Reading Room BRAIN FANTASY "Drooms Day"

Most current comics fans think of 1960s-70s underground comics as just pornography and weird humor...

...when, due to the Comics Code, they (and b/w newstand magazines) presented some rather daring and sophisticated sf/fantasy storytelling!

Despite the "to be continued..." caption at the end, there were, sadly, no further chapters to this never-reprinted story from Last Gasp's Brain Fantasy #1 (1972).

Editor/Writer/Artist Rick Shubb, despite being comic book-influenced, did very few comic stories.

He did do concert posters for various bands in the 1960s-70s as seen HERE, but has gained fame as the as the inventor of the Shubb Capo, a very popular guitar/banjo accessory.

Shubb also invented the lever-operated banjo fifth string capo, the compensated banjo bridge, and holds several other U.S. and international patents on musical instrument accessories and improvements.

He's also a noted and influential 5-string banjo player and teacher.

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Underground Classics

Transformation of Comics into Comix

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder BRAK THE BARBARIAN "Spell of the Dragon!"

In the Bronze Age, Marvel adapted every barbarian/sword and sorcery character they could get...

...often giving the original writers (if they were alive) the chance to script the series themselves!

Author John Jakes commented...

I long ago admitted in print that I created Brak because there were simply no more Conan stories from Robert E. Howard, whose work I admired.

In my adolescent years I wrote – on notebook paper – further adventures of Batman and Superman because I enjoyed them but there weren’t enough of them in comic books to satisfy me. Somehow the other sword and sorcery strong men – Lin Carter’s, Michael Moorcock’s et al. – while deserving of praise in their own right, didn’t do it for me. I needed more Howard.
I invented Brak.

There were only three Brak comic tales, this one plotted and laid out by Dan Adkins and scripted by Jakes himself along with penciling by Val Mayerik and inking by Joe Sinnott.
(It seems to be an original tale, not an adaptation.)
Then a two-part adaptation of the (chronologically) first Brak tale, "The Unspeakable Shrine" by Jakes, Doug Moench, and Steve Gan.
Then...nothing!
No more new comics tales!
No reprints!
Next week, we're presenting an illustrated text feature from Savage Tales featuring background info about the character and author, John Jakes!
After that, the complete, unseen for decades two-part comic story!
Don't miss them!

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The (Complete) Adventures of Brak the Barbarian

Volume One & Volume Two

(includes a never-before-published conclusion to the series!)

Reading Room MYSTERY IN SPACE "Space Baby"

No, it's not a story about Don (da Con) Trump and his "Space Force"...

...but a never-reprinted Silver Age tale by Jerry (Superman) Siegel and Gil (Green Lantern) Kane!

Notice how, on the cover of DC's Mystery In Space #101 (1965), astronaut Ron "Babyface"Trent looks like a young adult rather than (like he does inside) a kid?

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Mysteries in Space

The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics

Monday Madness MAN FROM S.R.A.M. "Madhouse in Hollywood!"

In the Silver Age, comics mixed genres with wild abandon...

...as this tale, which combines no less than three of them demonstrates, albeit a bit ham-handedly!

When the protaganist has to spend half the story explaining his name, you know the writer's really desperate.

Which is surprising since the guy who penned this tale is Otto Binder, a prolific sci-fi writer who not only scripted classic Superman and Golden Age Captain Marvel stories (including The Monster Society of Evil serial!), but also wrote the first Marvel Comics novel, The Avengers Versus the Earth-Wrecker!

But this never-reprinted, Carl Pfeufer-illustrated tale from Harvey's Jigsaw #2 (1966) is so incredibly-silly that it's surprising Binder was so over-the-top!

Personally, I suspect editor Joe Simon rewrote the story, inserting the SRAM = MARS explanation on practically every page.

Note: Though identified as "Jigsaw" in the indicia, the book's working title was apparently "Big Hero Adventures", which appears as a sub-title on both issues' covers and title pages as well as on the original art for the first issue.

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Hero-a-Go-Go

Campy Comic Books, Crimefighters, and Culture of the Swinging Sixties

Design of the Week LITTLE WOMEN

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another!

Yeah, it's not the usual comic art we run on kool kollectibles, but Louisa May Alcott's classic Little Women is a pop-culture phenomenon, still going strong 150 years later!

The trials and tribulations of Meg, Beth, Jo, and Amy March are still as relevant today as they were then, as the new, updated, movie version opening this week demonstrates!

So, if you're looking for a kool Little Women kollectible for yourself or a significant other, check it out HERE!