Holiday Reading Room PICTURE STORIES FROM THE BIBLE: NEW TESTAMENT "Story of Jesus: Part 1"

Yesterday we showed you the Atlas (Marvel) version of Christ's birth...

...today it's the granddaddy of Bible comics, DC Comics' Picture Stories from the Bible!

The story continues with a caption mentioning that Mary and Joseph escaped and then takes up with Jesus as a 'tween, so we're not running that part yet...

Originally published by All-American Comics under the DC Comics logo in 1942, later editions were done by EC Comics after publisher MC Gaines sold his rights to most of the All-American line to National Allied Publications who combined the two groups into National Periodical Publications.

(National Allied and All-American had been marketing and distributing their books together, usually using the DC Comics logo, which was the result of an earlier buyout of Detective Comics Inc by National!)

Retaining the rights to the Picture Stories series, Gaines used it as the cornerstone of his new EC Comics imprint.

Note: EC Comics, now famous (or infamous) for its horror/sci-fi titles and MAD was originally conceived as Educational Comics with lots of wholesome, young-kid oriented material like Tiny Tots Comics and Land of the Lost!

Don't remember them?

That's why "Educational" Comics became "Entertaining" Comics, though they continued reprinting Picture Stories (but without the EC logo on the front after the whole "Seduction of the Innocent" scare...)

Unlike Atlas' Bible Tales, which used a plethora of artists, the entire Picture Stories series was written by Montgomery Mulford & Edward Wertheim and illustrated by Don Cameron!

Visit our

Cool Christmas

Collectibles Corner

Holiday Reading Room BIBLE TALES FOR YOUNG FOLK "Nativity: the Birth of Jesus"

Over the years, many comics companies did Bible-themed projects...

...such as Atlas Comics' Bible Tales for Young Folk which presented this never-reprinted story in its first issue!

The writer is unknown, but the penciler/inker is the legendary Joe Sinnott, best known for his inking of Jack Kirby and John Buscema on the Fantastic Four during the Silver Age.

(In truth, Joe's done an incredible amount of truly-spectacular work in comics, but that's the first thing most fans think of.)

Joe also did quite a bit of work for Treasure Chest, a comic distributed semi-monthly only to parochial schools during the school year that ran over 500 issues.

Oddly, none of Sinnott's stories were Bible adaptations (which TC did a lot of).

Bible Tales lasted five issues in 1953 and '54, mixing New and Old Testament stories into each issue, illustrated by the cream of the Atlas (later Marvel) Comics crew including; Jerry Robinson, Don Rico, Syd Shores, Fred Kida, Bernie Krigstein, Bill Everett, Joe Maneely, and Gene Colan!

Visit our

Cool Christmas

Collectibles Corner

It's Almost Christmas...and the Elves are On Strike!

You think the economic situation is bad now?

Go back 75 years ago, to November 1938 and see...when elves were part of the 99%!
(You'll note that the cover is dated January, 1939. But it was actually on sale in November, 1938! Publishers used to cover-date comics and pulps two to three months ahead of the actual on-sale date to keep the books on the stands for as long as possible!)
Thus do we at Atomic Kommie Comics™ present another retro-styled collectible for your Christmas gift-giving consideration, and offer you a bit of media history at the same time!
In this case, we proudly present one of our Christmas in the Comics line from our Cool Christmas collection: nine different digitally-remastered comic covers featuring classic characters celebrating Christmas, including The Green Lama, SuperSnipe, and Edison Bell: Boy Inventor, as well as two long-out-of-print versions of The Big Man, Santa, himself!
Available on a multitude of memorabilia including greeting cards, mugs, hoodies, and other goodies, these pop-art collectibles are NOT available in any brick-and-mortar stores, only on-line thru us!
And don't forget our Santa Claus--the Man Himself, A Christmas Carol starring Scrooge, the Hardly-Abominable SnowMan, and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians lines!
There's something for everyone under the tree at Atomic Kommie Comics™!

Cowboys + Dinosaurs = Christmas FUN!

Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

They just don't make comics like this anymore!

Masked cowboy hero vs gunslinger riding a pterodactyl...and a bright magenta pterodactyl at that!
It's the sort of concept a nine-year old would come up with while playing with his (or her) brand-new action figures under the Christmas tree, mixing the dinosaurs with superheroes and cowboys!

Why not?
That's what makes it so KOOL!
It's so darn silly you just have to look at it and think "what the--?"

That's exactly the sense of wonder we at Atomic Kommie Comics™ still feel!
We want to live in a world where anything can, and does, happen!
In pop culture, we call this sort of tale "cross-genre", where a story draws elements from disparate categories of fiction.

Sometimes there's a certain logic to it.
One of my favorite books involves fiction's greatest detective dealing with the first alien invasion!
Since he lived in London at the time the invasion took place, it seems only (dare I say it) elementary, that Sherlock Holmes would witness and analyze the Martian invasion of 1898!
That's the basis of the great pastiche, Sherlock Holmes' War of the Worlds by Manly Wade Wellman & Wade Wellman!
That novel, to us, defines KOOL!
(The fact the story also includes another of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic characters; Professor Challenger from The Lost World and other sci-fi novels, is a cross-genre bonus!)
Track down a copy. If you're a Holmes, Challenger, and/or War of the Worlds fan (I'm all three), it's well worth the effort!

Sometimes there's no real logic to it except--"why not?"
That's the category where Santa Claus Conquers the Martians goes!
And that's where the cover shown above goes.
This particular design was so cross-genre we put it in two wildly-different sections--Dinosaurs!, and Masked Western Heroes, because, hey, it fits into both categories, so--"why not?"

Keep the Sense of Wonder alive!
Give a gift that keeps inspiring the imaginations of both the young and the young-at-heart!
Stick a present from Atomic Kommie Comics™ into a stocking or under the tree!

Reading Room: RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER "Rudolph's Swelled Head" Conclusion

When Last We Left the Red-Nosed Reindeer...

...It's Christmas Eve, Santa has to get moving, and an apologetic Rudolph is ready to rejoin the crew...

And that's how Santa introduced licensed toy promotions into comic books.

Written by Sy Reit and illustrated by Rube Grossman, this 1950 annual was the first of a series that ran until 1963.

The concept was revived in the tabloid-sized "Treasury" (10" x 14") format in 1972 and was published annually (except in '75 and '77) until 1978.

(Both DC and Marvel experimented in the 1970s with the over-sized format.

They were much bigger than normal comics with cardstock covers, though the interior pages were printed on the usual comic book paper stock.)

The series was a more-or-less sequel to the original story (which we presented HERE.) and song.

(The animated TV special that tells a totally-different version of the tale didn't appear until 1964.)

One thing you'll note is the unique idea of including activity pages as part of the story, giving us perfect chapter enders and openers in our serial presentation format.

Visit our

Cool Christmas

Collectibles Corner