Wednesday, January 1, 2014

The ComicCraft New Year's Day Font Sale!

If you're into comics, one of the coolest things you can do today is go to ComicCraft's website and participate in their annual New Years' Day font discount sale!
These guys provide fonts to DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, IDW, etc, so you're getting state-of-the-art  software used by the pros at an amazingly-low price for your website, blog, or print project!
(We use them for most of our logos)
"Comicraft fonts are created BY Comic Book Letterers FOR Comic Book Lettering, and every New Year we give our faithful customers -- and even casual browsers who stumbled into our store because it's throwing down outside -- a one-day-only opportunity to rummage through Comicraft's remainder bin and snap up Comicrazy for a mere twenty dollars and fourteen cents rather than $395! And, yes, yes, yes, and thrice YES, EACH of our fonts will be on sale for $20.14, even the ones that usually cost $19! We're Cray Cray Crazy, we know!"
Note: the sale ends at Midnight in your time zone, not at Midnight in California, where ComicCraft is based, so place your orders accordingly!

Monday, December 30, 2013

Reading Room SPACE ADVENTURES "Mummers from Mercury"

60 years ago, on New Years Day, the world almost ended...
...but it was saved by the participants of the annual Mummers Parade!
This never-reprinted story from Charlton's Space Adventures #1 (1953) was illustrated by Albert Tyler and Dick Giordano.
The writer (who was probably from Philadelphia) is unknown.

The Mummers Parade is held every New Years Day in Philadelphia.
Mummers tradition dates back to 400 BC and the Roman Festival of Saturnalias where Latin laborers marched in masks throughout the day of satire and gift exchange.
This included Celtic variations of “trick-or-treat” and Druidic noise-making to drive away demons for the new year.

Reports of rowdy groups “parading” on New Years day in Philadelphia date back before the revolution.
Prizes were offered by merchants in the late 1800s.
January 1, 1901 was the first “official” parade offered about $1,725 in prize money from the city.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Reading Room JETTA OF THE 21st CENTURY "My Cosmic Hero"

With 2013 about to end...
...let's look at a typical evening at the drive-in, supposedly set in the early 21st Century (aka NOW)...as presented in 1952!
(I'm still waiting for my flying car!)
If the art style looks familiar, it's the work of Dan DeCarlo, who helped establish the iconic "look" of Archie Comics!
Dan actually started at Atlas Comics (the 1940s-50s predecessor to Marvel Comics) doing a variety of humor strips before beginning a long-term run on various Archie titles in 1951.
Even then, he continued to work for a number of other publishers, including Standard Comics, who asked him to create, write, and illustrate a teen-humor series.
(Every publisher had at least one of them!)
Exactly whose idea it was to set it in the "far future" of the early 21st Century is unknown, but the resultant strip, though extremely derivative of Archie, was unique in the teen-humor genre for it's Jetsons-style setting and "futuristic" slang.

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Saturday, December 28, 2013

Excelsior! Happy 91st Birthday to Stan Lee!

Co-Creator of the Marvel Comics universe...although "Catalyst" might be a better term to describe him.

Together with an astounding group of artists (some, like Jack Kirby, already legends in the field), he produced a memorable lineup of characters and stories which, to this day, form the backbone both of the comics line and various film and tv spinoffs.
Even the characters Lee didn't co-create (like Captain America and the Silver Surfer) were guided and shaped by Lee in his role as Editor into the versions we know and love today.

And credit where credit is due...Lee couldn't have done it without Kirby, Steve Ditko, Don Heck, Gene Colan, and the rest; while they, who had all done superb work without him, did their best work with him!
(C'mon, what post-Stan Lee Marvel characters have had any real success, outside of the 1975 revival of the X-Men, itself based on core characters created by Lee and Kirby?)

So, EXCELSIOR! to you, Stan the Man!