Reading Room UNUSUAL TALES "Night of Red Snow"

As near-record cold grips the northern USA...

Art by Steve Ditko

...we present another chilly comics tale, illustrated by the co-creator of Spider-Man, Steve Ditko!

Unfortunately, due to Charlton Comics' legendarily-bad printing, the "red" effect on the canvas is muted almost to uselessness, diminishing the ending's effectiveness!

BTW, did you note the sneaky "red herring" on the sides of the moving van on page 3?

Beautifully-rendered by Steve Ditko, this tale from Charlton's Unusual Tales #9 (1957) has no credited writer, but many researchers/historians believe the scripter is the prolific (and underrated) Joe Gill.

Reading Room STRANGE TALES "When a Planet Dies!"

The current "deep freeze" reminded me of the splash panel from this story...

...from Marvel's Weird Wonder Tales #22 (1973), which was actually a reworking of this (literally) cool story from Strange Tales #97 (1962)!

While the art is clearly-credited to Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers, who wrote it is not entirely clear.

A number of people, myself included, think it's scripted by Kirby himself.

Bonus: Here's the cover from a previous issue of Weird Wonder Tales that supplied the Dr Druid figure on the reworked splash page...

Art by Jack Kirby, John Romita (Dr Druid's face) and Joe Sinnott

 ...and here's the original art for the splash page!

The production artist "flipped" a stat of the Druid figure and fit it where the bearded aliens are on the original.

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!

Happy New Year

Out celebrating.

See you tomorrow!

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.