Separated at Mirth: Robin Hauls Ascot!

Sure, they've met before... in both animation and comics...

But, ya gotta wonder if Robin (in his secret identity as Dick Grayson) may have met Scooby-Doo's Freddy (in his not-so-secret identity as Fred Jones) before even that!

For this, we turn to the Robin back-up story in BATMAN # 231 (DC Comics, Cover Date: May, 1971)...

...Where Master Dick appears to be emulating the fashion sense of Master Fred! 

Rock that ascot, Dick! 

Since both Dick Grayson and Fred Jones are noted crime-busters and mystery-solvers, perhaps, rather than "Separated at Mirth", we should regards this as an example of "Divided at Detecting"!

Of course, I could be all wet about this, and he probably just took a few fashion tips from Master Bruce!   

Adventures in Comic-Boxing: The Thin Line Between Tragedy and Comedy - and the Power of Writers!

Consider the cover of DETECTIVE COMICS # 419 (DC Comics, Cover Date: January, 1972), a rather stark image for a comic released in late 1971...

Now, consider it again if we replace the grim cover copy with the following headline...

"Remorseful Toy Collector Commits Unique Suicide After Removing His Mint Batman Action Figures From Their Packaging!" 

  

 

Ah, we writers hold such untapped power!  We could rule the world, if only we could find a way to unite!   

...Perhaps it's best we don't! 

I’m Not an Artist (...or Colorist), But… WHAT Massive Fist?!

I am not an artist, nor am I a colorist.  If I WERE a colorist, I would be a worse colorist than I would be as an artist.  

It's not just a matter of specific skills of art and coloring that I have never possessed, it's also my admitted lack of creative imagination in those two areas!  

Oh, I have an almost limitless creative imagination in the area of WRITING!  This Blog, my many APA and fanzine writings of yore, and my professional comics work bear testament to that.  But, even if I had sufficient skills in the areas of art and coloring, my work would at best rank as pedestrian, as I have scant (all together now) creative imagination to apply to said work. 

Art is, of course, a matter of subjective taste.  Meaning that while I (and, presumably, most of you) really like things like THIS...

 ...Or THIS...

 ...Or THIS...

...I do allow for the possibility, remote as it may be, that there COULD BE some folks who actually like THIS...

...Even if it's only the artist himself, and possibly his editor!  

But, when COLORING fails, it's pretty much universal!  For instance, take the cover of HAWKMAN #6 (DC Comics, Cover Date: February-March, 1965) and its titanic struggle between Hawkman and a great winged-gorilla. 

Hawkman says: "Got to bring my mace UP -- before that massive fist comes crashing DOWN!" 

MASSIVE FIST?!  WHAT MASSIVE FIST?!  Without squint-staring really hard, do you see any massive fist?  

Quick aside: It has nothing to do with the quality of the digital image used above.  I have the actual comic here beside me as I write this, and the "real thing" looks exactly the same!  

It would seem to be a matter of too much dark brown concentrated in what should be a critical area of the illustration!  

Let's assume there was insufficient room for artist [The Great] Murphy Anderson to position the gorilla's arm and fist elsewhere on the cover, as the dramatic focus of the piece is the gorilla about to smash Hawkman into a fine Hawk-puree! (Sorry, but my keyboard doesn't allow for the accent mark, and spell-checker isn't offering it either!) 

But, perhaps just the slightest bit of gradation in the dark brown might have made a difference, or maybe a better-defined outline of the gorilla's arm and fist to separate it in depth relative to the  gorilla's wing! 

Then again, the coloring techniques of the Silver Age were far more limited than they would be beginning in the 1980s, so I don't have a definitive solution to offer.  

But, that's why I’m Not an Artist (...or Colorist), But… I'm still left to ask "Massive fist? WHAT massive fist?!"

Oh, and for a "massive fist" that you actually CAN see clearly, try this on for massive-size!  

Oh, THAT massive fist! Got it!  

No, actually Superman got it... right in the super-breadbasket! 

Happy New Year 2025!

 Happy New Year 2025!  

...Or should I, as that famous TV game show goes, phrase it in the form of a question?  

 ...Happy New Year 2025?  

As far as my answer goes... I DUNNO!  

