Showing posts with label vintage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vintage. Show all posts

Monday, January 20, 2025

MARTIN LUTHER KING and THE MONTGOMERY STORY

On the day we honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr, the gang at Atomic Kommie Comics™ thought it only appropriate to help present this item, the first comic book dramatizing his historic efforts.
From the website's intro to the comic...
Many sane thinkers consider MLK to be an important and historic larger-than-life icon, but how did that happen?
Especially given the marginalized press coverage of blacks in the 50s, how was his message galvanized among southern minorities and then spread as a single statement beyond the black community -- and how was it focused so specifically to such seemingly ignorable or boring local incidents as one black woman's refusal to give up a bus seat and a following small-town bus boycott, as well as the concept of Passive Resistance?
Without any need for hyperbole, this comic book is one of the reasons.

Produced by the Fellowship of the Reconciliation and sent very surreptitiously throughout the South (it was dangerous for many to own a copy), then translated, re-drawn, and distributed once again throughout the entire SOUTHERN CONTINENT through Mexico, into Central and then South America, this comic tells the story that established the myth of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks at the time that it mattered, mere months after news events occurred.
Intended for adults, but shown in comic book format for the largest possible distribution and audience and instruction.

It was also produced as a comic because more adult seeming publications and newspapers were often destroyed by white businessmen and other violent types bent on continuing segregation's grip on the South.
But that does not mean people found distributing copies of this comic were not given their fair share of beatings and harassment, nor does it mean thousands of copies were not often destroyed.
Why? This comic is and was dangerously honest.
Featuring the Klan (lynching, bombs, burning crosses), Jim Crow laws, and the entire concept of Nonviolent Protest.
This pamphlet offered advice and instructions on how to use passive resistance and massive non-violent resistance against segregation, just as these ideas were fresh --and it also established a clear connection of MLK to Gandhi, a public connection that continues on to today.

A copy of this comic is held in the Smithsonian and many Civil Rights leaders recognize this as one of the most important AND PERSUASIVE items of the 50s in establishing or explaining their cause to the world, as well as giving many black youths the courage and direction to hold their own political protests.
Many notable sit-ins and demonstrations link to this comic book getting into the right hands - and it did get around, literally devoured by black college students at the time.

We're DELIGHTED to offer you not just the American version of this comic but also the SPANISH edition, of which maybe two or three copies are known to exist.
After extensive effort and search, we were able to find a copy in Uruguay.
Not joking. Completely redrawn and translated, click back and forth to compare art, some of the differences between the two are great.
Ever wonder how much influence and power a small press or self-produced item can have?
This is one of the best examples you'll ever see.

Saturday, January 18, 2025

Space Hero Saturdays JIM SOLAR: SPACE SHERIFF "Defeats the Moon Missile Men" Part 1

From the 1950s comes this weirdly-formatted, never-reprinted strip...
...that was available only as a giveaway inside various products!
Be here next Saturday for the thrillling conclusion!
Created by writer Walter (The Shadow) Gibson and artist E.C. Stoner (Blue Beetle), this 7" x 3.5" comic was part of the Vital Publications line of promotional giveaways distributed by a variety of merchants inside their products' packaging.
This particular one was included in packages of Rodeo All-Meat Wieners...
Back cover
There were apparently eight other Jim Solar comics, but they're very HTF since they were "self-covered (fragile newsprint covers, like the inside pages, instead of the heavy slick magazine paper most comics use for covers) and included with food products, whose juices would damage the paper!

Thursday, January 16, 2025

Reading Room OUT OF THIS WORLD "Antique Collectors"

What's "antique" really depends on your point of view...
...as this tiny tale (from 1959) demonstrates!
Cars from 1959 are extremely collectible now, and it's only 66 years later!
Both the writer and artist of this story from Charlton's Out of This World #13 (1959) are, sadly, unknown.
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Monday, January 13, 2025

Monday Madness FLASH GORDON COMICS "The World You WILL Live In"

In 1950, what amazing advances did we think the 21st Century would bring?
As shown in this uncredited (and never-reprinted) feature from Harvey's Flash Gordon #1 (1950), all five predictions have, in fact, come to pass...albeit in modified form.
Unlike the predictions from #1, most of these from #2 have not come true!
Only the wristwatch one has occurred, and only on expensive, high-end timepieces!
In 2025, we do have laser scalpels (in limited use, mostly for eye surgery) and lasers are used to remove tattoos.
The mobile telephone one can be interpreted as cell phones, but radiophones in cars were a popular item among the rich (and spies/superheroes) in the '60s to early '80s.
(Batman, James Bond, Honey West, Matt Helm, The Avengers [Steed and Peel, not the superheroes] and The Green Hornet all had them!)
Extensive mining of minerals from the ocean floor has yet to occur, and the sun's going nova billions of years from now has been predicted since the 1800s.
So, 4 out or 5 for this never-reprinted feature from Harvey's Flash Gordon #3 (1950) is pretty good, eh?
Both the artist and writer are unknown.
Let's take one final look at this never-reprinted strip...
Of the five predictions in this one-pager from Harvey's Flash Gordon #4 (1950), the first is a possibility, the second and fifth have yet to occur, and the third and fourth have come true.
Both the artist and writer are unknown.
This was one of three different new one-page features that appeared in all four issues of the series which reprinted the Flash Gordon Sunday newspaper strip by Alex Raymond, reformatted for the comic book page, and with new covers (not by Alex Raymond).
The others were "Stories Behind the Stars" (about the myths behind constellation names) and "Know Your Planets" (about the other worlds in the solar system).

