Follow-Up to "Wertham Lives"

 To update yesterday's post about the "New Werthams"...
Besides sending my own version of the "protest letter", rewritten to express gratitude for the Happy Meals figures, I also emailed the Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood.

Hi:

Do you have any idea of who these characters are?
Why don't you praise...
the hero who tries to personify the American Ideal since 1941, Captain America..
the hero whose very existence shows that "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility!", Spider-Man...
the original pacifist hero, The Silver Surfer...
all of whom are included in the collection?

And, since you want a "commercial-free" childhood, why aren't you going after Disney, who've been corrupting childhood since 1930 with products promoting the misogynist / racist Mickey Mouse, the extremely-violent / ethnically-biased Davy Crockett , and the politically-incorrect Peter Pan (among many others)?

Best,
B

As of now, I've received no reply.
Nor do I expect to!

You, too, can express your opinion directly to them at ccfc@commercialfreechildhood.org

Wertham LIVES!

Some people have wayyy to much time on their hands...
McDonalds is launching a new line of Marvel Comics-oriented Happy Meal toys.
They've done this sort of thing with both DC and Marvel characters a number of times over the years. (I have quite a few of them on my shelves.)
However, the Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood (a group I've never heard of, and I've seen quite a few Wertham-esque nuts in my years in this business) seems to have suddenly discovered that Marvel Comics feature a man on fire, and large, aggressive, man-monsters!
We've known that for over 50 years!
Curiously, though they comment on both The Human Torch and The Thing, the Werti-whiners make NO mention of the oft-times mindlessly-destructive Hulk, or the often out-of-control Wolverine, both included in the collection!
Nor do they praise the hero who tries to personify the American Ideal, Captain America, nor the hero whose very existence shows that "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility!", Spider-Man! nor the original pacifist hero, The Silver Surfer, all of whom are included in the collection!
So it's obvious these loonies have no idea of what these characters are really about!
Now, here's where it becomes fun...
Want to subvert their message?
Go to their link to post a message to McDonalds...and rewrite the message to praise McDonalds!
You CAN!
The letter has a "suggested" text in place, but you can re-write it!
I've done so. I suggest you do, as well!

Comic Book / Movie Poster Blank Sketchbooks for Back to School!

At ONLY $9.99 our blank sketchbooks are great back-to-school gifts for young artists, writers, or pop culture collectors!

Choose from digitally-remastered and restored vintage movie posters, or Golden Age / Silver Age comics.

• Back cover made of thin black flexible textured plastic, measures 16/1000" thick
• Front cover made of 12pt glossy paper, laminated for durability
• Filled with your choice of 60lb bookweight (24 lb bond) paper -- blank, dot grid, lined college-ruled, or a task journal.

Snap them up NOW, before school begins!

Drink Kooba Cola!

Wait a second...You CAN'T!
It doesn't exist!
(You can read the sordid tale of the soda that almost took the world by storm here!)

Now, you can't DRINK it, but you can WEAR it!
We at Atomic Kommie Comics™ decided to re-present the Soda That Would Not Die on collectibles ranging from Beachwear or DormWear to mugs, iPad / netbook / messenger bags (and the irony of doing bags with "Kooba" on them hasn't escaped us!) and hoodies at KoobaCola 1 and KoobaCola 2!
And for you back-to-school shoppers, the shirts make great dormwear or nightshirts (if you're still living at home)!
So celebrate what could have been one of the bubbliest success stories of soft drink entepreneurship, but instead just fizzled out and fell flat!
(You just knew we were gonna do a pun like that, didn't you?)  ;-)

Design of the Week--Captain 3-D

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another!
This week...the return of the first superhero created specifically for 3-D...Captain 3-D!

In the early 1950s, "3-D" using red and green prints of simultaneously-shot movie footage from cameras a couple of feet apart. (note: sometimes blue was used instead of green, but the stereotype of 3-D is a red / green lens juxtposition.)

When a viewer wore glasses like these they would perceive the two projected images as a single 3-D image!

Taking comic book line art and modifying it to produce a similar 3-D effect was technically simple, so almost every company attempted at least one 3-D book between 1952-55.
Most were 3-D versions of existing comics including Superman, Batman, Tales from the Crypt, Tor, even Katy Keene.
However, Captain 3-D was the Simon & Kirby team's attempt to jump on the 3-D bandwagon with NEW material.

A disheveled, stranger stumbles into a seedy used bookstore.
He hands a book and pair of weird glasses to the young clerk, warns him to never sell it, just as a gunman comes in and shoots the stranger, disintegrating him.
The clerk, Danny Davis, disarms the gunman, who flees and is shot by an associate waiting outside.
Danny puts on the glasses and looks thru the book, which is blank except for an illustration of a costumed man which jumps from the page and stands in front of Danny.
Before another word is said, the associate gunman returns...with allies!
The costumed man defeats the group with ease and tells Danny to look at them thru the strange glasses.
Danny sees the attackers as cat-people!
As it turns out, the costumed man is the last survivor of an advanced civilization wiped out in a war against the Cat People 50,000 years earlier.
Placed in the book by advanced technology, he is brought to life by the holder of the book and glasses to battle the Cat People, who were all but wiped out, but who now have sufficient numbers to try to conquer the world again!

A cool premise and nice set-up, playing up the use of glasses to both empower the hero and perceive villains. (The movie They Live! used a similar gimmick)

Unfortunately, a legal battle involving the 3-D process all but killed the financial viability of producing 3-D books, and, though material was already finished, there was never a second issue of Captain 3-D!

We at Atomic Kommie Comics™ feel the character deserves better than that, so we restored him (or at least his cover) to our Design of the Week line to test his viability.
If he sells well, we'll find him a permanent place in our lineup. If he doesn't, he's gone after next Friday!
You decide if he "lives" or "dies"! Vote now...