Monday, June 8, 2009

The Best of Simon & Kirby

Before Lee & Kirby...there was Simon & Kirby!
As we mentioned in our entry on The Blue Bolt, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were the first "super-team" in comics!
In fact, their names on the cover were a selling point at a time where most creators labored in anonymity!
Yes, I know Siegel & Shuster came before them, but their fame was based totally on Superman. (Admittedly one hell of a creation [and multi-media sensation], but still, a single character!)
On the other hand, Simon & Kirby created dozens, if not hundreds of characters and series, many of whom had astonishingly-long runs for the mayfly-lived comics business! A number of them (particularly Captain America) are still going strong today!

The new book about them, The Best of Simon & Kirby, certainly lives up to it's title!
Edited by Joe Simon himself, and with intro and info from Mark Evanier, a tv / film scripter, comics historian, and both close friend and co-worker with Jack Kirby from the late 1960s until his untimely passing, the book is a must-have for anyone with...
1) interest in comic books (particularly the Golden Age)...
2) a need to know how sci-fi / fantasy creators come up with all those nifty ideas...
or...
3) a burning desire to gaze at page after page of lovingly-restored and reproduced comic stories (Many of which have NEVER been reprinted!)

Best of all, it's the FIRST in a projected series of S&K tomes, each one covering a different genre (And S&K hit ALL of them, so there's A LOT of material to re-present!)

The Best of Simon & Kirby would make a helluva Father's Day or graduation (elementary, junior high, or high school) gift!
And to make it even better, why not combine it with a kool Atomic Kommie Comics™ kollectible like a mug or t-shirt featuring classic cover art from one of the featured books (including The Blue Bolt himself)?

Even if you don't go with one of our kool kollectibles (why you wouldn't is beyond me...), BUY The Best of Simon & Kirby!
It's a "must-have" for ANY "pop culture" fan!
Good Lord! I'm doing "Kirby Quotes"!

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Pushing Daisies--Watch it Tonite!

Tonite, the unfortunately-cancelled tv series Pushing Daisies is airing it's next-to-last episode "Power & Water".
The main guest-star is Fantastic Femme Gina Torres as Lila Robinson, the mother of private eye Emerson Cod's estranged daughter.
(I'll use any excuse to run a couple more pix of Gina!)

Thursday, June 4, 2009

The Coming of...Captain Future (both of them)!

Created and written by legendary sci-fi writer Edmond Hamilton, Captain Future I was a futuristic Doc Savage-type pulp hero with an entourage of aides including robot Grag, shape-changing android Otho, and Simon Wright the Living Brain.
An "ultimate-human" type hero with Olympic-level physical abiilties and genius-level mind, the Moon-based Cap, aka Curt Newton, battled evil all over the universe, first in his own title, and later in the sci-fi anthology pulp Startling Stories.
Strangely, when his publisher put him into comics, Cap was rechristened "Major Mars", even though he was still Curt Newton, and the other characters remained the same!
That publisher then created an entirely NEW comic book hero and assigned HIM the "Captain Future" name!
Captain Future II was present-day (1940s) scientist Andrew Bryant who exposed himself to a combo of gamma and infrared radiation which granted him super-strength, flight, and energy-emitting powers! (instead of frying him like bacon, which is what would happen if it were you or me!)
In a unique twist, if he over-extended his powers, Cap would have to return to his lab and "recharge" himself!

This version is the one revived by Alex Ross in Project SuperPowers.
Interesting graphic note: in Alex Ross' redesign, Captain Future II now wears a reversed Project SuperPowers logo "S" on his chest instead of the original lightning bolt which looks exactly like the SHAZAM! Captain Marvel's!

Check both of them (including Cap I's FIRST pulp and comic appearances, AND Cap II's FIRST appearance) out on shirts, messenger bags, mousepads, mugs & other kool kollectibles by clicking here!

Coming in August...The Classic Captain Future 12-Month Calendar for 2010!