Hot Links

New blog noted: Blog Into Mystery. Not entirely Silver Age, but several of the posts do relate to that era. I like his comparison of the cover to Batman #165 and a mid-1980s Flash issue; I would never have caught the similarities, but it is clearly Infantino using key elements from one of his earlier covers.

Dick Giordano's passing gets tribute from Gorilla Daze. Giordano came to DC in the late 1960s and took editorship of several titles, including Teen Titans and Aquaman, among others. Giordano was at least partly responsible for bringing some of the younger talent to DC, including Denny O'Neill, Steve Skeates, Jim Aparo and Mike Friedrich. He was a long-standing penciller and (mostly) inker as well for DC. although I confess I don't recognize his work automatically, like I can with many of the other artists.

Booksteve has more on Giordano, particularly relating to Batman:

Dick Giordano drew a unique type of comic book realism. His superhero women were not the supercute, overly busty fanboy favorites. He didn't draw girls--he drew adults. He drew women who looked like women and looked genuinely heroic. He drew city scenes that looked more like real cities than anyone since Will Eisner (with the possible exception of the late Marshall Rogers). He drew a BATMAN who was a sane grown-up who would save me if I needed saving and do so for all the right reasons. He drew MY BATMAN.

Sounds like I need to do a post on Giordano for Nothing But Batman.

Silver Age Gold features a full Jack Davis story called Betsy from Two-Fisted Tales. Brilliant sequential artwork; Davis turns a pretty dull story into a breathtaking adventure.

Jacque Nodell scores an interview with Susan Loeb, an advice columnist for Marvel's romance comics. Is it too much to hope that someday she'll actually locate Marc, on the Man's Side?

Super ITCH has the background story on some sensational Golden Age original artwork featuring Jack Kirby on Captain America. I don't want to think what that first page, with Bucky and Cap in fine form is worth; I'd guess I could almost retire on it.

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Around the Horn With Some Contributions

Superman Fan has been doing a series of posts on the Greatest Imaginary Story You've Never Seen (Part I and Part II). Actually, I have seen it; I have a coverless copy in my collection. It is a very cool story in which Jor-El and Lara escape to Earth with baby Kal-El when Lara (surprise) gets the brilliant idea of enlarging the test rocket ship with a ray she's been working on.

The rest of the story is kind of a Jor-El Ex Machina; with Superman's father solving all of the problems that his son would face in the "real" stories. Lex Luthor goes bald? Not with Papa El's magical hair restoring ray. Mxyzptlk creating constant annoyances? Jor erects a shield preventing him from entering our dimension. Kandor stuck in miniature? Jor-El rebuilds Lara's enlarging ray. Superboy in love with Lori Lemaris, the mermaid? Daddy gives her a pair of legs. But amusingly, when Superboy first encounters Kryptonite, Jor-El has a senior moment:

Yes, don't lift my son who probably weighs 150 pounds, instead drag that several-ton boulder of Kryptonite! Of course, after that he designs a Kryptonite disintegrator, so his reputation as a super-genius remains intact.

So far Osgood hasn't covered the final part of the story, but I will mention that it's another one of those endings where the inexorable nature of fate is once again highlighted.

Over at the Comic Treadmill, Mag notes the futility of Captain Boomerang attempting to send the Flash on a boomerang to the Moon; surely it would just return? What I find amusing, however, is that in each of Captain Boomerang's first three appearances, he had essentially the same deathtrap for the Flash. In Flash #117:

You can see that's not substantially different from the setting in Flash #124. Ditto with Flash #148:

Incidentally, in that last story, the Flash escapes by grabbing hold of the flag atop Mount Everest:

Bill Jourdain appeared on Comic Geek Speak to discuss the early days of DC comics (from about 1935-1947). Bill's always worth a listen due to his vast knowledge of Golden Age Comics.

The House of Cobwebs analyzes the horror that was Freddy, Charlton's attempted knock-off of Archie Comics. The post is much more entertaining and humorous than the actual Freddy Comics. I'll have to dig around and see if I can pull up an issue of that comic for a review.

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Around the Horn

Collectors Weekly has a terrific interview with Greg Theakston regarding Golden Age Comics in general. I found this quirky aside fascinating:

You also had Captain Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr., who was Elvis’ favorite comic book hero. You know the emblem with Elvis’ motto, “Taking Care of Business” with the lightning bolt? Captain Marvel Jr. had a lightning bolt on his chest, plus a little Elvis-like curl of hair in the middle of his forehead. Elvis wore the jumpsuits with the high collar; Captain Marvel Jr. had a high collar. So while Jr. may not be as widely known as Captain Marvel himself, he had a profound effect on Elvis Presley.

Well worth the read. More fascinating discussion of DC's Golden Age era at Bill Jourdain's site in a podcast with the Comic Geek Speak guys.

Out of This World posts the entire Jackie Johnson story from Our Army At War #160. You may recall that I reviewed that issue back in January.

While we're on the topic of Our Army At War, Mykal posted the entirety of Our Army At War #120, featuring a pair of excellent stories including the origins of the Ice Cream Soldier, Wild Man, and Bulldozer. But it is the other story in that issue, a one-off tale featuring the Saucy Lady that really won my heart.

