Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Whatever Did Happen to the Earth?-Chic Stone-1965


Here's an odd little sci-fi tale drawn by Chic Stone who was at some kind of a peak of his comics-related career in the mid-60s, working for Marvel inking Kirby and then drawing his own stuff for ACG as well as specialty items like the Captain Action giveaway and ads that appeared in various publishers' comic books. 






Sunday, April 28, 2019

Tall in the Saddle-Curt Swan/Murphy Anderson-1973


A typically wacky Frank Robbins tale serves as a showcase for a very atypical Swanderson team-up with no Kryptonians anywhere around!







Saturday, April 27, 2019

Lippy Lion & Hardy Har Har-Phil De Lara-1963


One of Hanna-Barbera's least remembered comedy duos, in spite of the fact that they date from what was arguably the company's peak period. Read the story with Daws Butler and Mel Blanc in mind. 




Friday, April 26, 2019

The Weird Tale of Mr. Destin-George Mandel-1943


Just an early horror comics story or was Lev Gleason testing out a possible continuing character for its popular CRIME DOES NOT PAY title?









Thursday, April 25, 2019

The Secret Stamp-Bob Oksner-1943


Yet another attempt at a teen hero the reader could in theory identify with more than the muscled millionaires. Publishers never seemed to catch on that while we liked Robin a lot, we didn't want to be Robin. We wanted to be Batman! 







Wednesday, April 24, 2019

The Cave of Death-Stan Goldberg-1952


Here's something unusual. An early, heavy, melodramatic story drawn by the guy who would go on to be best known for Millie the Model and Archie Gets Married. not to mention deciding that Spider-man's costume should be mainly red. 



Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Sparkle Plenty-1949


Here we see the young queen of post-war merchandising, Chester Gould's Sparkle Plenty, who had her own back-up series (not by Gould). 



Monday, April 22, 2019

The Census Taker-John Giunta-1953


A clever little idea for a nice Twilight Zone kind of story. Kind of makes you wish they'd expanded it.


Sunday, April 21, 2019

The Easter Rabbit's Scare-Tony Strobl-1955


Disney bunnies Thumper and Br'er Rabbit appear in this Easter story along with shoutouts to Mickey, Minnie, and Clarabelle. Happy Easter!





Friday, April 19, 2019

To Die a Dozen Deaths-Jerry Grandenetti/Wallace Wood-1970


Here's an interesting combination. Both artists had started out as students of Will Eisner's style and both had even assisted/ghosted Eisner along the way but by 1970, their work had taken very different paths. Grandenetti was becoming more and more abstract while one could argue that Wood had turned into the smoothest comics artist ever. Wood's smoothness (Do I detect some Jack Abel, too?) here, unlike in most other cases, does NOT turn this into Wood art.