Ride the Halloween Night with The ORIGINAL Ghost Rider!

He began life in the late 1940s as The Calico Kid, a masked hero whose secret identity was a lawman who felt justice was constrained by legal limitations. (There were a lot of those heroes in comics and pulps of the 40s including our own DareDevil and Blue Beetle!)
But, with masked heroes in every genre doing a slow fade-out after World War II, and both the western and horror genres on the rise, the character was re-imagined in 1949 as comics' first horror / western character!

The Ghost Rider himself was not a supernatural being.
He wore a phosphorescent suit and cape, making him glow in the dark, appearing as a spectral presence to the (mostly) superstitious cowboys and Indians he faced.
Since the inside of the cape was black, he'd reverse it, and appear in the dark as just a floating head, usually scaring a confession or needed information out of owlhoots.
Note: some covers, like the one here, show the inside of the cape to be white! Chalk it up to artistic license (and face it, it looks damned cool).

BTW, the artistically-astute among you can tell that cover was by the legendary Frank Frazetta!
He did several of them, three of which are included in our collection!

In the series' early days the villains were standard owlhoots or, like the Rider, people pretending to be supernatural beings.
That changed around 1952, when he started facing real mystic menaces including Indian spirits, vampires, and even the Frankenstein Monster (though not the one from Prize Comics.)
Unfortunately, it was about this point in time that Dr. Wertham began his crusade against comics in general and horror comics in particular...
By 1954, the Ghost Rider had lost his series. The next year he disappeared entirely.
But, over 50 years later, Atomic Kommie Comics™ brought him back, digitally-restored and remastered on a host of kool kollectibles to go with our other masked Western heroes including The Lone Rider, The Red Mask, The Black Phantom, and The Masked Ranger.

If you're a fan of horror, masked heroes, Westerns, or all three genres, take a long, lingering look at The Ghost Rider!
You'll not see his like again!

Fantastic Femmes--Amiee Garcia

Note: this page has been updated with NEW info  
HERE!

Whoopi!!! WTF???

My admiration for Whoopi Goldberg is boundless (as you can see from my linked blog entry).
But her recent comment on The View regarding Roman Polanski's arrest for fleeing America after his conviction on rape charges is disturbing, to say the least!

There are several questions I'd like to ask Ms. Goldberg...
"Is your opinion based on the concept that Polanski's status as an "artiste", as opposed to the average untalented Joe Schmo, frees him from the moral responsibilities imposed by society?"
"Since Polanski is not American, does that allow him to ignore our laws while in America?"
"Do you believe Polanski has already 'suffered enough'?"
"Do you believe that fleeing the jurisdiction after pleading guilty to a crime is not grounds for incarceration?"
"What if it was your daughter he molested?"

Ms. Goldberg, I think you're fantastic!
But, in this case, I think you're unbelievably WRONG!

Phantom Lady--Pin-Up Queen of the Golden Age

One of the most famous (or notorious) Golden Age comic characters, Phantom Lady was also one of the first costumed superheroines, predating Wonder Woman (who debuted in All-Star Comics #8) in 1941 by several months!

Like a number of 1940s comics characters, she was created by an independent comic book studio (the legendary Eisner-Iger studio) for an established publisher (Quality Comics) debuting in Police Comics #1 which also featured the first appearances of Plastic Man, FireBrand, and The Human Bomb.
After a year, her strip was canceled by Quality, and the character was offered to Fox Comics, where she was promoted to her own comic, which started with #13, since it took over the numbering of an already existing title.
Her costume was modified by legendary "good girl" artist Matt Baker to expose more of her (ahem) assets and a number of covers featured her being captured and tied up by evildoers.
It is this version which became notorious by becoming one of the primary examples in Dr. Fredric Wertham's crusade against comics detailed in his book Seduction of the Innocent.
Believing both the "naughty" and "nice" versions of the character have a place in pop culture history (and your collections), Atomic Kommie Comics™ has included the classic superheroine in not one, but two different sections of our store!
In the Heroines!™ collection, we have the G-rated "empowered" version, kicking evil butts right and left!
And, in Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics™, we have the PG-13, more risque version, including the famous cover included in Dr. Wertham's book!
She's also featured on both our Heroines and Good Girl / Bad Grrrl 2010 12-Month Calendars as well as her own Phantom Lady 2010 12-Month Calendar with a dozen of her best Golden AND Silver Age covers!

If you're looking for classy, yet kitchy, gifts, you can't go wrong with our selection of Phantom Lady goodies for the pop culture / comics aficionado in your life!
Let him (or her) unwrap Phantom Lady!
They'll thank you for it! ;-)

Frankly, it's Frankie (Frankenstein, that is!)

As Halloween approaches, we thought we'd take a look back at one of the best horror comics series of all time (and toss in a free plug while we're at it!)
Prize Comics' Monster of Frankenstein began life in Prize Comics #7 (the same issue that introduced The Green Lama to comics) and continued over several years going from a relatively-straight sequel to the Mary Shelley novel to all-out comedy, all drawn by the same artist, Dick Briefer (who also created the series The Target & the Targeteers.) and continuing to the point when Prize Comics became Prize Western Comics.
By then, he had his own title, also played for laughs, which ran for 17 issues.
Of particular note was Prize Comics #24, where The Green Lama, Yank & Doodle, The Black Owl, and other Prize Comics heroes teamed up as "The Prize Fighters" to deal with the assumed threat of the Monster, much as various Marvel heroes tend to team up to try to tame the presumed threat of The Incredible Hulk!
By the mid-1950s, with horror comics a hot genre, The Monster was revived as a straight horror title with #18 and running thru #33, with Dick Briefer still at the artistic helm. This is the period Golden Age fans still speak of in respectful hushed tones (although technically, it's not the Golden Age).
Old-timers may also note the logo was adapted for the first (and only) issue of Calvin Beck's Journal of Frankenstein, a b/w magazine which was retitled Castle of Frankenstein for the remainder of it's run. (It was one of the better competitors to Forrest J. Ackerman's long-running Famous Monsters of Filmland).
There have been several reprints of the Briefer material including Ray Zone's 3-D Zone, Michael T. Gilbert's Mr Monster's Hi-Shock Schlock, and AC Comics' Men of Mystery, and most recently, Idea Men Productions' trade paperback (ISBN-10 1419640178, ISBN-13 978-1419640179)
AC Comics also did an updated, villainous version of the character, called "Frightenstein"* in a number of their titles, and Dynamite Entertainment's Project SuperPowers has incorporated him as the conceptual basis of the "F-Troop" reanimated-corpse soldiers.

Knowing you can't keep a good monster down, Atomic Kommie Comics™ has revived The Monster as part of our Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics™ collectibles line just in time for Halloween with six classic covers (including #18, his first horror-era appearance) adorning such items as tote bags (perfect as trick-or-treat bags), mousepads, blank sketchbooks, mugs, and, of course, shirts.
In addition, we now have a Frankenstein 2010 12-Month calendar featuring the a dozen of the best of both the humor and horror versions!

Personally, I'm gonna be wearing one of them on Halloween.
Only question is, which one? ;-)

*"Frightenstein" was also the name of a short-lived 1970s syndicated tv series called The Hilarious House of Frightenstein. Vincent Price did a number of intros to segments.