Reading Room BLACK MAGIC "Cry for Help!"

Most comics fans know Prize's Black Magic series as...

...one of the Simon/Kirby team's best projects.

But, as you can see from this non-S&K tale, there was more to it!

The S&K team's tenure ended when the book was cancelled with #33 in 1954, due to the mass cancellations of horror comics caused by the "Seduction of the Innocent" hysteria generated by Fredric Wertham.

When the book was revived as a Comics Code-approved sci-fi title with #34 in 1957, Joe Simon returned as editor, but the ongoing partnership with Kirby had ended and Jack didn't participate in the new version.

Simon and Kirby would reunite, briefly, at Archie to co-create The Fly and Double Life of Private Strong, but they wouldn't work together again until the duo co-created a new version of The Sandman for DC in 1974.

This particular story, by penciler/inker Ted Galindo and inker Bill Draut is from the final issue...#50 (1961).

Note: Didn't the son's "future self" say he had found the frozen dinosaur two years earlier?

But he also said he was from 1970...ten years in the future.

So, unless my math is really off, the son wouldn't find the dinosaur for another...eight years!
How did he find it now?

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Simon and Kirby Library

Horror!

Trump Reading Room aka the OutHouse HILLBILLY COMICS "Gumbo Galahad Meets Handsome Bill and the Tiger"

Just as every rational, intelligent person knows pro wrestling is fake...

...irrational, unintelligent sorts like Don (the Con) Trump's detestables believe it, like Jabba the Trump himself, is legitimate!

Written and illustrated by Charlton mainstay Art Gates, this story from Charlton's Hillbilly Comics #3 (1956) was clearly-based on Al Capp's then-immensely popular Li'l Abner newspaper strip which had been running as a musical on Broadway and was in preparation as a feature film!
In addition, the tale references pro wrestling, which had experienced a major upswing in popularity due to it's becoming a television mainstay!
Astoundingly, to this day, there are those who believe pro wrestling and the antics sourrounding it (which, BTW, Don the Con participated in) isn't unscripted/plotted/planned/choreographed.
And, apparently, most of them are Jabba the Trump's delporables...

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Best of Li'l Abner

by Al Capp

Easter Basket Goodies!

Back in the 1940s and 50s, comic book companies produced a prodigious number of holiday annuals and one-shots.

For example, a multitude of Christmas-themed comic books flooded America's magazine racks every November and December!
(In fact, a large part of our popular Cool Christmas collection is based on them.)
But, did you know that several publishers also did Easter-oriented books?
And, that noted comics illustrators including Walt Kelly (Pogo) and Harrison Cady (Peter Rabbit) contributed art to them?
Believing that there's always room for more classic comics collectibles, we at Atomic Kommie Comics™ offer a line of goodies entitled Exciting Easter!
Yes, it's eggs, bunnies, chicks, and other fuzzy animals galore digitally-restored and remastered from Baby Boomer-era classic comics covers on baby bibs, infant creepers / onesies, toddler and kid t-shirts, greeting cards, mugs, nursery clocks (like the one above) and a plethora of kool kollectibles including organic clothing from American Apparel!
They make great Easter basket stuffers! (And they won't rot your kids' teeth like marshmallow chicks or chocolate bunnies!)
So click over and see what's in our basket!

Holiday Reading Room EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Candy Egg"

Here's a (literally) sweet, never-reprinted Walt (Pogo) Kelly short...

...from Dell's Four Color Comics: Easter with Mother Goose #220 (1948)!

Imagine getting one of these 52-page annuals in your Easter basket along with jellybeans, chocolate bunnies and marshmallow Peeps!

Several 7-10 page stories, a number of 1-3 page features, games, and, usually, a wraparound cover!

Would've kept the 5-8 year-old me occupied in those dark days before TV (much less the Internet)!

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Reading Room STRANGE TALES "Zzutak: the Thing that Shouldn't Exist!!" Part 2

We Have Already Seen...

Sci-fi magazine cover artist Frank Johnson, desperate to top his previous efforts, tries out a set of "three-dimensional paints" offered by a mysterious sttanger, that cause whatever he draws to not only exist as a three-dimensional object...but also to come to life!

Accepting the paint set as a gift, he is suddenly-compelled to journey to a remote part of Mexico, where he paints his greatest monster of all, Zzutak, on a giant canvas!

But...why?

Now all shall be revealed!

You'd think the colorist of the cover for Atlas' Strange Tales #88 (1961) didn't communicate with the colorist for the story itself, since he transposed the coloring for Zzutak and his unnamed adversary...

...except the two colorists were the same guy, Stan Goldberg!

I can only speculate the cover and interior were colored at two different times and, in the confusion, someone lost track of who was orange and who was green!

When the story was reprinted in Marvel's Fear #3 (1971), the unknown colorist got the second monster right, but still got Zzutak wrong!

 

When the story was reprinted in Germany, a new, painted cover got Zzutak's color right, though not all the details of his design/anatomy!

Poor Zzutak is postitively unreocognizable on his most recent reprint appearance in Marvel's Monster Menace #3 (1994), even though he's rendered by the guy who inked his story back in 1961...Steve Ditko!

(And he's portrayed correctly in the "character box" in the upper left corner of the cover!)

As you may have guessed, Zzutak is the cover-featured monster on the current issue of Marvel's Monsters Unleashed with this superb Francesco Francavilla cover...

Monsters Unleashed looks like a lot of fun, so get it at your local comic shop...NOW!

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Monsters Unleashed: Prelude
(which, sadly, doesn't include Zzutak's premiere appearance!)