Thursday, May 21, 2020

CoronaVirus Comics: LOCKDOWN HEROES! The Portfolio Created Against Covid-19

Italian comics (or "Fumetti") artist Milo Manara is noted for his beautiful (often nude) women...
...though not in his work for America's PG-13 Marvel Comics!
But these last few months, living in an Italy under total lockdown, Manara has started taking a very different approach to portraying women...

Rather than the usual coquettishly-posed, minimally-clad examples of male lust, he's discovered a different appreciation of the female form.
Posting on Facebook, he expressed his gratitude to doctors and nurses, ambulance drivers and techs, policewomen, delivery workers and others who perform essential services during the pandemic.
In terms of style, it's still recognizably his work, but now has a far different focus.
Check out his FaceBook gallery HERE.
BONUS: There's a "motion comics" version of this superb illustration...
...HERE!

And now a word for charity...
...is a work of art and, at the same time, a result of civil commitment and a testimony of a historical moment.

Lockdown Heroes is a portfolio that collects all the illustrations mentioned above, as high-quality prints on fine paper, with Manara's signature on a dry stamp, inside a folder contained, in turn, in a case.
Plus: a dossier written by Italian pop culture expert Vincenzo Mollica, plus an interview with Milo Manara.

A charitable donation from the sale of each copy of Lockdown Heroes will support the Luigi Sacco Hospital in Milan, the University Hospital of Padua and the Domenico Cotugno Hospital in Naples.
Click HERE to Order!

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder / CoronaVirus Comics SPACE ADVENTURES "Tale About Time: Race to the End of Time"

...actually, the characters are handling the plot synopsis shtick pretty well, so I'll just let them explain...

Not to be negative (ouch), but things aren't looking good for Paul Mann.
If you want to see how he escapes from the edge of Time and Space, be here next Wednesday!
Denny O'Neil (using his "Sergius O'Shaughnessy" pseudonom) scripted this "part 2 of 3" in Space Adventures #V2N2 (1968).
No, that's not a typo.
This is "Volume 2" of Space Adventures, which had been cancelled the year before with #60!
However, while this is Vol 2, #2, it's the first issue of the revival since there was no Vol 2 #1!
(Geez, the time travel paradoxes in this story are easier to explain than comic book numbering!)
The amazing art is by none other than Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange!
At this point, Ditko had left Marvel and was freelancing for Charlton, Tower, ACG, and Warren, working in every genre imaginable, producing some of the best work of his career, much of which has, sadly, not been reprinted!
BTW, you may have noticed that the primary plot from the first tale...
...biological warfare, has been left by the wayside, in order to simplify the synopsis!
(Remember, there's a year-long gap between the original issues in 1967-68, not just a couple of weeks)
But you and we know that plot element's there, and it's the subtext for the remainder of this saga!
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(which shares a number of plot elements with this story)

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Love in the Time of Covid-19!

Currently (and for the foreseeable future) our "sister" RetroBlog...
(There seem to be a lot of them, most involving nurses and handsome doctors!)
Click HERE if you want to cry your eyes out!

Monday, May 18, 2020

Monday Madness / CoronaVirus Comics PANDEMICA "Chapter One: Get Down with the Sickness" Part 1

Combine Covid-19 with the X-Files and Mission: Impossible...
...and you get this (prophetic?) series produced last year!
Remember, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you don't have enemies...
This opener from IDW's almost-prescient Pandemica #1 (2019), by novelist Jonathan Mayberry and illustrator Alex Sanchez begins the set-up the rest of that first issue (of five) completes!
You'll see the rest of #1 next week...
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Sunday, May 17, 2020

CoronaVirus Comics ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN "Higher Power!"

On the Christian sabbath we ask "when science fails, can faith find a way"?
Perhaps this short. from ACG's Adventures into the Unknown #91 (1957) holds the answer!
Did writer/editor Richard E Hughes and artist Ogden Whitney base this tale on an oft-heard urban legend?
Oddly, when the story was reprinted in ACG's Unknown Worlds #18 (1962), it was retitled...

...and nobody can recall why!
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Brendan and Erc in Exile Volume 1
Truth is Out There