I see some very bad things (or, at the very least, norm-shattering, chaotic things) ahead for 2025 for both our country and the world as a whole! Most of you can probably guess what, as I nonchalantly sidestep the specifics of a topic that is out-of-bounds at this humble Blog.   

Of course, I'm referring to the sudden and unexpected cancelation of THE BATMAN & SCOOBY-DOO MYSTERIES...

...An unfortunate occurrence not to be confused with, or mistaken for, any "real world" events of a political nature - though some of those could stand to be suddenly and unexpectedly canceled too! ...Batman and Scooby, we need your team-ups now, more than ever!  ...There, was that nonchalantly-sidestepping enough for you?  If not, I can try again... Oh, you just want me to move on?  Yeah, I think I should too!  

On the other hand, looking inward (as opposed to the increasingly ominous view "outside", with no more BATMAN & SCOOBY-DOO MYSTERIES to enjoy every month), things are looking very bright - and that's where I will tend to keep my attentions focused!  

Like HERE! 

And HERE!

And the all-great, all-new, all-exciting things comics-wise that are coming in 2025... that, darn it all, I STILL can't talk about!  ...Sorry (at least for now!) 

Happy New Year 2025!  ...For Real!  

TIAHBlog at 16 Presents 16 Covers -- Number Sixteen: AT LAST!!!

Staggering winded and achy across the finish line of this sixteen-post marathon, it's time to keep a semi-promise I made earlier in this (gasp!) sixteen-count-series... TOP THREE COVERS, finally  - naming a THIRD cover to join THIS ONE...

...Which shared co-honors with the one below, both by Bugs-master Tom McKimson (... and both counting as a single-occupant of one of those precious three slots - yes, I'm doing TWO-INTO-ONE here, but I was never very good at math)! 

And, of course, THIS magnificent Batman cover by Neal Adams! 

An image so strong, so powerful, so awesome, that you don't even bother to question why Batman remains masked... and "pants-ed" for that matter!  

And, while all of these had great stories backing those covers, they were primarily selected on the sheer brilliance of the covers themselves!   

But for that final slot, I find myself looking beyond strictly images, getting into the story it illustrates and the significance of said story - simultaneously noting that the cover is great in and of itself!  

So, without further ado (and "further a-don't", even) my list of  TOP THREE COVERS - in no particular order - is rounded out by (...pause for effect, while we cue the drumroll)...

DONALD DUCK in LOST IN THE ANDES by the great Carl Barks (originally published in 1949 by Dell Comics, as part of their unparalleled-in-comics-history FOUR COLOR SERIES!) 

...But, NOT the original printing as seen above!  No, the one that means much more to me is its first American reprint in THE BEST OF DONALD DUCK #1 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: 1965)!

While it has a little less detail than the original FOUR COLOR cover, I feel the BLUE background served the illustration far better than the garish orange of the Dell version!  You can take your pick! 

But, as I indicated, it was what this version REPRESENTS that makes it special!  

Walking up the corner street to the nearest soda fountain store that carried comics with my aunt (not the one with the nice house - but the "more fun" one who lived off-and-on with us) on a Friday early evening (knowing there was no school for two whole glorious days) and finding this on the rack!  I was so excited, I didn't even WANT a fountain soda!  I just wanted to get this baby home, and leap into it!  

...And finding it to be (what *still is*) my choice for THE SINGLE GREATEST COMIC BOOK STORY OF ALL TIME!  THIS POST can tell you why, and spare me the additional marathon-depleted-effort!   

And so we name THE BEST OF DONALD DUCK #1 our well-deserved and final (whew!) cover number sixteen! 

Now, if you'll excuse your exhausted and beleaguered host, I'm going to completely self-dissolve in a pail of liquid human-goo!  If any portion of me remains, those parts (once congealed) will be back soon!  

TIAHBlog at 16 Presents 16 Covers -- Number Fourteen: "OG We There Yet?" Part Two!

Yesterday we highlighted DONALD DUCK # 109 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: September, 1966), and its lead adventure story "Og's Iron Bed"... but hold on to your "iron bedsheets", 'cause we ain't done "OG-in'" yet!  

Let's review a few historical facts about this book, and the day I acquired it...

A bi-monthly Gold Key title, as was DONALD DUCK # 109, with a  SEPTEMBER cover date would have been released in JULY.  Therefore, I would have come across this issue in JULY, 1966. 

