TIAHBlog at 16 Presents 16 Covers -- Number Seven: Laying Down The Law - and Picking It Up for the First Time!

When I returned from my "1972 girl-driven hiatus from comic books" in the early 1980s, I'd expected the landscape to be "different", but not as radically different as I found it to be!  

Gold Key (as a brand) was gone, replaced by Whitman which was an anemic shadow of Western Publishing's past glories!  They didn't even publish on a regular schedule!  

Charlton was on its last gasp, and not publishing anything that interested me anyway!  

DC was still solid (with Batman leading the way, closely followed by Superman) and would continue to increase in my esteem as the eighties wore on! 

I made the wondrous discovery of one of those newfangled "comic book shops" quite by accident in New York's Greenwich Village and became reacquainted with some dear old friends! These were two of the very first comics I ever purchased from one of those shops - Whitman and DC, of course!  

But, with the lesser quality and unreliable release schedule of Whitman and my slow ramping up with DC, beyond Batman and Superman titles, I had my eyes open for something different -- and if there ever was a time for "something different", the '80s with its wildfire spreading of new publishers and titles, was it! 

Working in "The Village" as I did at the time, I had access to several different comic shops in lunch-hour-walking-distance and took full advantage of it!  

One of the best of that era was on the corner of Broadway (yes, THE Broadway) and (I believe) 12th Street.  It was called "Forbidden Planet"...

...No, not THAT "Forbidden Planet"!  This shop was some sort of (for lack of a better word) "extension" of a shop (or chain?) in England and, at the time, carried the widest variety of EVERYTHING!  They might even still be in that neighborhood, though in a much smaller (and less extensively stocked) location.  At least they were the last Pre-COVID times I regularly frequented The Village.  

It was at Forbidden Planet that I made my first long-term commitment to a non-DC, non-Whitman title... JUDGE DREDD!  

JUDGE DREDD began in issue #2 of the British newspaper-like comic book 2000 AD (March, 1977)... making it one of the few comics where #2 is probably worth MORE than issue #1!   

First published in America in 1983 by an outfit calling itself Eagle Comics, Judge Dredd might not have truly taken America by storm, but remains one of the most successful British comic imports to this day.  

The COVERS of the Eagle Comics were eye-catching in an over-the-top way, depicting Dredd obsessively and often violently enforcing The Law in outlandishly humorous ways! 

But it was THIS ONE, JUDGE DREDD #7, that finally pushed me beyond just looking curiously at the covers and buying issues #1-7 in one glorious Forbidden Planet purchase!  

 I mean, how could it NOT?! 

I was hooked somewhere between issues #1 and #2, long before reaching #7!  In fact, sometime in the late '90s, I made a "TOP TEN" list of my favorite comic book stories and THIS wonderfully ambitious Judge Dredd story was the only Non-Disney, Non-DC story to make the cut!  

So, I'll split the honors for Cover Number Seven between JUDGE DREDD #1 and #7 and give an overall award to EAGLE COMICS for bringing the character across the pond!  

Be here tomorrow for... who knows what!  Judge Dredd insists that you do!  

And you DO NOT want to upset him! 

TIAHBlog at 16 Presents 16 Covers -- Number Six: M-I-C-K-E- WHY?

C'mon, sing it with me... "Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me?  M-I-C-K-E-Y  M-O-U-S-E!"  

Yes, MICKEY MOUSE... M-I-C-K-E-Y  M-O-U-S-E!  I daresay the most oft spelled character name in animation and comics history!  ...Agreed?  ...Sure!

Then how do you explain the cover of MICKEY MOUSE #159 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: October, 1975) and its unforgivably-flawed story-describing caption?  

 "MICKY explores an undersea pirate stronghold..." 

Well, I'm not quite sure who "MICKY" is, but I hope "MICKEY", along with GOOFY, is close behind to rescue him if needed!  Who knows, they might have to rescue "GOFY" as well!   

A most uncharacteristic front-cover-faux-pas from a publisher not known for making "Charlton-esque" errors!   

I can't just let Gold Key sit out there with such a blunder to its credit, so let's find reasons to get it off the hook...

Being underwater, the "E" that should have been in "MICKY" dissolved in the salty brine, or imploded from the intense undersea pressure?  Maybe it even drowned!  

 BLUB! BLUB! BLUB! ...Eerie silence!  

Perhaps the caption was the work of a German-born copy-writer, from where they spell the character's name as "MICKY MAUS"?  

 Ah, I've got it... It was the first manifestation of the REBELLIOUS SENTIENT COMIC BOOK CAPTIONS from Casty's magnificent sci-fi/horror send-up "Night of the Living Text"... My personal favorite of every Duck and Mouse story I've ever worked on!  

It would seem that, as far back as 1975, these evil expeditors of exposition were plotting their eventual all out assault on Mouseton and our hero - and the unthinkable misspelling of his name on a cover was but a test run for something big that finally broke in WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES #733 (IDW, Cover Date: July 2016)!  

