3-D Week Begins Tomorrow!

To celebrate the release of Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace in 3-D...

...(although I'm waiting for the Original Trilogy!),
all the RetroBlogs™ are running 3-D tales this week!

Monday: Western Comics Adventures™
Tuesday: Crime & Punishment™
Wednesday: True Love Comics Tales™
Thursday: Seduction of the Innocent™
Friday: War: Past, Present and Future™

PLUS: 
Hero & Heroine Histories™

Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™
and
Femmes Fantastique™
will all do 3-D tales during the week.
Don't Miss Them!
 (and don't forget your 3-D glasses...)

Support Small Business!

 Visit our

3-D Movies & Comics 

Collectibles Store
 (where you don't need 3-D glasses!)

Christmas Comics on RetroBlogs!

Over the past week, the RetroBlogs™ have presented a slew of classic Yuletide-themed tales...

Western Comics Adventures™

Crime & Punishment™

True Love Comics Tales™

War: Past, Present and Future™

Hero & Heroine Histories™

To wind-up the series, on Christmas Day, Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™ will present a long-unseen, never-reprinted, Xmas story from the first comic book based on a TV series based on a line of toys!

Which one?

You'll have to visit it on Christmas Day to find out!

Look What's Coming....

 Atomic Kommie Comics™ has firmed up our RetroBlogs™ plans for the Christmas season...

...the week before Christmas, each blog will feature a Christmas-themed tale including...

Green Lama on Hero & Heroine Histories™

 and

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians on Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™

Note: some of these stories have never been reprinted since their original appearances from 40 to 60 years ago!

Bookmark us and enjoy!

Out of the Night, When the Full Moon is Bright...

"...comes the Horseman known as Zorro!"

Click on the art to enlarge

It's so big, we had to use two blogs to tell it!

It's ZORRO!

The comic book version of the legendary Disney tv series, featuring art by the amazing Alex Toth!

For Part One, go to our TV/Movie Adaptation blog...

Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™

then, either follow the embedded link or return here to go to

Western Comics Adventures™

for the exciting conclusion and a special video treat!

Check out our 

Western Comics online store...

 ...for duds and provisions!

YouTube Wednesday: MOON ZERO TWO

Before Cowboys & Aliens, there WERE "Space Westerns"...

Click on art to enlarge

...although this one is more "Space" than "Western"!

1969's Moon Zero Two was a weird combo of 40s-50s pulp sci-fi with its "Western transposed to outer space" motif, 2001: a Space Odyssey / UFO-influenced production design and fx, and some cool 60s psychedelic elements set in the "far future" of 2021.

We're going into more detail about the flick at our "brother" blog Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™, presenting the rarely-seen comic adaptation (by Paul Neary) from House of Hammer, some background info, and links to related sites.

But, as long as you're here, why not watch the complete Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of MZ2?

Enjoy!
Check out

Classic Comix and Movie Collectibles Store 
and these HTF Moon Zero Two items on Amazon...

Whatever Happened to The Lone Ranger?

The budget had been approved.
The script was written (and approved) by all concerned.
The stars, including Johnny Depp as Tonto, were cast.
Sets were being built in New Mexico.
Pre-production was well underway.
Then, someone at Disney yelled "STOP!"

The producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, was told he would have to cut $40 million from his already-approved budget of $250 million.
Was it because of the less-than-stellar box office for Cowboys & Aliens?
According to the LA Times: "Cowboys & Aliens made them (Disney executives) start quaking in their boots over big budgets," said Brandon Gray, creator and president of BoxOfficeMojo.com, a website that tracks worldwide ticket sales. "It was High Noon at Buena Vista."
Oddly enough, The Lone Ranger also would've been a cross-genre western, this time with werewolves (which makes sense, since silver can slay lycanthropes, and the Ranger uses silver bullets)!

Besides the location shooting in New Mexico, The Lone Ranger had reserved several soundstages at  Albuquerque Studios which, ironically, are currently being used for another big-budget Disney film; The Avengers!

Let's see what develops...

Cowboys & Aliens--Movie WallPaper

The complete set of "standard" (1280x1024) official wallpapers...

Click on any art to enlarge and download

Oddly, no Olivia Wilde/Ella wallpaper...

We're offering a line of Space Western collectibles, perfect for summer wear at the beach, or the movie theatre when you go see Cowboys & Aliens. (C'mon, you know you're going!)

Check out the

Comics Collectibles Store

and have a look below at some Cowboys and Aliens movie tie-ins from Amazon!

Cowboys & Aliens...the 1950s Comic Book version!

Click on the art to enlarge

Long before the new movie Cowboys and Aliens, extraterrestrials and cowpokes did battle on Earth and in space!
Read the tale that predates the new movie by fifty years, starring Buster Crabbe (Flash Gordon / Buck Rogers), and illustrated by not one, not two, but three of the greatest sci-fi artists of the 1950s (Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, and Roy Krenkel), only at our "brother" blog Western Comics Adventures™!

Cowboys vs Aliens Starring...Buster Crabbe?

Click on the art to enlarge

Yes, that's Buster Crabbe, beloved movie serial (Flash Gordon / Buck Rogers) and b-movie star in his own 1950s comic book.
And, yes, he's battling lizardlike aliens while wearing full cowboy regalia over 40 years before Cowboys and Aliens, the graphic novel!
And, yes, that's a beautiful alien woman with a ray gun at his side, zapping lizardlike aliens!
(You didn't think Spurs Jackson had a monopoly on this sort of stuff, did you?)

