Sunday, November 5, 2023

November: the Month Betty Boop Returns...

Legendary cartoon character Betty Boop returns to pop culture prominence in a big way...

(Hey, it worked for Little Orphan Annie!)
Photo: Mark Seliger
Starring Broadway veteran Jasmine Amy Rogers as the embodiment of Betty,
the show looks like an absolute hoot!
With award-winning creatives handling writing, directing, and production
(including effects like transitioning the cast and sets from black and white to color on stage), the production should appeal to old (who remember the cartoons) and young, who will be introed to the pop art icon!
As for us, we're turning our "sister" RetroBlog, Heroines, over to Betty for November, beginning tomorrow with Betty's first comic strip...which wasn't really her strip!
(Don't worry, we'll explain tomorrow!)
The week of November 13th, you'll see the appropriately-entitled 1990 one-shot comic...
by comics pros (and major Betty-philes) Leslie Carbaga, Joshua Quaqmire, and Milton Knight!
Finally, starting the day after Boop! the Musical's November 19th premiere, you'll see the first couple of months of Betty's actual comic strip!
Check Out
Heroines!
starting tomorrow
and, if you're in the Chicago area over Thanksgiving, see
Boop! the Musical!

Saturday, November 4, 2023

Space Hero Saturdays CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT "Peril on Venus!"

Alien "space raider" Jagga had already encountered (and lost to) Earth's greatest defender, Captain Midnight...

...now the Sovereign of the Spaceways is about to encounter the Scoundrel of Space again!
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Writer Otto Binder and artist Leonard Frank continue the battle with Jagga (who's gone from Caucasian skin-tone to grey in his second appearance) in this tale from Fawcett's Captain Midnight #53 (1947).
He'll turn green (though not with envy) in later appearances!
Note that the then-current science of 1947 theorized Venus might, in fact, be habitable.
The idea that Atlanteans would've migrated there centuries earlier, when their continent sank beneath the waves, was unique.

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Friday, November 3, 2023

Friday Fun TRUMP "Toys Realistic in Every Detail!"

Since brick-and-mortar retail stores began running Christmas sales before Halloween...
...we feel we're actually behind schedule running this classic feature about one of the most important aspects of the Yuletide season...TOYS...illustrated by Al Jaffee and likely written by Editor Harvey Kurtzman from Playboy Press' Trump #1 (1957)!
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Thursday, November 2, 2023

Reading Room WORLD OF SUSPENSE "Forbidden!"

Here's another never-reprinted tale from the Atlas Comics vault...
...illustrated by longtime comics book artist Ed Winiarski and scripted by a writer whose name is lost to the sands of time, though it may be Ed himself!
This never-reprinted story from Atlas' World of Suspense #8 (1957) is one of Winiarski's last stories in comics before either retiring or switching to other media like advertising after a 20-year career in comics!
Trivia: Ed is one of the creators cited in Stan Lee's book (really a bookletSecrets of the Comics as shown HERE!
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Wednesday, November 1, 2023

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder AGAR-AGAR "Rendezvous with Aquarius"

As the world turns prematurely-dark with snow on Halloween...
...we're going to provide a neon/black lite psychedelic saga that'll run every Wednesday from now until Christmas!
♪"This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius...Age of Aquarius..."♫
Oops, sorry, got carried away there for a second.
This trippy mini-series had eight installments, each one weirder than the previous.
Agar-Agar "got physical" (in a PG-13 way) with a variety of life-forms including centaurs, super-heroes, and a human or two.
Illustrated in a Peter Max-esque style by Alberto Solsona.

Written by Luis Gasca under the pen-name "Sadko" and published in England as part of Dracula (1971), a 12-issue partworks by New English Library, the first 3 tales made their American debut in Warren Publishing's Dracula trade paperback which reprinted #1-#6 of the British Dracula's run in 1973.
You'll see those tales, plus the rest of the series, including the five stories that have never been seen by American readers!
It'll be a groovy trip, baby!