Cover Preview: SHERLOCK HOLMES "Liverpool Demon"

Our good friend Francesco Francavilla is doing covers for one a new mini-series...

Issue #1

...featuring one of our favorite characters!

Here's the synopsis...

The year is 1888: the Great Detective and the ever dependable Dr. Watson find themselves in the bleak northern port city of Liverpool from whose still bustling docklands grim slave vessels once sailed.

Violent gangs roam the streets and the city’s struggling police force are fighting a war against an all pervading criminal underworld.

A strange creature is sighted high among the rooftops and soon dead bodies bearing strange wounds begin to mysteriously appear.

Only Sherlock Holmes can cut to the heart of the mystery and expose the truth behind the spectre of The Liverpool Demon.

Here's the covers for the other three issues in the series...

Issue #2

Issue #3

Issue #4

It looks like a helluva lot of fun, and, of course, the Greatest Sleuth of All will find a (ahem) logical explanation for all the satanic goings-on!

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My Uncle is The Lone Ranger and My Son is The Green Hornet!

Status quo-changing events are not a new phenomenon in fiction.
Even in the Golden Age of Comics, series and characters received revamps (or even total reboots) if sales weren't meeting expectations.
Sometimes, the revamp extended through a character's other media incarnations as well!
And, at least once, through two different characters' incarnations with a crossover character...Dan Reid!
Much has been written about the radio show episodes that tied The Green Hornet and The Lone Ranger together, using Dan Reid, who was both Britt (Green Hornet) Reid's father, and John (Lone Ranger) Reid's nephew!
Though Dan was the same character in both shows, different actors played him on the two series, because Dan was a 'tween/teen on the 1880s-set Lone Ranger, and a middle-aged/elderly man on the contemporary (1940s) Green Hornet!

The 1940s Harvey Green Hornet comic book series had been loosely-adapting the radio show's scripts into comic stories, but when this storyline (spread over four episodes) ran on the radio show, the comics' creatives had to do some serious juggling to fit two hours of dramatic radio into two eight-page chapters in a single issue!

(And, yes, a subtle Lone Ranger reference is in the comic story, too!)

It's so historically-important that we couldn't confine this tale to a single blog!

You can see the results at Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™, with the conclusion at Hero Histories™.
In both entries, we're providing not only the comics tales, but the radio show episodes as well, so you can compare them!

Plus, we're presenting the introduction of Dan Reid (as a kid) into the Lone Ranger series, which added another ongoing character with whom the Masked Rider of the Prairie could interact (especially when the actor playing Tonto went on vacation or was out sick) in both comics and mp3 formats!
You'll find Part One HERE at Western Comics Adventures™ and Part Two HERE, back at Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™.
Enjoy!

And, don't forget to visit...

The Classic Green Hornet Store

Reading Room: FANTASTIC WORLDS "Cosmic Terror"

Some say space opera is just a Western with ray guns instead of six-shooters...

...but this never-reprinted tale from Standard's Fantastic Worlds #6 (1952) is a Cold War tale with aliens instead of Communists!

Though the scripter is unknown, the artwork is by Art Saaf, who had a long career in comics from the mid-1940s to the mid 1970s, doing everything from romance to horror to sci-fi to superheroes!

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Reading Room: CAPTAIN SCIENCE "Metal Monsters"

Captain Science has faced aliens (twice) and an undead Adolf Hitler.

So what's next?

Giant robots, of course!

To be specific, giant robots sent by the aliens he's beaten twice!

The art on this never-reprinted story from Youthful's Captain Science #3 (1951)  is by Gustav Schrotter.

The writer is unknown.

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Steve Holland IS Steve Zodiac in STEVE ZODIAC & FIREBALL XL5

Art by George Wilson

Due to the passing of sci-fi movie/tv creator Gerry Anderson, we've been running tributes to his shows on our "brother" blog Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™, including the never-reprinted one-shot Steve Zodiac and Fireball from Gold Key Comics (HERE and HERE).

When we posted the painted cover for SZ&F, the face of Steve Zodiac looked very familar to us.

It's Steve Holland, the manliest actor/model who ever lived!

Best known as the model for the iconic Doc Savage #1 paperback cover that redefined the "look" of the character from 1964 onward, Holland was also The Avenger, The Spider (both the masked Berkley Books and turtlenecked Pocket Books versions), James Bond (on Bantam Books' early 1970s reprints)

and as various characters (who aren't even in the movie) on movie posters including Danger: Diabolik and Wild, Wild Planet!

Plus. he was TV's Flash Gordon in the 1950s!

Now we can add the distinction of being the first person to appear as a live-action version of a Supermationation character to Holland's extensive resume!