For an explanation, and the complete, uncut, never-reprinted comic story, click on over to our "brother" blog Western Comics Adventures™ where the Old West is not only wild, it's weird!

We've taken the art from the cover of this issue, digitally-remastered and restored it, and emblazoned it on a variety of kool komic kollectibles!

Check out our online store...

...for Cowboys vs Aliens 
duds and provisions!

YouTube Wednesday: THE LONE RANGER

Click on art to enlarge

From 1949 to 1958, The Lone Ranger (with Tonto, natch) dominated tv as the Western show for kids.
It was also ABC-TV's first hit series, winning it's time period consistently.
In 1955, it was decided to film the b/w series in color for it's final (1956-57) season.
Before shooting for the season itself began, both a tv special celebrating the character's anniversary and a feature film were shot using the new color equipment. Then filming began on the final season, which also required reshooting all the previous outdoor stock footage (which was b/w).
Ironically, ABC began airing the color-filmed episodes (including the anniversary special) before the movie opened in theatres...but aired them in b/w, so this movie is, chronologically, the character's first color appearance!
Clayton Moore is still considered the definitive Lone Ranger, and Native American actor Jay Silverheels played Tonto as smarter than most cowboys he encountered, despite the character's problems with adjectives.

Here's the trailer from the first movie...

And here's the opening from the second feature film, Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold, which synopsizes his origin in two minutes! 

(It takes a whole movie to do it these days, and not as well!)

We're presenting these classic clips to alert you to a related Internet first...a serialized story carried across multiple blogs!
We're re-presenting as a 4th of July holiday treat, the 60-page-plus comic adaptation of the 1956 Lone Ranger feature film, illustrated by Tom Gill (with inking by Joe Sinnott), which has never been reprinted!
The first two parts run today and tomorrow at Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™, then parts three and four on July 1st and 2nd at Hero & Heroine Histories™, with the last two on July 3rd and 4th at Western Comics Adventures™!
Join us as we make cyber-history! ;-)

Check out our 
Western Comics online store...

 ...for duds and provisions!

Design of the Week--Space Cowboy

Cowboy hero vs bug-eyed monsters from outer space!
You think Cowboys and Aliens was the first?
It sure as hell wasn't the first comic / graphic novel that presented the concept!
59 years ago, comic books were telling tales of how resourceful Westerners defeated invaders from beyond the stars!
And this week, you and your kids can collect (and wear) the stuff they should have had in the Five & Dimes back in 1952, but didn't!
We're talkin' kids' and adult t-shirts, mugs, magnets, buttons, etc.!
But order now, because the Space Cowboy is headin' outta town in one week!
And he may never be comin' this way again!

Reading Room: SPURS JACKSON in "Death from U-235"

 As we promised earlier,  here's another exciting, never-reprinted adventure featuring cowboys and aliens from Space Western Comics #40.

Ah, for the days when a cowboy's devotion to the good 'ol USA overrode living in luxury on another world with a beautiful space princess...
(Never thought you'd read that sentence on the 'Net in 2011, eh?)
Don't worry, owlhoot.
There's lots more space-spanning, six-shooting action to come, so keep us bookmarked!

We're offering a new line of Space Western collectibles, perfect for summer wear at the beach, or the movie theatre when you go see Cowboys & Aliens. (C'mon, you know you're going!)

Check out the

 Space Western Comics Store

and have a look below at some Cowboys and Aliens movie tie-ins from Amazon!

Bad Grrrls, Bad Grrrls, What'cha Gonna Do...?

Western Comic Adventures™ has expanded the Women Outlaws section!
Twice as much female mayhem set in the Old West as before!
Twice as much gunplay!
And now...catfights!
(and there are those who say we're not subtle at Atomic Kommie Comics™!)

The Cisco Kid & Pancho for Cinco de Mayo

The Cisco Kid was the first Hispanic multi-media superstar, featured in books, movies, radio, comic books, newspaper strips, and eventually, television, predating Zorro in each media (except Zorro never had a radio show)!

As created by legendary writer O Henry, in the short story "The Caballero's Way" in 1907. the Kid was neither Hispanic nor a hero!
A 1914 silent movie of "The Caballero's Way" altered the character to the version that's became famous...a wandering hero, called "The Robin Hood of the Old West", who, with his sidekick, righted wrongs without killing (but with lots and LOTS of shooting) just like the Lone Ranger!
Over two dozen more films followed, as well as a long-running radio series, a newspaper strip, several comic book series, and a 156-episode tv show famous for being the FIRST American tv series filmed in color!
Some of the films and tv series episodes are on dvd.
Note that not all dvds have color tv episodes, some have have b/w versions!
(All the movies were b/w!)
In the 1990s, Jimmy Smits and Cheech Marin starred in a very well-done tv-movie pilot for a new series that, unfortunately, wasn't picked up (and isn't available on dvd).
But, there's talk of a new big-budget film version of the character sometime in the next couple of years!

Just in time for Cinco de Mayo, we at Atomic Kommie Comics™ are proud to reintroduce the classic Western character to a new audience in our Western Comic Adventures™ line.
Just go to The Cisco Kid & Pancho for a look at 6 different designs, including his 1st comic appearance on t-shirts, mugs, messenger bags and other goodies including a kool 2010 12-month calendar!
They'll have you going "Oh, Cisco!" "Oh, Pancho!" just like Duncan Renaldo & Leo Carrillo did in the classic tv series!

And, to make a really kool Cinco de Mayo gift set, why not add one of the NEW Cisco Kid graphic novels from Moonstone Books?

For our faithful fans...a FREE early Cinco de Mayo present...over 200 episodes of the radio show!