Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween! And… Boo!

EEK!

Happy Halloween!  ...And, for your treat, here are a few comic covers I like!






...Oh, yes!  Boo! 
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8 comments:

ramapith said...

What really scares Porky is the *ham* on that plate.

October 30, 2011 at 2:14 PM
Joe Torcivia said...

Yeah! Say, has anyone seen Cicero? …Or (Shudder!) Pinky?

(Gulp!) …Happy Halloween!

October 30, 2011 at 2:45 PM
Comicbookrehab said...

Over the weekend, (and tonight)Boomerang showed the Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone special. I think Hanna-Barbera has six different takes on the Frankenstone character - the last was a wax mueseum prop in Hollyrock-a-bye Baby. The 1st was a Ben Casey spoof - Ben Frankenstone.

This comic, which looks nice, btw, would be the 1st with the clasic Dracula and Frankenstein. How is it?

October 31, 2011 at 10:51 AM
Joe Torcivia said...

I’ve had little to do with anything Flintstones that occurred after the original series and “The Man Called Flintstone” movie. Though I wouldn’t mind seeing “On the Rocks” (that one done in “big nose style”) released to DVD.

That “Ben Casey spoof” Flintstones episode (one of my favorites, BTW) not only did “Len Frankenstone”, but had a cameo by “Dr. Dracu-slab” at the end! So, both were spoofed.

Gold Key’s FLINTSTONES # 33 (1966) featured all four classic “Universal Monsters”: Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, and The Mummy (…which, if you think about it too hard, meant that Boris Karloff was playing a dual role – unless Glenn Strange was cast as Franky!)

It didn’t faze me back in the day, when I received this issue thru mail subscription, but today I wonder how they got away with using the four “Universal” names – and not thinly disguised parody monikers, as was done in DuckTales' “Ducky Horror Picture Show” and other things.

Yes, this is a comic worth a peek. You could hardly go wrong with ANY Gold Key comic during the period 1964-1966.

It’s a nice twist in that a stone-age scientist invents a time machine to bring back beings from “the future”. And, of all things, he plucks the four Universal Monsters from out of the 20th Century.

Also, as luck and plot contrivance would have it, Fred is expecting four distant (and heretofore unseen) relatives to stay for a visit. And, well…

The “Len Frankenstone” episode (“Monster Fred”) would have come before this comic by slightly less than a year and a half.

October 31, 2011 at 8:33 PM
Comicbookrehab said...

That sounds a lot like that Jetsons episode where the family thought an Abominable Snowman was Jane's nephew, Bunky. Then the real Bunky shows up and turns out to some kind of green amphibious creature with a rock band.

I think Gold Key was also publishing comics with those characters and had the license - like The Munsters and such, so it was okay for THEM to do this story in the comics. I mean, The Mummy really is a Universal monster - the only real book with a mummy is an old novel called "The Mummy: A tale of the 21st Century" which is more of a John Carter type of story than a horror story.

I like the name Dracuslab better than Rockula - which sounds like Chocula.

That time machine bit sounds like the trip to the World's Fair episode, which was also a comic, so I wonder if it was the same character and which comic came first...

"On The Rocks" is just one of those things that had to be taped - there are just some things that never appear on DVD. I wouldn't mind seeing "Dino and Cavemouse" or "The Fred and Barney Show" on DVD, but to tell you the truth, the spin-offs make the Gazoo episodes look like fine art. That Rockula and Frankenstone special was kind of dull - "A Haunted House is Not A Home" is much better.

November 1, 2011 at 10:39 AM
Joe Torcivia said...

I’m guessing that was an ‘80s Jetsons. I saw those only once (back then), and don’t remember most of them. They didn’t live up to the originals.

No connection between this stone-age time machine and the one in the great “World’s Fair” episode of the original Flintstones series. Both were clever twists in their own way. And the Flintstones World’s Fair comic was not an adaptation of the TV episode – but a wonderful All-Hanna-Barbera-Character-Inclusive comic book of its own! No H-B fan of the classic period should perish from this earth without reading it once!

And, I rather liked the name “Dracuslab”! I could see myself using a name like that in a story. I really wish that I could, someday, write or dialogue some classic H-B character comic book stories, as I have done with the Disney stuff. …Can’t see how it would ever happen, alas.

November 1, 2011 at 8:40 PM
Comicbookrehab said...

You guessed right - it was an 80's episode. Looking back, I found there was too much of Spacely as the boss from hell and less of "Hey, this is a family living in the future!" But there's a good dozen and a half that I can argue hold up well. Especially the ones where you can spot a strong John Kricfalusi influence in the character designs.

The ball's in DC's court to do a new Flinstones comic - new comics coincide with the release of new episodes/specials - I think it could happen in time for Seth MacFarlane's reboot.

November 2, 2011 at 10:24 AM
Joe Torcivia said...

Considering that I list FAMILY GUY (and THE SIMPSONS, and FREAKAZOID!) as one of my influences, when I do my Disney scripts, doing Seth MacFarlane’s version of THE FLINTSTONES would seem a natural!

Hey, DC! I got some UNCLE SCROOGE scripting samples for you to look at! Please consider me!

November 2, 2011 at 3:47 PM

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