Thứ Tư, 30 tháng 6, 2010

Blackhawk #100

Commander Benson's been posting on the Blackhawk series under DC, and I happened to catch this particular comment:

In 1956, National Periodical Publications, a.k.a. DC Comics, acquired the rights to Quality Comics’ Blackhawk. The adventures of the “Magnificent 7” were still popular with the fans, even though more than ten years had passed since their heyday as World War II Nazi-fighters. So, while N.P.P. allowed most of the other Quality titles it had purchased to die quietly, keeping the Blackhawks in the air seemed to be a bankable proposition.

However, almost from the outset, National Periodical’s tinkering with a successful format would send the famed Black Knights plunging earthward.


I had not read much of the late Quality Blackhawk issues (which technically fall into the Silver Age by my definition), and so I thought it might be worth looking at this particular installment in this series. As a 100th issue, it's historically significant, since it was actually the second comic dedicated to a single feature to achieve that milestone, after Superman about a year earlier, and before Batman, the following month.

The opening story is the cover tale, The Delphian Menace. It's a pretty typical, "aliens attack Earth," scenario. Indeed, the ending is trite and a bit too obvious a swipe: the alien death machine which could not be defeated by any of our weapons, was beaten by water/rust.

So the story goes in as nothing special. The art?

Yeah, I'd call that pretty special. Note in particular how carefully and tightly drawn everything is by Dillin/Cuidera. One can deplore the depiction of Chop-Chop, while enjoying and admiring his strong character at the same time.

Anyway, the scientists do laugh at the Blackhawks when they present evidence of the new planet, since apparently they've been whooping it up at the scientist convention instead of paying attention to their telescopes:

This is definitely an area where the DC Silver Age would not have agreed with the direction of the Blackhawks at the time. The idea that the scientists could possibly be wrong? Not a common theme in Mort Weisinger's or Julie Schwartz's comics.

Overall an okay story, with spectacular artwork.

The second story has its moments artistically. The Nazis and the Japanese cooperated on an giant ship called the Hirumu, that was such a huge expenditure that each ally wanted an equal presence on board, and an equal vote. You can tell where Stan Lee would have taken that story, with the two supposed allies ending up battling each other, right?

But (Editor) Busy Arnold's uncredited (at GCD) writer gives us instead a story of the Nazis and the Japanese working together even after the war to cooperate in a (ten years later) plot to defeat the Blackhawks and then the world:

But they have created atomic power at the South Pole that is unshielded, and so they die when the Blackhawks jet away.

Comments: Mildly entertaining story, that depends on too many variables. I like the artwork a lot.

The third story is about Blackhawk assisting some rebels who are trying to overthrow a dictator named Scorpio. He looks a little like Dr Fu Manchu, but he's got a Caucasian queen:

He also has a pretty fearsome secret weapon:

The tail shoots out balls of lightning, which have a devastating effect:

Chuck manages to survive, but it appears that the rest of the team has been killed. He feigns death himself and tries to gather his strength to seek revenge:

Eventually he attacks, but the odds appear to great, until the rest of the Blackhawks suddenly revive. They defeat Scorpio and his wife, and the rebellion is successful.

Comments: Excellent story! I particularly like the part where Chuck is thinking to himself about his dead comrades. One interesting note is that both this and the second story feature Chuck much more than Blackhawk himself.

Number 763


"I Wake Up Screaming!"


Billy Graham, the comic book artist and not the evangelist, worked in comics in the late '60s and '70s. He did such characters as Luke Cage, Hero For Hire (mostly inking George Tuska, but doing occasional solo jobs) and the Jack Kirby-created Black Panther. When his work first started appearing some fans saw a resemblance to Graham Ingels' art. So the rumor, that Billy Graham was really Graham Ingels returned to comics, was born.

The girl in panel 3 of page 4 might have been what fooled people. It looks a lot like an Ingels drawing. Despite that the rumor was short-lived. Billy Graham, who was African-American, was a talented artist in his own right.

Graham, who became an art director for Jim Warren, did stories in the first dozen issues of Vampirella. "I Wake Up Screaming!" from Vampi #3, 1970, written and illustrated by Graham, is sort of time capsule of American stars of the era. See how many you can pick out. Graham did a good job rendering likenesses.

According to various sources on the Internet, Graham was born in 1935 and died circa 1990.










Thứ Ba, 29 tháng 6, 2010

Thứ Hai, 28 tháng 6, 2010



Number 762


The middle Atlas



Pappy reader John Kaminski gave me the germ of the idea for this post by requesting the story, "The Trap," from Atlas' Mystery Tales #42. It's only four pages and that doesn't seem like much of a post, so I looked around at some of the other Atlas post-Code comics I have. I've always seen these comics as being somewhere toward the late middle of the Timely/Atlas/Marvel progression of the 1940s to early '60s. Until the Atlas implosion of 1957 a lot of the old horror comics artists, who didn't quit comics, got work from Atlas in a severely shrunken market.

These are some examples I've chosen.

"The Trap," drawn by Bob Bean, is from Mystery Tales #42, 1956, as is "The Captive," by Jerry Robinson.

Two stories from World Of Mystery #4, from 1956: "Things In The Window" by Werner Roth, and "The Man With The Yellow Eyes" by Dick Ayers.

Rounding it out, "The Ghost Wore Armor," published in Journey Into Unknown Worlds #55, 1957, drawn by Bob Forgione and Jack Abel.





















Chủ Nhật, 27 tháng 6, 2010

Trivia Quiz #39: Batman's Companions

1. What did Dick Grayson and Kathy Kane have in common? (No, not that!)

2. Who was Bat-Boy?

3. Who was Batman Jones?

4. Who was Mr. Marvel?

5. Who was the Eagle?

6. What did Commissioner Gordon like to have every evening? (Golden Age reference).

The Man. The Men. The Morgue.

Showin' you how they do it down at the morgue by bustin' outta June 2010 with a double shot of Atlas crime horror! Our first stiff is from the March 1953 issue of Mystery Tales #9, and fyi: this completes this entire issue here at THOIA (just check the archives), followed by a similarly titled Gene Colan gem of doom from the February 1954 issue of Adventures into Terror #28.











Frew 1039 - Takal's Mask



 Image and video hosting by TinyPic 

It is scanned by Micho & the link is provided by Rocklud.


Number 761


The Shadow and the curse of the cat!


I think the Shadow was one of the best pulp magazine heroes ever, and I can still read a Shadow novel by Walter Gibson and be caught up in the mystery. The Shadow made a transition to a popular radio show, and then into comic books. The era where the Shadow was drawn by Bob Powell and his studio (see Pappy's #622 for a picture) had some of the best artwork in that title's long run.

The cover for this issue is like a poster, and its graphic excellence must've popped out at the casual browser at the newsstand.


The story is from The Shadow Comics Volume 8 Number 1, from 1948. Here is a note from the Grand Comics Database about the story:
Curse of the Cat is adapted from the 01/20/46 SHADOW radioplay by Lawrence Crowley. [Note from Anthony Tollin on 17 August 2004] Also: "It's possible that Bruce Elliot did the adaptations, though I wouldn't be at all surprised if artist Bob Powell himself simply adapted the radioplays to comic format."