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!

Sunday, May 23, 2021

Asians and Asian-Americans in Comics...the Saga Continues

Even more from our ongoing examination of how American comics portray Asians and Asian-Americans...
Start with the only Golden Age Desi jungle girl in (where else?)
The Lone Ranger rides to the rescue of oppressed Chinese settlers in the old West, first in a never-reprinted comic tale in...
...then listen to the dramatic radio show the comic was adapted from at...
and finally, witness the villainy of the character who personified the racist concept of "Yellow Peril" for over a century in...

There's lots more coming!
Don't miss it!

Saturday, May 22, 2021

Space Force Saturday SPACE SQUADRON "Judgment of Boz!"

Behind this spooky (if off-model) Sol Brodsky/Joe Maneely cover...
...from the never-reprinted Atlas' Space Squadron #5 (1952) is an apocalyptic tale about a delusional, obese, but dangerous potential dictator in the 21st Century!
(Who does that remind us of?)
If this tale was produced today, it would be a book-length story with full and double-page splashes!
Yet artist Allen Bellman and the unknown writer pulled it off in only five extremely-crowded pages!
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Friday, May 21, 2021

Friday Fun YAK YAK "Romance vs Realism"

...now here's the second, and sadly, final part of the series!
Dell gave MAD mainstay Jack Davis his own title, to do with as he pleased.
The series, Yak Yak (subtitled "A Pathology of Humor") only ran two issues, but they were pure Davis, who wrote, penciled, inked, and colored the whole project as well as providing painted covers for both issues!

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