Phantasmo: Master of the World!

Once more, we journey to Tibet, birthplace of literally hundreds of superheroes from the Golden Age of Pulps and Comics to the present including The Shadow, The Green Lama, and Doctor Strange.
Lamasaries in pulps and comics did a thriving business in training Westerners who crashed on, stumbled into, or sought out their mountaintop locales to receive physical and / or mental training which they then used to fight evil back in their homelands.
(Oddly enough, very few Asian characters bothered to go to the Himalayas to learn mystic or martial arts! But I digress...)

A rich, but disillusioned, American who had spent over two decades living in Tibet, seeking enlightenment from the monks, learned the lamas' secrets of "ultimate control of their mental processes."
Returning to the USA, he took a new civilian identity, "Phil Anson", and began a war on crime as Phantasmo! (We never learned his original name or why he was so disenchanted with his previous life.)
Like The Spectre, Phantasmo was actually an astral projection who could take solid form when separated from his "host" body.
His abilities included super-strength, flight, near-invulnerabilty, and penchant for growing / shrinking tricks.
Also like The Spectre,  Phantasmo wore just shorts, boots and a cape. (astral bodies apparently don't get cold.) Unlike The Spectre, who wore green, Phantasmo wore yellow with gold highlights. This had the unfortunate side-effect of making him look like he wasn't wearing anything at all if the Magenta printing plate got screwed up, which happened from time to time! (Warning: NSFW)
While his astral form ran around doing heroic feats, his human form was unconscious and helpless. Phil hired Whizzer McGee, a bellhop at the hotel Anson lived in, to guard his body while it was "unoccupied".

Debuting in The Funnies #45, Phantasmo was the first superhero character from Dell Comics, who had previously done reprints of newspaper strips like Dick Tracy.
From his premiere, Phantasmo was the cover feature of The Funnies until #57,  when he shared the cover with up-and-coming superstar Captain Midnight, who forced him off the cover as of the next issue!
"The Master of the World" remained as a backup feature until #63, when The Funnies became a funny animal book and Captain Midnight got his own title.
Phantasmo literally disappeared for several decades, until revived (in flashbacks) in Alex Ross' Project SuperPowers mini-series a year or so ago!
We suspect he'll be showing up in the present-day storyline, in due course.

In the meantime, we're re-presenting him on a line of kool kollectibles including t-shirts, mugs, messenger bags and other nifty tchochkies.
So, check out "The Master of the World", as Phantasmo was described on the covers, before he catches a cold. ;-)

Jungle Girls Movie Poster & Comic Cover Gallery

BTW, did we mention that ALL these posters and covers (and a half-dozen more) are available on our Jungle Girls 2010 12-Month Calendar? ;-)

Toddler and KidsWear Easter Egg-citment!

Choose from Ducky's 1st Easter...

...Bunny Family Painting Eggs...

or Bunny Daddy, Baby Duck!

Bibs, creepers, toddlers' and kids' t-shirts, sweatshirts, and adult goodies like maternitywear!

NOTE: The organic clothing is from American Apparel!

Order now, so you'll have it in time for Easter!

Fantastic Femmes PixPost: Dorothy Dandridge IS Melmendi, Queen of the Ashuba

In her only genre role, Dorothy Dandridge played Melmendi, Queen of the Ashuba in 1951's Tarzan's Peril.

An original story, not based on any of Edgar Rice Burroughs' stories, the film was the third of five movies starring Lex Barker as Tarzan and it was directed by Byron Haskin, who went on to A-list genre films like 1953's War of the Worlds.
It was also the first Tarzan film to have scenes shot on location in Africa.
(Previous films used existing stock footage from other movies.)

One of the scenes from the film is recreated in the biopic Introducing Dorothy Dandridge starring Fantastic Femme Halle Berry as Dorothy playing Melmendi.
Here's a comparison between a scene in the original film and the biopic's version of it.

Melmendi, nor her tribe, the Ashuba, have appeared in any Tarzan story (in any media) since...

Note: technically, this is a Pix Post, but it's also a Hero(ine) History and Fantastic Femme entry!

More Green Hornet: Year One Previews...

A couple of sample pages pencilled & inked by Aaron Campbell and colored by Francesco Francavilla for the upcoming new version of the origin story (previously told here).
Check out his blog entry here.
Britt's dad was an amateur entomologist?
Of course it doesn't explain why The Green Hornet uses a gas-gun instead of some sort of hard-edged sting.
Hornets don't use gas.
Now, if he had become The Green Stinkbug...

Design of the Week--Easter with Mother Goose!

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

Since Easter is coming, we thought we'd present an absolutely adorable piece by the legendary Walt (Pogo) Kelly featuring a puppy, kitten, and bunny with surprised looks on their faces as the egg they're painting hatches, producing yet another cute animal...a chick!

You just don't see stuff like this anymore!
So, why not order some kidswear, or even holiday greeting cards with this one-week-only graphic?
Everyone who sees it will go "Awwww."

Green Hornet Classic Cover Gallery

Some of my favorite Golden Age Green Hornet covers from my collection...

The final issue of his Golden Age run, a one-shot from Dell Comics!

Issue #33, featuring his primary 1940s weapon, the Gas Gun!

Issue #31, with both the Hornet and Kato dashing to the rescue!

Issue #13, in Berlin against the Nazis!

Issue #43, "typical" 1940s teens and 'tweens talk about the Hornet! Gosh!

Issue #29, a powerful symbolic cover (and the first Golden Age comic I owned)!

