Monday, September 30, 2013

King Leonardo and His Short Subjects-1962


Nearly forgotten today but one of my favorite pre-school years cartoons was KING LEONARDO AND HIS SHORT SUBJECTS, the latter including TOOTER TURTLE and THE HUNTER. Continuing our Covers Week, here's the sole Dell issue followed by four more fro Western's newly formed Gold Key imprint. 





Sunday, September 29, 2013

Captain Britain Covers-Ron Wilson, etc-1977


Not going to do the whole stories as they're way too long but these covers were from some of my favorite comics of the day. In the UK, Marvel stories had been reprinted for years with very little new material. Then came Captain Britain. This early series was typical Marvel, done up by the US bullpen and this particular series teamed Captains Britain and America against the Red Skull! I had to mail-order them in bunches from Europe at the time with months of waiting but it was all worth it!












Saturday, September 28, 2013

Professor Fiend-Fred Schwab-1939


Supremely silly stuff from Fred Schwab, a now-forgotten cartoonist who, among other things, drew the cover of MOTION PICTURE FUNNIES WEEKLY # 1, the undistributed comic that featured the first appearance of The Sub-Mariner.




Friday, September 27, 2013

The Spider Widow-Frank Borth-1943


The Spider Widow and her sidekick, The Raven, take on the Spider-Man! Seriously, this is one wacky superhero effort. Artist Borth also worked for TREAURE CHEST and CRACKED and died in 2009.





Thursday, September 26, 2013

Americommando-Bernard Baily-1943


Here's my namesake, Tex Thompson, long running back-up character in ACTION COMICS, in his WWII guise as the Americommando in "The Brigade of the Biting Rabbit." As usual, all the caveats are in place regarding early forties stereotypes. This one goes out to SD in Dizzyland! 








Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Famous Explorers of Space # 5-Bill Savage-1954


An interesting sci-fi tale in the vein of the sci-fi radio programs of the day, this is drawn by an artist whose work I'm unfamiliar with but who draws in what appears to be an energetic Joe Maneely style.





Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Beach Boy-Frank Springer (?) -1963


This HAWAIIAN EYE back up story isn't even indexed on GCD but the art looks to me like it may be Frank Springer. There was an episode of the series entitled "Beach Boy" and I haven't seen it but it doesn't appear to be related to this character whose only appearance was in this story. 




Monday, September 23, 2013

Li'l Jinx-Joe Edwards-1947


Recently revived, updated and modernized, here's Joe Edwards' signature character, Li'l Jinx in an early PEP appearance before the artist's style settled into its more familiar look. The strip appeared as filler and back-up in various Archie titles over decades and once even got its own Archie Giant comic!






Sunday, September 22, 2013

Last Supper-Sal Trapani-1954


Here's a neat little thriller with a stupid ending but some nice art by Sal Trapani--signed in the newspaper headline in the splash--that shows him clearly making an effort to channel EC artists Johnny Craig and Jack Kamen, both of whom excelled at this type of domestic story.