Around the Horn

Jacque at Sequential Romance scores an interview with Irene Vartanoff, one of the most prolific DC letter writers of the Silver Age, who went on to have a career in writing including comics and romance graphic (and non-graphic) novels. Irene's own homepage is here.

As a 1960s DC comic fan, I occasionally fantasized about writing great letters like Irene, but as it was I did not develop my writing skills until my college years. At some point, I should do some features on the great letter writers of that era, many of whom went on to have careers in the field. It's all part of the milieu, although I freely acknowledge that I've started my post on Alter Ego and Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas about five times and always felt like I couldn't do the topic justice.

H at The Comic Treadmill continues his long-running series on the Giant Props in Batman stories, with some wonderful Golden Age material. How can you go wrong with something like this:

Joker tries to roll the Giant Penny (not THE Giant Prop Penny, but a completely different one) to smash the door to the cashier’s office. But Batman was disguised as the Santa on the Giant Christmas Holly pie and rolls the Giant Pumpkin to deflect the Giant Penny.

I am sorry to see that the Absorbascon has joined the list of blogs calling it quits in 2009; Scipio always had interesting things to say.

Ol' Groove remembers the Demon Hunter, one of the short-lived comics from Atlas-Seaboard in the 1970s. I actually have that issue, and always felt it was one of the best values in the history of comics per actual drawing. The second page of that issue has an incredible 27 panels.

Hube at Comics of Rhodey has a nice tribute to the late George Tuska. One of the sad things about doing a nostalgia blog like this is that there's an awful lot of the creators we talk about who are passing away.

Karl at The House of Cobwebs talks about the time he scored a nice batch of Charlton Horror from the 1970s. Some very nice and horrific covers on that trove, Karl!

Christine at the Other Murdock Papers has a long, and amusing discussion of Daredevil #30-32 featuring the "Blind Daredevil". Wait a minute, wasn't DD always blind? Yeah, but not in the way he was in those issues. Recommended!