Thứ Hai, 29 tháng 9, 2008

Trivia Quiz #11 Answers

1. Adrian Toomes and Blackie Drago were the first and second Vultures in Spiderman.

2. Abel Tarrant was the Tattooed Man, a villain in the Green Lantern series.

3. Leonard Snart was Captain Cold, a major member of the Flash's Rogue's Gallery.

4. Zebediah Killgrave was the Purple Man, who battled Daredevil and had the interesting power of convincing people of anything he wanted them to believe. He should have been a great salesman.

5. Flint Marko became the Sandman, a major character in the Marvel Universe and a charter member of the Frightful Four.

Michael Rebain got 3,4 and 5, while Mark Waldfogle and Mike P. were able to name all the villains.


Number 387


Let's have a cheer for ol' P.U.


The college football season has been upon us for a few weeks, and like a lot of fans I'm following my team's progress. Of course the guys on my college football team aren't like these football players from Crazy #3, 1953. They wouldn't accept money or favors for being spoiled, pampered, coddled football stars. Oh, noooooo, I'm sure that isn't happening on my team.

The story is drawn by Joe Maneely. Following up is a 3-pager by, I believe, Howie Post. Yesterday I guessed the artists of two Fiction House stories, and today I'm guessing again. Whatever, the artwork on both stories depends a lot on penwork, one of the trademarks of both Maneely and Post.

After the stories check out another comic artist mystery.









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This past weekend I found a 78 RPM record album with a cover signed "Sinnott". The copyright date on the album is 1948.

According to a biography, Joe Sinnott was attending school at the time and assisting Tom Gill on Western stories. He began soloing at Atlas in 1950. I'm leaning toward this artwork as being "our" Joe Sinnott based on the signature. The capital "s", the tilt of the lettering and curvature of the signature is the giveaway for me. The top example of his signature is from a 1956 comic book story, and the bottom is enlarged from the album cover.


Chủ Nhật, 28 tháng 9, 2008



Number 386



Werewolf Hunter/Ghost Gallery


Today we've got two stories from Fiction House's Ghost Comics #3, and based on the artwork they're reprints from the 1940s.

I get in trouble when I try to identify artists, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that "Werewolf Hunter" is drawn by Lily Renée and "Ghost Gallery" by Jack Kamen. Anyone out there agree/disagree?














#065. Goversons comics' covers

Goversons comics introduced me one of my all time favorite character "Asterix". In near future these will be posted, if you like. If anyone can help to make a list of all Goversons comics with month & year, will be very thankful.

These are Anurag's contributions. All Thanks & credits go to him.








Thứ Sáu, 26 tháng 9, 2008

Single Issue Review: Mystery In Space #90

Mystery in Space was one of the best science fiction magazines of the 1950s and 1960s, featuring lots of entertaining "one-shot" stories, as well as some pretty nifty features such as Captain Comet, and the Star Rovers.

But the big hero of Mystery in Space (MIS) was Adam Strange. An archaeologist by training, he first appeared in Showcase #17 (Nov-Dec 1958) and after a three-issue test run there, was assigned to the cover feature for MIS, starting with #53 (January 1959). While trying to escape some natives in South America, he finds himself suddenly transported to the planet Rann, millions of light-years away from from Earth. It turns out that a scientist named Sardath had sent a "Zeta" beam of energy that had the effect of transporting Adam across space.

Adam meets Sardath's lovely daughter Alanna, and it soon becomes evident that they are falling in love. He also helps save Rann from various perils that seem to pop up whenever he arrives on the planet. Because the Zeta beam wears off eventually, Adam only stays on Rann for two weeks at a time, but armed with information from Sardath as to the locations of future Zeta beams, he is able to return to Rann periodically.

The series was terrific, with entertaining stories and gorgeous artwork by Carmine Infantino and (mostly) Murphy Anderson. Several Adam Strange stories are considered among the finest of the 1960s, including MIS #75's book-length story featuring a crossover with the Justice League of America, Planet That Came to a Standstill, which won the Alley Award for the best book-length story of 1962.

