino Royale did for the 1967 flick based on that novel!
See what O'Donnell really intended at
Heroines!
And, of course, another entry in our "Beach Read" book-length gothic romance comic story series at
True Love Comics Tales
Stay cool...and kool...with
RetroBlogs
this Summer!

Saturday, January 4, 2025

Space Force Saturdays ROCKY JONES: SPACE RANGER "Forbidden Frequency"

With so much modulated energy (wi-fi, digital tv, am-fm, etc) floating in the ether...
...I'm truly surprised something like this hasn't come to pass by 2012!
Or...has it?
The concept of subliminal programming goes back to the 1860s.
Usually, it involves audio or visual stimulation beyond human perception, but in this case, it's an energy frequency that interferes with the human mind's function.
Queen Cleolanthe was the ongoing villainess on the Rocky Jones series...
Played with fun "bad girl" panache by Patsy Parsons, Cleolanthe both fought against Rocky and was uncontrollably-drawn to him!
Note: From Flash Gordon and Princess Aura to Rocky Jones and Cleolanthe to James T Kirk and (insert Girl of the Week here), scantly-clad space babes just can't resist square-jawed Earthmen on tv and in movies!
(Not that I'm complaining...)
This story from Charlton's Space Adventures #16 (1955) was illustrated by Ted Galindo and Ray Osrin.
The writer is unknown.
Almost all of the Rocky Jones tv episode-compilation movies are available on inexpensive DVDs and two of them Crash of the Moons and Manhunt in Space were roasted on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Rocky Jones will return in the near future...
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Featuring Six Three-Episode Compilation Movies
(That's almost half the TV series in one set!)
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Saturday, December 14, 2024

Space Force Saturdays ROCKY JONES: SPACE RANGER "Velocity X"

"Warp drive" didn't begin with Star Trek...
but lightspeed (or faster) travel was a rarity in 1950s' tv science fiction, where rockets dominated the skies!
Of all the 1950s Space Heroes we present here, Rocky Jones seems closest to the most famous tv Space Hero of all--Capt James T Kirk!
While the credits for this story from Charlton's Space Adventures #15 (1955) list Ted Galindo and Vince Alascia as the artists, there's enough difference from the other stories credited to them for me to believe it's actually Alden McWilliams.
Rocky Jones will return in the near future...
Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Buy...
Featuring Six Three-Episode Compilation Movies
(That's almost half the TV series in one set!)
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