Since 1975, the captions were dormant "Sleeper Agents" just waiting for the right time to strike... and when CAPTIONS are "Sleeper Agents", they are literally  LETTERED... "ZZZZZ!"

 YEAH! THAT'S IT... and I'm STICKIN' WITH IT!  

So, one more cover "in the books"! ...Cover?  ...Books?  ...Get it?  Cover Number Six: MICKEY MOUSE #159...

...With just a smidgeon of sabotage from a stray sentient caption, that accomplished the deed with... (wait for it)... the Greatest of "E"s! 

Come back again tomorrow for... who the heck knows!  Not me, and I run the joint!  

TIAHBlog at 16 Presents 16 Covers -- Number Five: Desert Awesomeness!

If you were to describe the cover of BATMAN #244 (DC Comics, Cover Date: September, 1972) to someone who's never seen it, based strictly on what it looks like...

...You could honestly say "A unconscious Batman lies out in the desert, stripped of his costume - but still wearing his mask" and that "still wearing his mask" part would have it sound ridiculous!  I daresay it would conjure up images of  "Batman surfing, costumed in full cape and cowl". 

So much so that when I created a synopsis for this cover at GCD, I played it safe by simply writing: "Batman is left for dead in the desert by Ra's Al Ghul". 

Not that I don't LOVE "Surfing Batman and Joker" (I do!), but this amazing cover image by the great Neal Adams is ANYTHING BUT THAT!  

So, awesome is this cover, that I would put it in my Top Three - and would be hard pressed to name the other two... even in a Blog series like this that features covers that I like!  

I didn't have this issue at a teen-reader. I had made the conscious (albeit reluctant) choice to give up comic books earlier in the year... because, in those less-enlightened days, you just couldn't get girls if you were still reading comics!  ANY type of comics, not just "kids' comics"!  

I still remember the day that fateful decision was made...I remember a lot of things, don't I?  I had a girl over the house, and had carelessly left THIS COMIC out where it could be plainly seen!  

With retroactive apologies to both Cecil Beard and Jack Manning, who produced a typically good story for the time (with an unexpectedly oddball ending, I might add), I awkwardly went through an almost sit-com-y series of moves to distract "Doreen" (There, I said her name - hope she never reads this!) from seeing this book containing their work!  

I was successful in keeping both my reputation and relationship intact, but I solemnly vowed to never go through this again - so good bye, old friends... your sacrifice was for the greater good! 

Comics were easier to give up than I thought, thanks in large part to the Hanna-Barbera license going to Charlton in 1970, and the slow, inexorable decline that had begun infecting Gold Key since 1969. 

Where old favorites once looked like this...

...Sadly, they now looked like THIS!  

THESE THINGS or GIRLS?  Can ya BLAME ME? 

Batman had NOT gone into such decline by 1972, quite to the contrary, producing such fine issues as these during the previous year...

 

 Is that a "Legendary Super-Pickax" (Hi, Sergio!), or are you just "glad to see Batman"?  

...But, with my typically bad timing, Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams were literally revolutionizing Batman at the time, and would come up with their best work in introducing Ra's Al Ghul...

...And I JUST MISSED IT! 

Comics would start inching their way back into my life in 1980-1981, and would come full-roaring back before the end of the decade!  We were on our way toward a new world where guys no longer felt self-conscious about reading comics.  Heck, gals were now reading them too!  Vive La (lack of) Difference! 

If only this had happened sooner, when I could have kept buying them new at 15-35 cents each, instead of retroactively chasing those ghosts at dealer prices!  (Groan!)  

So there you have Cover Number Five: BATMAN #244 in all its (as the post title says) "Desert Awesomeness"!  A cover so nice I bought it twice!  My original mid-80s purchase...

...And another one to be autographed (on separate occasions - close to the turn of the century) by writer Denny O' Neil, artist Neal Adams, and interior story inker (later editor) Dick Giordano!  

 Denny O' Neil and Dick Giordano 

 Neal Adams 

...Where will we go for Number SIX?  Come back and find out!

TIAHBlog at 16 Presents 16 Covers -- Number Four: Lunch Specials!

It was was quite the "special lunch" indeed that fine day in the later spring of 1965!  But first, a bit of background...  

I may have said that I spent my childhood in a neighborhood that was once a thriving county hub that, almost overnight, turned bad and outright dangerous. Summer 1960 until February 1969, to better place it in time. 

You could almost say it was a "tale of two cities", with profuse apologies to Charles Dickens! Through 1966, it was, at best, a suburban paradise and, at worst, just an ordinary convenient village.  With so many different places to buy comic books, all within reasonable walking distance, it was a great place to spend virtually the entire Silver Age!  Those four-colored twelve-cent tickets to Utopia seemed to be just EVERYWHERE, and I was more than happy to reap the benefits of such a bounty!

 I still have most of mine, and nearly all of them look better than those in this stock photo! 

