Reading Room BUCCANEERS "Black Roger: Who He Is and How He Came to Be"

While most movie/comic/pulp pirates battled along the Spanish Main...

...this freebooter set sail for the Barbary Coast!

When superheroes' popularity waned at the end of World War II, comics looked for other genres to fill the gap.

Taking their cue from movie box office sales, several publishers either premiered new books featuring swashbuckling scoundrels or converted ongoing titles from superheroes to pirates.

(In fact, Black Roger's premiere tale is from Quality's Buccaneers #19 (1950), which was the first issue under that title.

It had previously been Kid Eternity!)

While most of the strips were pretty blatant copies of various Errol Flynn or Tyrone Power pirate characters, this strip recombined elements of Captain Blood (Educated professional wrongly-convicted) and Zorro (masked avenger) along with our hero concentrating on a particular class of pirate...Moslem Arabs along the Barbary Coast of Africa!

Oddly, the particular group he battles this time out seem more Asian than Arab, a matter that's corrected in future stories.

Regrettably, both writer and artist(s) are unknown.

Black Roger appeared in every issue of Buccaneers during its'  9-issue run, never once making the cover (That was resereved for an Errol Flynn/Sea Hawk clone named "Captain Daring".

But you'll be seeing them all on this blog over the next few months.

Watch for them!

Martin Luther King, Jr--the Comic Book

On the day we honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr, the gang at Atomic Kommie Comics™ thought it only appropriate to present this item, the first comic book dramatizing his historic efforts.
From the website's intro to the comic...
Most sane thinkers consider MLK to be an important and historic larger-than-life icon, but how did that happen?
Especially given the marginalized press coverage of blacks in the 50s, how was his message galvanized among southern minorities and then spread as a single statement beyond the black community -- and how was it focused so specifically to such seemingly ignorable or boring local incidents as one black woman's refusal to give up a bus seat and a following small-town bus boycott, as well as the concept of Passive Resistance?
Without any need for hyperbole, this comic book is one of the reasons.


Produced by the Fellowship of the Reconciliation and sent very surreptitiously throughout the South (it was dangerous for many to own a copy), then translated, re-drawn, and distributed once again throughout the entire SOUTHERN CONTINENT through Mexico, into Central and then South America, this comic tells the story that established the myth of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks at the time that it mattered, mere months after news events occurred.
Intended for adults, but shown in comic book format for the largest possible distribution and audience and instruction.

It was also produced as a comic because more adult seeming publications and newspapers were often destroyed by white businessmen and other violent types bent on continuing segregation's grip on the South.
But that does not mean people found distributing copies of this comic were not given their fair share of beatings and harassment, nor does it mean thousands of copies were not often destroyed.
Why? This comic is and was dangerously honest.
Featuring the Klan (lynching, bombs, burning crosses), Jim Crow laws, and the entire concept of Nonviolent Protest.
This pamphlet offered advice and instructions on how to use passive resistance and massive non-violent resistance against segregation, just as these ideas were fresh --and it also established a clear connection of MLK to Gandhi, a public connection that continues on to today.


A copy of this comic is held in the Smithsonian and many Civil Rights leaders recognize this as one of the most important AND PERSUASIVE items of the 50s in establishing or explaining their cause to the world, as well as giving many black youths the courage and direction to hold their own political protests.
Many notable sit-ins and demonstrations link to this comic book getting into the right hands - and it did get around, literally devoured by black college students at the time.

We're DELIGHTED to offer you not just the American version of this comic but also the SPANISH edition, of which maybe two or three copies are known to exist.
After extensive effort and search, we were able to find a copy in Uruguay.
Not joking. Completely redrawn and translated, click back and forth to compare art, some of the differences between the two are great.


Ever wonder how much influence and power a small press or self-produced item can have?
This is one of the best examples you'll ever see.

All 12-Month Calendars are NOW 25% Off!

From now until January 31, 2015, all calendars are discounted from $19.99 to $14.99!
And they now have customizable"start dates", so you can give them as birthday presents with the recepient's 2015 birthday month as the first month on the calendar, then running 12 months to their birthday in 2016!
(Can't do that with a store-bought calendar!)

Check them out at 
Atomic Kommie Comics™
2015 12-Month Calendars 

NOT available in stores, only on-line! Order now...before time runs out! ;-)

Mohammed's Cameo in Marvel Comics...

From Marvel Preview #1 (1975)...

...and a tale in tribute to the EC Comics of the 1950s called "Good Lord!".

The point in this panel was that God himself was a benevolent alien who sent representatives not only to Earth, but to all worlds!

(If anything, leaving Mohammed out of the lineup cold be construed as an insult!)

You can read the story HERE.

Art by penciler Dave Cockrum and a group of inkers known as the "Crusty Bunkers" including Neal Adams and Joe Rubinstein.

Reading Room SPACE PATROL "Testtube Tyler"

Let's end the week with a workplace joke...but with a sci-fi twist!

This never-reprinted one pager from Ziff-Davis' Space Patrol #2 (1952) was Testtube Tyler's sole appearance.

Obviously, Cedrick never reappeared either.

And, to top it off, the writer and artist (who may be one and the same or two different people) are unknown.