And, finally, the first issue of The Green Hornet Comics from Holyoke (who published issues 1-6)
Note he's wearing the same outfit in the first and final issues and a modified version on the issues in-between! And they're the only painted covers of the entire run!

BTW, did we mention that ALL these covers (and five more) are available on our Classic Green Hornet 2010 12-Month Calendar? ;-)

Fill Your Easter Basket...with Atomic Kommie Comics' Goodies!

It's Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, so it's time to talk about...Easter! (It's only 40 days away!)

Back in the 1940s and 50s, comic book companies produced a prodigious number of holiday-oriented annuals and one-shots.
For example, a multitude of Christmas-themed comic books flooded America's magazine racks every November and December!
(In fact, a large part of our popular Cool Christmas collection is based on them.)

But, did you know that a number of publishers also did Easter-oriented books?
And, that noted comics illustrators, including Walt (Pogo) Kelly, contributed art to them?

Believing that there's always room for more classic comics collectibles, we at Atomic Kommie Comics™ added a new line of goodies to our Happy Holidays section entitled Exciting Easter!
Yes, it's eggs, bunnies, chicks, and other fuzzy animals galore, digitally-restored and remastered from Baby Boomer-era classic comics covers on baby bibs, infant creepers / onesies, toddler and kid t-shirts, greeting cards, mugs, and a plethora of kool kollectibles!
They make great Easter basket stuffers! (And they won't rot your kids' teeth like marshmallow chicks or chocolate bunnies!)
So click over and see what's in our basket!

Oceanic Airlines In-Flight Magazine for Kids from 1954!

An old friend of mine wanted to enter a contest for LOST-related designs at a PoD we both use and asked me for a copy of my digital file for Mystery Tales #40 plus a couple of fonts from my extensive collection, saying she was going to do "the ultimate in-joke".

The Oceanic Airlines In-Flight Magazine for Kids is the result!
Using the cover of the comic young John Locke didn't choose in the ep "Cabin Fever", she created a new, retro-style logo, dated it as September, 1954, exactly 50 years before the Flight 815 crash (in September, 2004), and replaced the existing captions with new, LOST storyline-based text!

I pointed out a couple of anachronisms / inaccuracies...
1) The actual comic was from 1956, two years later!
2) According to several websites, Oceanic Airlines didn't start operating until the mid-1970s (though I'm not sure if that's "canon" or not.)
She responded...
1) The Oceanic Airlines Mag usage was the art's "first use".
It was "reused" as the cover of Mystery Tales #40 (which may also explain why the art doesn't really match the comics story it's supposed to represent)!
2) Oceanic Airlines had actually been founded shortly after World War II, gone bankrupt in the early 1970s, then another company bought the assets and re-established the airline in the mid-70s!
Since there's nothing to contradict those ideas, I had to concede them as viable plot points...

Anyway, the end result is KOOL, so take a look, and maybe buy an item! (She's disabled and can use the cash.)

Preview: Alternate Cover for "Green Hornet: Year One" #2

Francesco Francavilla's "chase" cover for Green Hornet: Year One #2, detailing the origin of the Golden Age Green Hornet.

Note he's wearing the full-face mask from the two movie serials, 

not the "lower-half of face" mask from the original 1940s comics.

Kato, on the other hand, is wearing a mask like the one worn on the 1960s tv series by Bruce Lee!

In the Golden Age comics and movie serials, Kato wore goggles (and a bow tie)!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Before Percy Jackson was...Nature Boy!

Long before Percy Jackson met the Olympians, there was another teen given amazing powers by ancient gods...
Rich teenager David Crandall was yachting with his parents when a storm sank the boat and David was stranded!
Rescued by "gods" who control various aspects of nature, he is given a portion of each of their powers...
Neptune--water
Gusto--wind
Furo--fire
Eartha--earth
Electra--lightning
Allura--love
Azura--skies
Friga--cold
(Yeah, I know a couple of them overlap, and only one was an actual mythological god, but why quibble?)
David used his new powers to return home and reunite with his still-alive family.
He also decided to battle evil in various forms as Nature Boy, since he controlled the forces of nature, and the gods gave him a spiffy new outfit to show off!

He only had three issues of his own title (which started with #3*) before he disappeared from the comics scene..until now!
But, within those three issues, the seeds were planted for an entire superfamily of Nature-heroes including Nature Man (an adult version of the hero from the future) and female counterpart Nature Girl.
This isn't surprising, since he was created by Jerry Siegel (co-creator of Superman) who knew a thing or two about that sort of thing.
To add to his hero cred, Nature Boy was drawn by the great John Buscema who later did Conan, Avengers, Fantastic Four, and damn near everything at Marvel in the 70s thru the 90s, so even if the stories were a bit silly, they looked spectacular!

Technically, Nature Boy should be considered one of the first Silver Age heroes as his premiere was in 1956, just a couple of months before The Flash re-emerged in Showcase #4, but, like Captain Flash, and even the Martian Manhunter, he's thought to be one of the last Golden Age characters instead!
On that basis, we at Atomic Kommie Comics™ have revived Nature Boy as part of our Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics™ line, on t-shirts, messenger bags, mugs and other kool kollectibles!
It's unlikely that Alex Ross will include him in Project SuperPowers, but we felt he was worth re-presenting to the comics world, even if it's just on tchochkies!
He was one of the last, but hardly one of the worst...

*To save money on paying for a new second-class mailing permit,  comics publishers would often just rename an existing comic, rather than start a new one!
Today, with #1 issues being such "hot" collector's items, publishers wouldn't dream of doing that sort of thing!