Friday, February 3, 2023

Friday Fun: CALVIN

The Black Panther was not the first Black Marvel character to get a cover-featured series!
He wasn't even the second!
He was the third!
First was Luke Cage, who received his own title...
...and was the star of his own Netflix series!
Note: Though the series ended, three of the stars have gone on to headline other shows...
Simone Missick (Misty Knight) on All RiseMike Colter (Luke Cage) on Evil and Rosario Dawson (Clare Temple/Night Nurse) on the upcoming Ahsoka!
(BTW, Luke Cage is now available on Disney+!)
The second character was...
WHO???
Several months before Prince T'Challa took over a reprint book, Jungle Action, and began a memorable series that served as part of the plot of the billion-dollar blockbuster movie...
...this character took over another reprint book and began a series that nobody remembers!
You can read every never-reprinted tale featuring Calvin and his buddies HERE!
What makes the strip even more fascinating, beyond the vaudeville-level humor, is the identity of the writer-artist behind it!
"Kevin Banks" was not a pseudonym for an already-established creative, but an editorial staffer at Marvel in the early 1970s who received his "big break" with this strip!
Trivia: Kevin was the first (and so far, onlyMarvel creator to have a head shot illustration on an on-going series!
Even the ever-amazing comics researcher Nick Caputo could find little about the mysterious Mr Banks, as seen HERE.
What did Banks did after working at Marvel?
Did he work in advertising?
Become an art instructor?
Switch careers and become an accountant or fireman?
We may never know the answer...

BTW, this is our 5,000th post!

Thursday, February 2, 2023

Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Humans, Keep Out!"

While the Mighty Thor stories in the front of Journey into Mystery have been reprinted over and over...
...the backup stories from that period have rarely appeared since their initial publication over 50 years ago!
The last page demonstrates clever use of "camera angles", witholding the secret of how the humans avoid being destroyed until the next-to-last panel!
In fact, a 1970s "how-to" book for aspiring filmmakers used Silver and Bronze Age Marvel comics to graphically-demonstrate such things as camera work, film editing, sound effects, etc.
You can read the entire book HERE.
Writer Stan Lee and artist Don Heck produced this sneaky little tale in Marvel's Journey into Mystery #86 (1962) that's only been reprinted once, in Marvel's Giant-Size Man-Thing #4 (1974)!
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Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder MEDUSA CHAIN Part 4

Things are about to get really intense in...
...and the story is already way too complex to synopsize.
So, if you haven't read Part 1Part 2, and Part 3, do so.
Then continue...
Next Wednesday: An Epic Space Battle!
Give Ernie Colon credit.
He has a little bit of almost every fiction genre you can think of in this one graphic novel.
Mystery and crime.
Sci-fi/space opera.
War.
Horror.
(OK, maybe he left out romance...)

Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Reading Room SCIENCE COMICS "Build an Arctic Schooner"

Man it's c-c-c-old outside!
How am I gonna get around?
Why, with this kool cut-out transport courtesy of an unnamed artist in Fox's Science Comics #3 (1940)!
(BTW, despite the title, it was a science fiction comic!
A later Science Comics from Ace Publications was a comic about real-life scientists and actual science!)
Though the caption seems to indicate it's something we've seen before, there's nothing in any of the stories in the issue even vaguely like it!
I'll peruse the previous and later issues to see if it appeared in any of the tales...

Monday, January 30, 2023

Monday Madness FLYING SAUCERS "Far Out Physical"

To wind up this month of flying saucer fun...
...here's a long-unseen tale with a decidedly-different approach to the aliens!
You'll note that the aliens' world balloons are left blank!
Editor Don (D J) Arneson wrote all the stories in the four-issue run of Dell's Flying Saucers, also making sure the various artists presented a fairly-consistent "look" to the aliens.
(Note: the series ran five issues, but the fifth was a reprint of #1)
In the case of this tale from #1 (1967), Sam Glanzman brought his realistic, natural style to a story using many of the already-established elements of UFO lore.
Trivia: Both Dell and Gold Key produced anthology comics about alien visitors and their kitchenware-shaped vessels during this period.
Gold Key's UFO: Flying Saucers ran for twenty five issues, changing to UFO and Outer Space as of #14!