Monday, May 4, 2020

Monday Madness / CoronaVirus Comics VEXT "Germ Warfare" Conclusion

...well, that's a superb synopsis for this story!
Doctors Scratch and Snyff create a sentient (and lethal) virus, which escapes from their lab to a nearby fast-food franchise!
(Talk about your welcoming environments...)
Meanwhile, banished from his native Jejune Realm (home to the minor deities that oversee the mundane events that define our day-to-day life) Vext ends up on Earth, where his almost total lack of knowledge and knack for causing chaos leads to him constantly being both the cause and victim of accidents, like this one...
So Vext saves the world...without realizing it!
Quite frankly, I'd heard of, but never read, this series.
Now that I've read this issue, I'm sorry I missed it!
Once this pandemic is over, I'll make this the ongoing Monday Madness feature!
Written and laid-out by Keith Giffen, penciled by Mike McKone, and inked by Mark McKenna, this never-reprinted story from DC's Vext #3 (1999) was a showcase for the snarky, in-joke-infused humor Giffen is notorious for!
Despite being incorporated into the mainstream DC universe from his first issue (which guest-starred Superman), and promoted in the DCU Heroes Secret Files and Origins one-shot, the book didn't sell well despite writer-artist Giffen's popularity with the comics audience!
This 6-issue mini-series was one of the few to not be reprinted as a trade paperback!
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Justice League International
(which, despite the "Volume 1" designation has the entire Giffen run, including annuals and spin-offs!)

Saturday, May 2, 2020

Due to CoronaVirus, there's NO Free Comic Book Day on the 1st Saturday in May...

...but you can always read free tales of fictional epidemics/pandemics Mon-Fri here on this blog...
...and weekly / bi-weekly on our other RetroBlogs, including our newest one...
(You'd be amazed at how many romance comics stories revolve around disease!)...
...Heroines!...
...and the aptly-named
Besides the daily posts here at Atomic Kommie Comics, there'll be at several new ones spread out among the various RetroBlogs each week!
Don't Miss Them!

Friday, May 1, 2020

Friday Fun / CoronaVirus Comics JUGHEAD ANNUAL Reggie in "Plague Take It!"

What's more painful?
A real disease...or a deception involving a non-existent disease?
Ouch!
The running gag of Reggie trying to date Midge behind Big Moose's back (always with disastrous consequences) has continued to this day (although somewhat less violently)!
BTW, the page sequence shown here is as printed, though you'd think Page 3 and 4 should be reversed!
This tale from Archie Comics' Jughead Annual #7 (1959) was not the first Archie story with this title!
A shorter, unrelated, and never-reprinted feature starring Betty & Veronica appeared in Archie Giant (Christmas Stocking) #1 (1954)!
Plus: this Reggie tale was only reprinted once...in a 1982 digest, so I think 38 years is long enough for it to remain hidden from fans' eyes!
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Archie
A Celebration of America's Favorite Teenagers

Thursday, April 30, 2020

CoronaVirus Comics SCIENCE COMICS "Dr Doom's Diabolical Disease"

No, not this well-known Marvel villain...
...but his totally-unrelated Golden Age predecessor who had his own strip in Fox's Science Comics!
In a future when Mankind has colonized the Solar System, a somewhat-stereotypical Mad Scientist constantly threatens all civilized life due to unspecified "injustices" done to him!
Opposing this nutcase are heroic square-jawed aviator Jan Swift and his co-pilot/girlfriend Wanda.
And that's all you really need to know...
In the early days, few comics were about just one character.
(Even books which were titled after a lead strip, like Superman, had backup stories about other characters to fill out 52 to 68 pages in each issue!)
Most comics of the era were anthologies, with up to a half-dozen strips ranging through every genre you could think of!
Many titles had an ongoing feature about a villain...who lost almost all the time!
And even if he (or she! Comics were equal-opportunity when it came to evil!) was captured, they would escape to plot evil once more!
This never-reprinted tale by "Richard Crater" (a pen-name) from Fox Feature's Science Comics #6 (1940) was typical of those "villain strips"
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