In Mystery in Space #87, Hawkman was added as a feature character. The Adam Strange story in that comic overlapped a bit with the Hawkman story, and Adam even appeared with Carter and Shiera in one panel. Hawkman had been having trouble graduating to his own magazine despite six tryout issues in the Brave and the Bold, so DC switched the artist chores to Murphy Anderson, resulting in a beautiful four-issue run that launched the Winged Wonder into his own title.

In Mystery in Space #90, Hawkman and Adam Strange collaborated to save the Planets in Peril. Shortly after arriving on Rann, Adam is startled to learn that a new planet has entered its solar system. It is rotating around Rann's sun. Even more startling is when Adam sees the new planet:



It turns out that Earth is orbiting at a slightly faster speed than Rann, and thus the two planets will eventually collide. Alanna, Adam and Sardath hop into a spaceship and head towards Terra to find out what's going on, but they return to Rann when they hear that strange objects have suddenly appeared on the surface of that planet. We learn the identity of the villain and the strange objects in these two beautiful panels:



Orin Dargg looks like a classic Infantino villain, with the receding hairline and the smug grin being frequent themes in his characters. And note the action sequence of Alanna and Adam arriving at the location of the Sphinx and other monuments. Doesn't it look like Adam's rear would get a roasting from those jets?

The second chapter features Hawkman and Hawkgirl. They observe as a Zeta beam starts to steal Lake Superior, just as it has the monuments. Heading to Rann in their spaceship, they discover that Dargg is blackmailing Ranagar (the capital city) by holding Lake Superior over their heads and threatening to drop the water and destroy the town.

As usual with Murphy Anderson, the details on the individual panels are exquisite:



In the final chapter, the villain is defeated and Earth sent back to its normal orbit. Adam pops the question:



Overall, the story was excellent, and the artwork outstanding. This is one of the finest comics produced by DC during the 1960s and thoroughly worth reading.

Unfortunately it marked the high tide for the Adam Strange series. Two issues later Mystery in Space was transferred from Julius Schwartz's editorship to Jack Schiff, as part of the shakeup that led to the "New Look" Batman. Under Schiff, the cover feature was handed over to Space Ranger, and the Adam Strange stories began to take on the Monster of the Month Club look that had plagued Batman during Schiff's tenure. Infantino went with Schwartz to help out on Batman, and Murphy Anderson also had a new magazine:

Friday Trivia Quiz #11: Villains

Your task this week is simple; figure out the villains from their real names:

1. Adrian Toomes and Blackie Drago

2. Abel Tarrant

3. Leonard Snart

4. Zebediah Killgrave

5. Flint Marko

#064.Indrajal Comics 22 (Hindi)

Few Hindi Indrajal Covers: 6, 202, 203, 218, 219, 221 & 223









V26N24-1989-Phantom-Maut ke munh mei



Except cover of IJC 6, rest covers & comic are Anurag's contributions. Cover of IJC 6 is provided by Ajay.

Number 385


"You're big...and ugly...and crude...but I love you!"


...and speaking of love, I really love the breathless Mickey Spillane-styled prose in these Johnny Dynamite stories. You just don't read this stuff anymore, like the caption of the panel above, or the panel on page two: "He moaned as the flesh was laid open to the bone and fell in a stupor as his teeth crumpled under the impact."

How about, "What was left of his face slobbered and drooled as I pumped a bullet into his guts."

Has a certain poetic quality to it, don't you think? There's probably a pretty good reason you don't read stuff like that anymore.

The story is from Dynamite #4, November, 1953. Patterned by writer William Waugh after Spillane's popular Mike Hammer series of paperback best-sellers, and drawn by Pete Morisi. Waugh's violent and turgid descriptions and dialogue are more interesting than Morisi's workmanlike drawing. I posted the first story from this issue in Pappy's #264.