By 1967, things suddenly took a dramatic change and, by the fall of 1968, it had gotten so bad, so threatening, so dangerous that I refused to go to school out of fear for my safety.  Had I possibly known in 1968 what the future's "cyber-bullying" would be, I would have gladly traded it for the torturous reality I faced every day!  Regardless of good or bad times, it was a particular quirk of this school that led to some decidedly wonderful lunches for me...

 My school abandoned and boarded-up sometime in the "20-teens". Only picture I could find. 

One problem I DIDN'T HAVE was getting "beaten-up for my LUNCH MONEY"! 

Why? Because I DIDN'T CARRY lunch money!  Why? Because my combined elementary and junior high school, built in 1911, per the cornerstone... (as hard as this is to believe) had NO CAFETERIA FACILITIES... and we students were (as hard as THIS is to also believe) were DISMISSED from 12:00 Noon to 1:15 PM... and SENT HOME FOR LUNCH!  Yes, really!  

Could you imagine this in today's world?  Could you imagine mothers being home every day to receive their offspring and serve them lunches in their kitchens?  Could you imagine kids having to (and BE ABLE TO, distance-wise) walk (most of us unattended) home and then back to school for an afternoon session?   ...If you meet Mom in heaven, don't tell her about all those 1:15 to 3:45 afternoon sessions I resorted to some "creative ways" to avoid attending - once released for lunch! 

Now, as things were still good in 1965, there were some distinct advantages to this, for me at least. 

For one, I was out of the stifling school building, and would run the three blocks home like a road runner!  

For two, there was always a reasonably good lunch waiting for me. Something, alas, not all kids had. 

And for three - and best of all - sometimes there were COMICS waiting for me, which I joyously devoured along with lunch!  

By then, I had solidly moved from "young casual reader" into "never-miss-an-issue" mode, as discussed in THIS POST and one way to "never-miss-an-issue" was to SUBSCRIBE to as many titles as my meager allowance and generous-to-her-grandson GRANDMA MILLIE would provide! 

Our mail would generally arrive by 10:30AM, and so any subscription comics delivered that day, would be waiting for me on the kitchen table when I arrived home for lunch.  What a WONDERFUL FEELING THAT WAS!  

The day that is the subject of this post provided a particularly memorable yield, so much so that I remember it distinctly to this day.  Try to imagine what a Gift-From-The-Gold-Key-Gods this two-issue bonanza was through the wide eyes of eleven-year-old me! 

 UNCLE SCROOGE #58...  

...And THE FLINTSTONES #28!

Each one a prime Silver Age specimen of its respective title!

"The Giant Robot Robbers" was one of the best Uncle Scrooge outings of the (much-unfairly maligned) sixties-period of Carl Barks' incredible - nay, historic - run on the title.  Even inspiring an informal, though also effective, adaptation for the TV series DuckTales (1987). 

THE FLINTSTONES #28 has my vote for The-Best-Ever-Never-To-Be-Surpassed issue of THE FLINTSTONES that ever was, and very likely ever will be! 

Stridently reflective of the FIFTH SEASON of THE FLINTSTONES TV show, which was in summer reruns (...remember "summer reruns"?) at the time of its release, #28 offered "The Pirates of Skull Island", a lead adventure story in keeping with the "adventure plots" that kept the Fifth Season lively and memorable. Think "A Haunted House is Not a Home" (with Uncle Giggles Flintstone), "Dr. Sinister" (with Madame Yes "I'm too important to be captured!"), and, to me, one of the best eps of the entire series "Time Machine" (with its trip to the 1964 New York World's Fair!)

Oddly, to digress, my favorite seasons of THE FLINTSTONES are Season One, and Season Five! Both seasons "did what they did" better than any of the other seasons - especially Season Six! 

Harvey Eisenberg did some of his finest art for this story and when you can say THAT, you're really saying something - considering he routinely did stuff like this!

Harvey Eisenberg died in 1965, perhaps even before THE FLINTSTONES #28 was published. At the time of his death, I felt that he even surpassed Carl Barks (though ever slightly) as the best artist of the Western Publishing stable. Take a peek at a page of interior art from "The Pirates of Skull Island" and some panels from "The Giant Robot Robbers", and decide! 

For many years, I've said, "IF YOU'RE GONNA GET ONLY ONE ISSUE of THE FLINTSTONES, THIS IS THE ONE TO GET!" 

...And get the UNCLE SCROOGE, too!  They're two of the best Gold Key Comics of what was an extraordinary creative period for them! (1964-1966). 

I read both of these comics during my home lunch break and, as was my custom at the time, read them both AGAIN that evening after my homework! That made for one great day... except for that "homework part", that is! 

One great day, with one great lunch, thanks to Gold Key's subscription department and the United States Postal Service!  

And so, our "16 Covers -- Number Four" goes to both UNCLE SCROOGE #58 and THE FLINTSTONES #28... as a Two-for-One Lunch Special!  

 Where will we go tomorrow?  Come back and see!