Marvel Characters Inspire Clothing Designers...

Ever wondered if a cape and tights could pass for haute couture?

On Thursday, Project Runway: Under the Gunn viewers will find out.
The four remaining competitors on the reality show will use Marvel characters such as Black Widow, Captain Marvel (shown above), Falcon, Hawkeye and the Guardians of the Galaxy as inspiration for a ready-to-wear challenge.

Jaimie Alexander (Lady Sif on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Thor films) will serve as a guest judge ready to school the hopefuls on all things fierce.

Cort Lane (that name just sounds like a superhero), Marvel’s vice president in charge of animation development and production, will also be on hand as a guest mentor.

Catch it Thursday evening on Lifetime, 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Happy 75th Birthday, Caped Crusader!

It was 75 years ago this week that criminals first stammered "Th...th...th...BAT-MAN!"

Thank you, Bob Kane...and Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson & Gardner Fox.

Above art by Bob Kane, scanned from recently-discovered page proofs of Detective Comics #27 (1939), is his first appearance in a story.

(He's also on the first page of the tale, but in silhouette.)

BTW, those first-generation proofs as close as any of us will ever get to the long-lost original art.

Reading Room CONQUEROR COMICS "Conquerors"

Easily one of the weirdest strips ever...

...from the only issue of the only comic this publisher ever produced!

What did the creators of this series have in mind?

It takes place on another world where long-dead people from Earth's past are now apparently immortal and can manipulate time itself!

In addition, it seems that every ethnic group has set itself up on their own planet...which begs the question as to how they would get there, since none of these groups had the technology for space travel!

Is it Heaven?

Unlikely, since Adolph Hitler is there!

Plus, the locals say the astronauts can't remove their helmets and breathe the air or they'll be unable to return to Earth!

Illustrated by Warren King, and scripted by an unknown writer, this lead story from the one and only issue of Conqueror Comics (1945) never had a sequel.

In fact, the publisher, Albrecht Publishing, never produced another comic!

In most cases like this, unused material would be sold off to another publisher who would use it as "filler", somewhere in their comics...but not Albrecht!

So we'll never know what would've happened to Bill and John Cotter as they explored this weird part of space/time!

The Mysteries of CONQUEROR COMICS

Why is a man in ancient Chinese garb greeting an aviator debarking...

Art by Warren King

.. from an ultra-modern rocket plane?

And what is Conqueror Comics?

The answers to these and other pertinent questions will be found here

TOMORROW!

Reading Room: CAPTAIN SCIENCE "Science vs Sorcery"

Comic book space adventurers were a dime-a-dozen in the 1950s...

...but none had better art than Captain Science!

Wow, a story where Arabs are actually good guys!

Wally Wood and Joe Orlando did the art for this tale from Youthful's Captain Science #5 (1951), and you can tell they were having the time of their lives, as they cut loose with some of the wildest stuff ever to grace sci-fi comic books.

Unlike the earlier Captain Science stories, which have never been reprinted, these Orlando/Wood stories have been re-published all over the place, but they're still well-worth seeing again!

Visit the

Captain Science

Comic Collectibles Store