Friday, May 28, 2021

Friday Fun JETTA OF THE 21st CENTURY "What a Specimen"

To celebrate the long (and well-deserved) holiday, it's futuristic fun with Dan DeCarlo's Jetta!
The 21st Century ain't what they thought it would be in 1953...
"Leaping Electrodes!"
"Now we're cookin' with uranium!"
"Go atomize yourself!"
"This is simply electronic!"
Why aren't we all talking like this?
This tale from Jetta #6 (which was actually the second issue) was written and penciled by Dan DeCarlo, but it may not have been inked by him.

Thursday, May 27, 2021

Reading Room SPACE ADVENTURES "Exterminators"

It's summertime and insects are everywhere!
So, here's a story from 1969 that'll bug you...
...with its' outdated stereotypes about both humans and insects!
Illustrated by prolific Argentinan artist "Eccio" aka Enio Legisamon, this lead tale from Charlton's Space Adventures V2N5 (1969) is a time capsule about the way our society viewed professional women during the early days of Womens' Lib.
BTW, the writer is unknown...and I suspect he'd want it kept that way...
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Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder LOST WORLD "Project: Monster"

...the aliens try ever more innovative attempts to eliminate the freedom fighters!
The Venusian we see in this tale is apparently a member of a third race from that planet shown in this series, unlike the ones we saw HERE and HERE!
Whether this is sloppy editing, or part of an onoging plot point has yet to be revealed!
(BTW, almost every other series in Planet Comics had their own Venusians, Martians, etc..
But they tended to be consistent within their own strips!
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Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Gil Kane's FLAME HORSE

One of the visionary projects legendary writer/artist Gil Kane was unable to get off the ground...
...was this graphic novel.
According to one source, shortly after Bantam Books released Kane's Blackmark in 1971, Ariel/MorningStar Press contracted Gil to create and package this project...with logos and graphic design by Jim Steranko!
Since MorningStar Press was an art book publisher, they would've done a hardcover closer to traditional comic book or magazine size, rather than the standard paperback size that doomed Blackmark, which confused retailers who didn't know whether to put it with sci-fi/fantasy novels or comic strip reprints!
Besides this presentation piece, there were pages like this one...
...at various stages of completion.
I wonder if anyone could re-assemble what does exist into a book and title it: Gil Kane's Flame Horse: the Unfinished Opus or somesuch, with profits going to his estate...
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Monday, May 24, 2021

Monday Mars Madness UNUSUAL TALES "Way Out, Man"

You'd think Dr Strange's creator Steve Ditko would be a bit more sympathetic to the counter-culture...
...but when you consider he was already 34 in 1961 when he drew this story from Charlton's Unusual Tales #29, you might wonder which side of the Generation Gap he really was on!
Remember that, when Ditko was doing the Dr Strange series in Strange Tales, he was turning 40!
This article from England's The Telegraph delves into the fascinating dichotomy between the artist and what his work portrayed.
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...which reprints this tale and many other Ditko short stories!