Thursday, September 18, 2025

Kirby Reading Room / Tales Twice Told BLACK MAGIC "A Beast is In the Streets!"

We Showed You the 1970s Redrawn for Extra Goriness Version On Tuesday...

...now here's the original by...do we really have to tell you?






Penciled and inked by Jack Kirby, this story from Prize's Black Magic #25 (1953) may have been scripted by Kirby as well.
Unfortunately, records are incomplete, and we will likely never know!

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Wednesday, September 17, 2025

Best of Wednesday Worlds of Wonder TALOS OF THE WILDERNESS SEA

It was Going to be an Epic 12-Issue Mini-Series...

...but cutbacks at DC dictated that the already-penciled and scripted first two issues Jan Strnad & Gil Kane (the guys who had revamped The Atom into a high-adventure/barbarian hero in two Sword of the Atom mini-series) be combined into a double-length one-shot whose sales would determine if the project would continue.
Unfortunately, despite the genre pedigree both creatives had, the unknown character didn't attract a large enough audience (as The Atom had), and only the single, open-ended, never-reprinted issue exists!
Here are links to the almost 40-year old "lost" project!
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Tuesday, September 16, 2025

Reading Room / Tales Twice Told TERROR TALES "Flesh Ripper"

We Present Another Pair of Stories with the Same Script...

...drawn two decades apart, this time with the re-worked, gorier, version first!





Taking the script almost verbatim from the original 1953 four-color comic book, Argentinian artist Martha Barnes totally-redrew the story, using different "camera angles" and lighting effects as well as re-imagining the visuals for the creature in Eerie Publication's Terror Tales V6N6 (1974)!
It's damn near impossible to figure out where the tale was derived from!
But you'll see the original version...by one of the "Big Names" in the field...on Thursday!
Note: Martha Barnes was the premier female horror/crime/war illustrator in the Argentinian comics industry from the late 1940s to the late 1970s.
Besides Eerie Publications, she also did work for another American publisher, DC Comics
on G.I Combat!

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Monday, September 15, 2025

Monday Mecha Madness SHOGUN WARRIORS "Into the Lair of Demons" Part 1

The Shogun Warrior Known as Combatra Has...

...well, lets let our in-comic narrator explain the whole thing!










Genji!!!
NO!!!

To Be Continued...Next Monday!
Writer Doug Moench, penciler Herb Trimpe, and inker Dan Green certainly know how to keep you on the edge of your seats in this never-reprinted tale from Marvel's Shogun Warriors #5 (1979), eh, True Believers!
BTW, is there a nickname for Shogun Warriors fans?
Note: Since Genji is the sole human piloting this version of Combatra, unlike the Japanese version which has a pilot for each module...
...the Shogun Warriors version has an AI which can telepathically-interact to receive her commands...and then act independently!
Presumably, it possesses strategy and combat programming/skills to do so!

Sunday, September 14, 2025

Michael Chabon's "The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" is now...AN OPERA!

You Read That Right!

The limited-run production is running for only seven performances from September 21 to October 11.
Most tickets are only $35!
If you're a comics aficionado in the Tri-State area (or visiting during this period) you owe it to yourself to check out this once-in-a-lifetime event!

Saturday, September 13, 2025

Space Hero Saturdays CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT "Xog on Earth!"

Xog, the Ruler of Saturn, Didn't Take Kindly to Our Hero Invading His Planet...

...(even though it was in self-defense) and he's about to return the "courtesy"...with interest!





Fawcett's Captain Midnight #65 (1948) brings Xog: Ruler of Saturn!to Earth in a threat so big the US Army has to get involved!
But the Sentinel of the Spaceways can't allow that to happen again!
He'll have a plan for a final confrontation against the sinister Saturnian on the first Saturday of November!

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Friday, September 12, 2025

Friday Fun HARVEY "Saps on Skates!"

This Ain't the Movie Rollerball...

...which wouldn't even come out until three years after this never-reprinted story from Marvel's Harvey #4 (1972)!


Written and laid out by Stu Schwarzberg, finished pencils and inks by Henry Scarpelli!
Stan Lee wrote and Stan Goldberg illustratd the first couple of issues, then turned it over to Schwarzberg as writer and Scarpelli as artist for the remaining four issues!
Trivia: Marie Severin did touch-ups on Scarpelli's first issue to keep characters "on-model".

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Thursday, September 11, 2025

Reading Room / Tales Twice Told STRANGE WORLDS "Sabotage on Space Station 1"

...now you'll see where that "flavor" came from!
Damn, we humans are good at this sort of world-saving stuff, eh?
This Norman Nodel-illustrated tale from Avon's Strange Worlds #7 (1952) could have been the basis of an episode of Space: 1999 or Classic Star Trek with just a couple of tweaks!
As to why it was reworked...
Eerie Publications had been using photostats and negatives from defunct comics companies as the source material for their b/w magazine line.
About a year in, they started using South American artists eager to break into the comics market and American artists like Dick Ayers and Chic Stone (who were losing work as the Silver Age ended and comics companies cut back their lines) to re-do old stories with a more contemporary style.
Some illustrators totally-redid the art, using new "camera angles" and clothing/technology designs reflecting contemporary tastes.
In this particular case, artist Cirilo Munoz just lightboxed and re-inked the Nodel artwork!
Editor Carl (Golden Age Human Torch) Burgos eliminated the opening captions and modified a couple of captions and dialogue balloons, but otherwise left the unknown writer's original script intact.
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