And, in July, 1966, I would have been delightfully on summer vacation from THIS STRUCTURE...

...Back when it had REAL doors and windows, and no attending dumpsters!  

In those primitive and barbaric - yet, paradoxically, warmly nostalgic - days, comic readers (...we weren't FANS back then, we were READERS - and stop READING on my lawn, ya pesky young'un) were at the mercy of the newsstand distribution system! 

Okay, maybe not as far back as THAT!  We're talkin' 1966 here!  But what a GREAT picture! 

I can count as many as FIFTEEN comics in that photo that are in my collection... one of which I just got last week!  You can probably guess most of them!  ...And, no... I never wore overalls and a beanie-type hat like that! But, advance it somewhere close to 20 years in time, and that could have been yours truly!  Single-digit-age me even kinda LOOKED like that... such an adorable little tyke!  Whatever could have gone so wrong!   

ASIDE TO SERGIO: That last paragraph is an example of the loopy and improvisational typing I referred to in another set of comments!  I just looked at the photo and began typing away, on the road to who-knows-what!  Didn't know any of that was coming... and only the vaguest idea of what's coming next... if that! 

Where were we?  Oh, yeah... newsstand distribution of comic books!  

Most kids looked forward to Saturdays and Sundays - and I was no exception - but MY favorite days of the week were Tuesdays and Thursdays!  

WHY?  Because on Tuesdays and Thursdays NEW COMICS were put out on the shelves and racks of small stores all across the (still safe, but inching toward eventual danger by 1966) town in which I lived.  Not only in my town were Tuesdays and Thursdays what we now call "an event", but anywhere else in my region that traveling to was possible!  By 1968-1970, I would be traveling by bus to the far corners of my region in search of increasingly elusive comics on almost a weekly basis - and those days (and those trips) began in me an interest in bus transportation that led me to being a local bus transit advocate today!  

From other accounts I've noted, the "Tuesday and Thursday thing" was sort of the standard for the release of new comics. 

It was one such Thursday toward the end of July, 1966 that, for reasons long forgotten, I was spending a nice summer afternoon at a nearby aunt and uncle's house, in a decidedly nicer neighborhood than my own - both then and now!  

Their house had a nice screened-in attached back porch with a large picnic table -- the very definition of comfort vs. the "uncovered brick fortress" we had at the back of our house!  Though I really did have many years of enjoying 1960s comics out on that "uncovered brick fortress".  And, on that Thursday in July, 1966, I would have a particularly memorable day-of-same in the "nice screened-in attached back porch with a large picnic table" at my aunt and uncle's house!

Earlier in the day we'd gone shopping. In their local strip mall center there was a newsstand store. As it was THURSDAY, I made sure to check it out!  ...AND WHAT DO YOU THINK I FOUND?  

Try THIS...

But even more amazing was THIS... 

And out on the SAME DAY, just like my 1965 experience with UNCLE SCROOGE #58 and THE FLINTSTONES #28, as detailed HERE!  

Only I didn't have to rush through them during my "home lunch period" and go back to school!  NOPE, I had the WHOLE AFTERNOON to enjoy these puppies... or perhaps "ducklings"?  

And, enjoy them, I did!  In the LAST POST, I described "Og's Iron Bed" as "one of the best - and most ambitious - Donald Duck stories of the period".  I dove into it first, and it well and truly lived up to my "future-hype"!  Vic Lockman and Tony Strobl's best collaboration, with the possible exception of their consumerism-satire story in THE JETSONS #2 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: April, 1963), discussed somewhere in the depths of THIS POST! 

However, THE BEST OF UNCLE SCROOGE AND DONALD DUCK #1 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: November, 1966) was nothing short of a magnificent gift from the Comic Book Gods!  

As the cover says, it did indeed reprint "Two Famous Disney Classics"...

"Back to the Klondike"... 

 Cover by Carl Barks. 

...And "The Ghost of the Grotto".

 Cover by Carl Buettner. 

Ah, but there was a THIRD "Famous Disney Classic" to be found in the pages of this 25-cent ticket to Comic-Readers'-Nirvana... Carl Barks' famous story of "The Land of Tralla La"!  The "Bottle Cap Corruption" story! 

And, needless to say, it was the first time I saw any of these great Barks stories!  

