Thursday, October 29, 2015

Happy Halloween 2015! (Hey, that rhymes!)


For Halloween 2015, courtesy of our friend Dan Cunningham, is this wonderful photo of Horror Film stars Lon Chaney Jr., Tor Johnson, John Carradine, and Bela Lugosi (left to right, top to bottom) enjoying a communal read of Dell Comics’ WALT DISNEY’S COMICS AND STORIES # 190! 


Then again, this could be “IDW Disney Comics Halloween”… and it might actually be Thad Komorowski, Jonathan Gray, David Gerstein, and Joe Torcivia (left to right, top to bottom) expertly costumed as classic horror stars!   …I’ll never tell!

As if that isn’t enough, consider that the copy of WDC&S # 190 that we appear to be holding might actually be a copy of IDW’s WDC&S # 721 masquerading as such! 

Is THIS…



                              …Stuffed inside THIS? 


Now, THAT’S some great disguise work!  

10 comments:

Elaine said...

The only Halloween-appropriate story in WDC 190 (the one in the photo) is part 3 of Fallberg/Murry's "The Case of the Hungry Ghost." Do you think that's what they're reading? Gladstone reprinted that story, but I don't remember much about it...though I do like castle ghosts generally.

Joe Torcivia said...

As I recall, at the last IDW Halloween Party, we were all reading the Li’l Bad Wolf story. That’s why David is laughing so hard. He loves those things! Or, maybe he was laughing as something funny Jonathan wrote for the disguised WDC&S # 721. I can’t remember…

Also, the reason Jonathan and I are dressed as Tor Johnson and Bela Lugosi, respectively, is that both Johnson and Lugosi appeared in the cult classic “Plan 9 from Outer Space” -- and we wish to remind you that “Plan Dine from Outer Space”, in IDW’s MICKEY MOUSE # 6, is scheduled for release next Wednesday, November 04, 2015. Thad’s just there, hanging out…

Abraham Lincoln said...

Made a long-delayed trip to the comic shop and was pleasantly surprised to see the Disney Halloween Special. Both stories that I had, but nonetheless happy to see any Van Horn printing.

Is that 64 page special officially out? I gave up on trying to keep track of IDW release dates but if it is it looks like I'll end up needing to buy it online.

Joe Torcivia said...

Abe:

The best way to keep track of IDW and all other comics is at THIS SITE. It’s what I use myself. Go there whenever there’s any question.

Elaine said...

Abe: The WDC 75th Anniversary Special (if that's the one you mean) came out this last week, 10/28. It's still on the shelf in one of the two local comic stores here, and my own comic shop, which got one in for me this week, is going to order me a second copy of it. Your shop should still be able to get it for you. Next special due is the Mickey & Donald Christmas Parade, due out some time in December. As Joe says, the best place to track release dates is Comiclist. For almost any publisher, release dates are only "for sure" a week in advance. David reports that that's largely due to the vagaries of the printers. You get the issue to the printers on time, but they may or may not get it printed right away. And IDW uses more than one printer.

The Halloween Van Horn comic would not have been listed in Comiclist, because it was a "Halloween Comicfest" giveaway, a promotional giveaway for shops, like the Free Comic Book Day comics. Those will only be listed in advance on the appropriate website--put "halloween comicfest" or "free comic book day" in your search engine.

Joe Torcivia said...

Elaine:

Thanks for the great endorsement of Comiclist. Abe will doubtless find it to be as invaluable a resource to him as it is to us.

Believe it or not, life in general has been so busy for me that I STILL don’t have the WDC&S 75th Anniversary Special… or anything released over the last three weeks. I haven’t been able to get to the comic shop since the release of UNCLE SCROOGE # 7 (“Mummy Fearest”).

That’s also why there have been fewer IDW new comic reviews of late. I hope to have this change in the near future. I really wanted to do a post on MM # 5 (“The Ghost of Man-Eater Mountain”), particularly to discuss Don R. Christensen and Bill Wright, but was unable to find the time to do so.

However, nothing short of a natural disaster will prevent me from getting to the shop for this week’s MICKEY MOUSE # 6! So, expect to see a post on that one soon.

Ryan said...

I would still love to talk about MM#5. Ghost of Maneater Mountain is a long story so it's gonna take me multiple re-reads to have a fully formed opinion on it anyways. Slightly off topic but I wish that DCF was working as now would be a great time to talk about these comics without having to write a blog post to justify the conversation.

Joe Torcivia said...

And, what’s wrong with having “a Blog post to justify the conversation”?

It’s been a pretty successful format around here. Besides, you can comment on another IDW comic, even if the post isn’t set for it. Just like Scrooge, when faced with the Mummy-Fearest “I-Don’t-Kharis”, I’m not particular, myself!

The sad reality is that, with four wonderful books per month, I can no longer even pretend to myself that I can do a full post on each IDW Disney comic. Life’s other constraints simply won’t allow for that. (…One of those constrains, ironically, being the writing I do FOR IDW!) So, I’ll do a post for all issues that my work is in – assuming that I can best address any questions on those – and selected other issues, as I am able. Believe me when I say, I probably want to DO ‘EM even more than you might want to read ‘em. …And a lot of “those other Blogs” (…You KNOW who you are! :-) ) update far less than I do, anyway.

But, everyone… Feel free to comment on other issues, especially in a post like this – that is “about the comics”, but not “about a SPECIFIC comic". I’m always up for a good IDW discussion.

Another thing to consider is there is no “cosmic Blogging rule” that says I must review the books in any order. I could go back to MM # 5, any time after MM # 6, should my time work out that way.

Ryan said...

Oh, absolutly nothings wrong with the way you run your blog, Joe! It's always a pleasure to comment here. I just thought that if DCF was working it would allow us to have these conversations on ALL the issues without you having to spend all your time writing posts for us :)

Joe Torcivia said...

Understood, Clapton!

But, unlike so many other places online, I feel the overall discussions are “nicer” here!