Fantagraphics Year-End Sale

Fantagraphics, one of the premiere comics and comix publishers is having a year-end sale on a lot of their trade paperbacks and hardcovers.
Of particular interest to fans of this blog are..

Adastra in Africa

Originally meant to be part of the LifeDeath plotline in Uncanny X-Men, Barry Windsor-Smith's already-penciled pages were adapted into a new story with Ororo/Storm being reworked into Adastra.

B Krigstein Volume 1

Ten years in the making, this exhaustively researched tome is a giant biography and career retrospective of one of the most important cartoonists in the history of comics. Following his life from early childhood to his acclaimed run at EC Comics, B. Krigstein traces the development of an artist who, despite having left only a relative handful of works behind him when he finally abandoned the comics field for the world of fine art, nonetheless served as an influence on many of the most acclaimed of the cartoonists to follow in his footsteps. This book also reproduces a generous sampling of art and illustration, plus six complete stories (including the famed "Master Race"), many of them newly-recolored by noted EC artist Marie Severin from Krigstein's own specifications!

Will Elder: Chicken Fat

"It's the part of the chicken soup that is bad for you, yet gives the soup its delicious flavor," Will Elder once explained. Chicken Fat is a collection of flavors by a master comedic chef as he works out his recipes. Elder's stable of characters is duly represented, with Goodman Beaver, Little Annie Fanny, the Mole and the more obscure Anthony Adverse, together with caricatures of celebrities and politicians, studies of classic comics characters (including the iconic Wedding of Popeye and Olive Oyl), movie posters, assorted gag panels, anatomical and fine art studies, and pages upon pages of ingeniously realized doodles.

Classic Pin-Up Art of Jack Cole

Jack Cole has been justly celebrated as the creator of Plastic Man and an innovative comic book artist of the 1940s. After finishing his 14-year run on Plastic Man, he found himself looking for something new. According to Cole, his savior was the Humorama line of down-market digest magazines. This girls and gags magazine circuit proved to be the perfect training ground to regain his footing and develop his craft at single panel “gag” cartoons. His ability to render the female form was already without peer. Though he signed his cartoons “Jake,” Cole’s exquisite line drawings and masterful use of ink-wash — a skill he carried over to Playboy — betrayed his pseudonym.

The Great Comic Book Heroes

Out of print for over 30 years, The Great Comic Book Heroes is widely acknowledged to be the first book to analyze the juvenile medium of superhero comics in a critical manner, but without denying the iconic hold such works have over readers of all ages. Feiffer discusses the role that the patriotic superhero played during World War II in shaping the public spirit of civilians and soldiers, as well as the escapist power these stories held over the zeitgeist of America. New cover by R. Sikoryak.
One note: this volume does not include the complete comic stories included in the 1960s and 1970 editions.

There's lots more if you go HERE.

Beware The Black Beetle!

It's kool to see a friend do well...

Francesco Francavilla, noted artist on everything from Black Panther to Green Hornet has added another colorful character to his resume, this time one of his own creations...Black Beetle!
The film noir/pulp-influenced Internet sensation will see print in a three-parter at Dark Horse Comics' anthology title Dark Horse Presents!
Congratulations, Francesco!

"I'm Quitting, before the Easter Bunny shows up with a CANNON!"

Ah, the Silver Age of Comics!
When situations like the one portrayed above were the norm, rather than the exception.
From Hot Wheels #6 (1970), the last issue of the first comic based on a TV series based on a toy line.
Ironically, it was the Christmas issue...

Long before He-Man, Micronauts, GI Joe and Transformers presented toys as animated action heroes, Hanna-Barbera's Hot Wheels animated series (based on the highly-successful Mattel toys) featured a politically-correct team of teens battling evil while engaging in auto races in nifty cars (with their seat belts firmly buckled, of course)!
Yes, it sounds like Scooby Doo without the annoying talking dog...
To see this never-reprinted story, click HERE.
And, keep an eye on Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™, where the entire six-issue run of How Wheels will be re-presented after January 1st.

Star Wars Christmas Special!

Would it really be a Merry Christmas without the...

I think not!
See the one Star Wars tale George Lucas doesn't count as part of the Expanded Universe!

Merry Christmas!

or is it

"Happy Life Day"?

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!