Friday, January 19, 2018

Friday Fun TRAGG AND THE SKY GODS "Master of the Living Bones" Part 1

...but the world of Tragg and Lorn is about to take an abrupt and unexpected turn!
Editor's note: Ostellon previously appeared in Dagar #1 (1972) and #17 (1976) as well as Doctor Spektor #7 (1974)!
Your dinner's going to get cold, Keera, because an uninvited guest is coming!

To Be Concluded...
TOMORROW!
Ostellon previously appeared in both Dagar's and Doctor Spektor's Gold Key titles!
All those appearances took place, chronologically, after this never-reprinted "origin" in Gold Key's Tragg and the Sky Gods #7 by artist Dan Spiegle and writer/co-creator of all three series...Don Glut!
(Dagar was, like Conan and other barbarian heroes, set in Atlantis-era "pre-history", while Spektor ran around in the present-day 1970s!)
The most interesting concept, tossed rather casually into the story, is that Tragg and Lorn are, literally, the parents of the entire human race!
Tragg, Lorn, and Jarn (Tragg's brother) also crossed over into Spektor and Dagar's titles.
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(featuring the behind-the-scenes info on the creation of Tragg and the other Gold Key comic series Don worked on!)

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Reading Room STRANGE WORLDS "Sabotage on Space Station 1"

...now you'll see where that "flavor" came from!
Damn, we humans are good at this sort of world-saving stuff, eh?
This Norman Nodel-illustrated tale from Avon's Strange Worlds #7 (1952) could have been the basis of an episode of Space: 1999 or Classic Star Trek with just a couple of tweaks!
As to why it was reworked...
Eerie Publications had been using photostats and negatives from defunct comics companies as the source material for their b/w magazine line.
About a year in, they started using South American artists eager to break into the comics market and American artists like Dick Ayers and Chic Stone who were losing work as the Silver Age ended and comics companies cut back their lines, to re-do old stories with a more contemporary style.
Some illustrators totally-redid the art, using new "camera angles" and clothing/technology designs reflecting contemporary tastes.
In this particular case, artist Cirilo Munoz just lightboxed and re-inked the Nodel artwork!
Editor Carl (Golden Age Human Torch) Burgos eliminated the opening captions and modified a couple of captions and dialogue balloons, but otherwise left the unknown writer's original script intact.
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Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Reading Room WEIRD WORLDS "Terror on Station One"

Here's an early 1970s sci-fi space opera tale...
...that reads and "feels" like a 1950s sci-fi space opera tale!
Wonder why this Cirillo Munoz-rendered tale from Eerie Publications' Weird Worlds V1N10 (1970) feels so...out of date in an early 1970s magazine?
Perhaps because it's almost a line-for-line, panel for panel, re-do of a 1950s story!
Be here tomorrow to see the original four-color version by a different artist!
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Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Reading Room NORGE BENSON "Princess of Pax"

I don't know if it was the editor's or the writer's choice...
...but as of this issue, Norge left frigid Pluto behind for the jungle planet of Pax and its' scantly-clad Princess!
As of this Al Walker-illustrated tale from Fiction House's Planet Comics #20 (1942), Norge has become more like the standard square-jawed space heroes who filled the rest of the book battling alien menaces and rescuing mimimally-clad helpless heroines!
But, thankfully, the wacky sense of humor that enabled the strip to survive far longer than it's predecessor, Cosmo Corrigan, is still evident!
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Monday, January 15, 2018

MARTIN LUTHER KING and THE MONTGOMERY STORY

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.