Sunday, January 12, 2025

Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Perfect Crime!"

A never-reprinted cross-genre tale from Journey into Mystery...
...combining crime and science fiction, is our entry for this Sunday!
You'll note the last two panels are re-lettered.
I suspect the Comics Code Authority felt it was too cruel to allow the criminal to die for something he technically didn't commit!
This was one of the two tales backing up Mighty Thor's very first appearance in Marvel's Journey into Mystery #83 (1963).
Ah, you've heard about that story, but not this one, eh?
Don Heck penciled and inked the tale.
Stan Lee plotted it, but experts are not sure if he scripted it.
Lee usually signed the later short stories 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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Thor Masterworks
Volume 1 
featuring the Thor stories that appeared in front of the never-reprinted tales we're presenting!

Friday, January 10, 2025

Frigid Friday Fun WILD! "Frozen North"

A never-reprinted story from one of Atlas Comics' many MAD comic clones...
...is our snowbound story for today, as a cold wave continues to cover most of America!
Did you catch the cameo by the Golden Age Human Torch on page 3 panel 3, asking if this book was Young Men Comics (where he was appearing in 1954)?
This tale from Wild! #1 (1954) was illustrated by Sol Brodsky, who, while better-known to aficionados as Atlas/Marvel's production manager than as an artist, actually had over 1,000 stories and covers to his credit!
(He inked Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four #3 and #4 as well as Kirby's iconic cover for Avengers #16!)
Sadly, little of the material from Atlas' four humor titles from the 1950s has been reprinted, despite the fact that some of their "big names" like Bill Everett, Joe Maneely, Gene Colan, and Russ Heath all contributed stories that went far afield from their usual "realistic" styles...with amazing results!
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Friday, January 3, 2025

Friday Fun MODNIKS "Noel Talent: the Most Unkindest Cut"

By the early 1970s, Jack Davis was an established, successful, and busy, commercial artist...
...so when was this weird filler piece, published in 1970, created?
Written by Gary Poole and illustrated by Davis, this one-off tale appeared in the second (and final) issue of Gold Key's Modniks in 1970.
But here's the weird part...
The previous issue of this title appeared three years earlier...in 1967!
That's a loooonnng time between issues!
Plus, Davis had never done any work for Gold Key, and it had been years since Jack had done any work for Dell (which Gold Key split off from)!
And, Poole didn't start working in comics until the mid-1960s, after GK had split from Dell, so this wasn't inventory from that period!
Did Davis know Poole (who had been a radio/tv writer for years before coming to comics) and illustrated this as a favor for a friend entering the field?
We'll never know...
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Thursday, January 2, 2025

Reading Room OUT OF THIS WORLD "What Happened?"

It's a question I've groggily-asked on more than one New Year's Day...
...but here it's the title of an example of classic Ditko storytelling!
Most likely scripted by Joe Gill, this taut tale from Charlton's Out of This World #3 (1957) is one of those fun "gotcha" shorts in the vein of both EC Comics' sci-fi line and, later, TV's The Twilight Zone.
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Monday, December 30, 2024

Monday Madness STUART TAYLOR IN WEIRD STORIES OF THE SUPERNATURAL "Faustus"

Despite the title, the series is actually sci-fi about a time traveler and his machine...
...who occasionally run into mystical menaces.
IIRC, The Time Tunnel TV series did the same thing, encountering Merlin, the ghost of Nero, and others along with the usual silver-skinned Irwin Allen aliens...
This series started in Jumbo Comics #1 (1939) as Diary of Dr Hayward, illustrated by Jack Kirby under the house pseudonym "Curt Davis" (which was used for every story in the series).
With #5, Lou Fine assumed the art chores, and several issues later the title changed to Weird Stories of the Supernatural as lab assistant Stuart Taylor took center stage and old Doc Hayward became a supporting character.
(In fact, the series title sometimes listed "Stuart Taylor" above the "Weird Stories..." logo, playing up the action-hero aspect, as it does here.)
As of #15, a rotating lineup of artists contributed art but no other "big names" worked on the series which continued for almost the entire run of Jumbo, ending at #140 (1950).
This particular never-reprinted story is from Jumbo Comics #111 (1948) and was produced by the Iger Studio, which supplied almost all of Fiction House's comic material during this period!