Number 1585: Man of the atom

By way of announcement, beginning with the month of June I am cutting my posts by 25%, going from four postings a week to three. I will post on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Many of you won’t even notice. It is time to cut back on the work. And yes, this is work. Nobody pays me, but it’s work.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled post...

Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom was created by Gold Key comics to compete against the popular superheroes of the day. At the time I liked the first three issues, finding them well drawn in a more sophisticated, illustrative style, but lost interest when Dr. Solar gained a costume. I just didn’t think he could go toe-to-toe with what was coming from Marvel Comics. But I was wrong; the costume was what fans were clamoring for.

Jerry Bails, the godfather of comics fandom in the early '60s, had a letter in Doctor Solar Man of the Atom #7 in 1964, praising Gold Key for putting Dr. S. in a costume. Jerry was a bit more conservative about villains. He said, “Nothing destroys a super-hero faster than fantastic villains.” I’m reasonably certain the readers of superheroes wanted those fantastic villains...as Marvel Comics had proved.

The story is from that aforementioned issue #7. Script credited to Otto Binder by the Grand Comics Database, and art attributed to Frank Bolle.

Number 938


...and featuring Sonny Bono as Burt the ghostly ex-lover...


Looking at this story makes me realize how long ago 1973 really was, and yet seems so recent, still vivid to me. Maybe it was the sideburns or the turtleneck sweaters, maybe the bell bottom trousers, the wide lapels...man, have we ever approached the coolness of that time since? (That's a joke, son...)

Frank Bolle, the artist on this story for issue #2 of Charlton's Haunted Love, had the look of 1973 down well. Bolle had a clean ink line, and looked like he drew from photographs. The audience for whom the comic was intended, mostly pre-teen or teenage girls, wouldn't be fooled if he had faked it. I wasn't part of the intended readership, but Haunted Love was one of my guilty pleasures in 1973. I was so embarrassed about buying any comic book with "love" in the title that I always hid it in the middle of the stack of comics I bought.

Bolle was born in 1924, and his work pops up many places over several decades of the history of comics. He has his own website, if you want to see other illustrative work he's done. The story is written by Charlton scripter Joe Gill.