One funny thing is that Carl Barks' art had evolved so much over the years that, while I could tell that  "Back to the Klondike" and "The Land of Tralla La" were by the same artist, I thought that "The Ghost of the Grotto" was by a different artist entirely!  

...And that "Giant Robot Robbers" and the other "contemporary-to-1966" Uncle Scrooge stories I was then reading were by a THIRD different artist!  

Nevertheless, that was quite an afternoon out on my aunt and uncle's (all together now) "nice screened-in attached back porch with a large picnic table".  One that I recall so vividly to this day!  

Of course, with these two ever-memorable comics, it would have also made for a special day on my family's stark "uncovered brick fortress"!  ...Maybe even in some dingy alley, somewhere!  Yes, they were THAT great!  

Gosh, I hope that was enough "stream-of-consciousness-typing" to satiate Sergio!  :-) 

Finally, what could possibly put a capper on such a perfect day?  ...How 'bout THIS?  

It was a THURSDAY, in 1966, remember?  

That meant that, by the time I was deposited back home, there was a summer rerun (...remember "summer reruns"?) of Part Two of this week's installment of BATMAN to enjoy on top of all that great Duck stuff (...as opposed to "Stuffed Duck") 

 "Stuffed Duck"... That's ANOTHER JOKE, SON! 

Yeah, after a "joke" like that, I'd run away too!  

But, before you do, Dynamic Duo (Aren't you glad I didn't say "Before you DUO"?), stick around for one Bat-moment more as I name  THE BEST OF UNCLE SCROOGE AND DONALD DUCK #1 our Cover Number Fourteen!  

Wheee!  Only TWO MORE TO GO, and then I get my life baaack!!!  ...Haaaa-haaaa-heeeee-heeeee! 

TIAHBlog at 16 Presents 16 Covers -- Number Nine: Another Top Three Cover(s?)!

Okay, I thought about it! Perhaps longer and harder than I even had the time for today, but in THIS POST I named BATMAN #244 (DC Comics, Cover Date: September, 1972) as one of my TOP THREE FAVORITE COVERS!  

 ...And deservedly so!  

And, to be perfectly honest, I never, at any time, gave any real thought to what the others might be!  

Sure, I made a TOP TEN STORIES list in the late '90s which, if I weren't so (all together now) Horrifically Busy all the time, I'd probably update for the 2020s!  Not at all sure what would change, and what would remain, from the original list - but I KNOW Casty's "Night of the Living Text", to which I contributed its "George Romero Tribute Title", would displace SOMETHING among those ten precious slots!  

...But, I began to wonder today, WHAT WOULD THE OTHER TWO COVERS BE? (See, this series has me THINKING, in addition to going stark raving DAFFY!)  

 AW, C'MON! WE DID THIS GAG TO DEATH YESTERDAY! 

 YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE ONE OF THE TOP THREE COVERS! 

...AND DON'T BOTHER STUFFING THE BALLOT BOX  WITH REPRINTS, IT WON'T HELP!

Anyway, I began thinking about what other covers might rival BATMAN # 244 for sheer awesomeness and, I must admit, there aren't many!  

...And, ironically, it was BEING PESTERED BY DAFFY yesterday, which led me to tonight's answer! 

Oh, Daffy, sometimes you can be your own worst enemy, because it was thinking of YOU that brought me to... ("Oh-no!" says Daffy plaintively, as a pit begins forming in his stomach!)...BUGS BUNNY! 

And, as always, BUGS BUNNY delivers the goods... with a pair of covers that DO INDEED rival BATMAN # 244 for sheer awesomeness! 

Just look at these Rabbit-Rific covers for FOUR COLOR #123 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: October, 1946)... 

...And FOUR COLOR #142 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: April, 1947)... 

...Both by the great Tom McKimson, and tell me they don't run with Neal Adams' BATMAN # 244! 

Of course they do!  And so, the honors for Cover Number Nine are shared by FOUR COLOR #123 and FOUR COLOR #142! 

...But, if you'd prefer to stick with Batman's "desert and sword motif", we've got one for that as well - FOUR COLOR #298 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: October, 1950)!  

 They kinda go together too!  

Can't say when, but I'll probably round out my TOP THREE FAVORITE COVERS sometime before this series is over... 

...Or, maybe I'll just pick something at RANDOM, like this!  When it gets to be this late at night, there's just no telling what I might do!