All's fair in Love and War, right? Jacque Nodell recently hosted a comics chatcast on the topic of Romance Comics, while Aaron from Silver Age Gold hosted one on his favorite comics. They are scheduled again on March 15 (Aaron) and March 16 (Jacque) at 8:00 PM eastern time, and this time I promise to remember to attend Aaron's.

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Saturday Linkage

Bill Jourdain has another entertaining podcast up, this one discussing the Plot Against Christmas, a Golden Age Captain Marvel tale. If you've never listened to any of Bill's podcasts, I actually envy you, because you have hours and hours of listening pleasure ahead of you.

Bill also puts out a call for support for the Vintage DC Comics Calendar. I reviewed that calendar a few months ago, and loved it. There's one hanging in my breakfast nook right now.



Review the calendar over there to help out the folks at Asgaard Press.

Another new blog for the blogroll! Black 'N' White and Red All Over is posting complete stories, this time mostly from the terrific Warren Magazines like Creepy and Eerie. Check out this Christmas tale from 1973.

Sherm Cohen has been posting some terrific old ads from comic books, showing all the wondrous things that products advertised in comics could do. Columbia Bikes could outrun Roman soldiers and lions! And if you have US Bike Tires on the bicycle, you could capture a dangerous lunatic.

Karl at the House of Cobwebs has a very weird British "romance" comic to discuss. I thoroughly enjoyed his dissection of Mirabelle. Here's a panel to whet your interest:

"Continuity" in the Golden Age? Yep, as I show over at Nothing But Batman, a lot of the flashback sequences in old Batman stories really were showing scenes from earlier stories.

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Hot Links

The Big Blog of Kids' Comics is new to my blogroll, and is, as advertised, a big blog of kids' comics featuring complete stories, with a current seasonal focus on Christmas stories. Worth the trip!

I don't know how to describe Yesterday's Papers, but it's a fascinating blog to read. It's mostly a blog about old-time comic strips, with a focus on the artists. Absolutely fascinating reading, and you'll get exposed to a lot of terrific strips from the past.

Aaron Bias has a terrific post on the difference between the Golden and Silver Age and all the comics that have come since. Key point:

The first crop of comic book creators had never read a comic book when they started.

Definitely a thoughtful argument.

Over at Nothing But Batman, I've put up a longish post on the Batman time travel stories with Professor Carter Nichols. Hope you like it!

Superman Fan has an entertaining review of Superman #198, which featured an interesting story about "the real Clark Kent". In the tale, Superman had only come to Earth a few years earlier, and had taken over the identity of Clark, imprisoning the genuine article in a cage. This recalls to mind the original origin of Wonder Woman's Diana Prince identity, where Wondy actually paid off a gal to let her be Diana.

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Blogroll Surfing

Aaron at Silver Age Gold covers the meeting of Tomahawk and several troglodytes and points out in a very interesting aside, why the revolutionary war character should not have known that they would be called cavemen. You learn something new every day!

Jacque at Sequential Crush covers the ironic story of a gold-digger who missed her Prince Charming. Love that little "Oh!" at the end of the story.

I've added a few new blogs to the sidebar. Al Bigley (Big Glee) covers comics nostalgia, and also seems to be a big fan of the Monkees (and who isn't?). I have "Last Train To Clarksville" on my MP3 player more or less permanently.

Ian Sokoliwski, a professional comic artist, has his own blog. Check out his photos from the Central Canada Con. Lots of very attractive gals in costumes, what's not to like?

Joyville is another artist's blog, dedicated to appreciation of some of the more cartoony artists, who don't get enough recognition these days. Check out his post on Sheldon Mayer and Dizzy Dog.

Hey! I thought Dial B for Blog had disappeared, but apparently it's back on the web. Go check out the greatest comics blog that ever was, or ever will be.

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Around the Horn

Jacque at Sequential Romance scores an interview with Irene Vartanoff, one of the most prolific DC letter writers of the Silver Age, who went on to have a career in writing including comics and romance graphic (and non-graphic) novels. Irene's own homepage is here.

As a 1960s DC comic fan, I occasionally fantasized about writing great letters like Irene, but as it was I did not develop my writing skills until my college years. At some point, I should do some features on the great letter writers of that era, many of whom went on to have careers in the field. It's all part of the milieu, although I freely acknowledge that I've started my post on Alter Ego and Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas about five times and always felt like I couldn't do the topic justice.

H at The Comic Treadmill continues his long-running series on the Giant Props in Batman stories, with some wonderful Golden Age material. How can you go wrong with something like this:

Joker tries to roll the Giant Penny (not THE Giant Prop Penny, but a completely different one) to smash the door to the cashier’s office. But Batman was disguised as the Santa on the Giant Christmas Holly pie and rolls the Giant Pumpkin to deflect the Giant Penny.

I am sorry to see that the Absorbascon has joined the list of blogs calling it quits in 2009; Scipio always had interesting things to say.

Ol' Groove remembers the Demon Hunter, one of the short-lived comics from Atlas-Seaboard in the 1970s. I actually have that issue, and always felt it was one of the best values in the history of comics per actual drawing. The second page of that issue has an incredible 27 panels.

Hube at Comics of Rhodey has a nice tribute to the late George Tuska. One of the sad things about doing a nostalgia blog like this is that there's an awful lot of the creators we talk about who are passing away.

Karl at The House of Cobwebs talks about the time he scored a nice batch of Charlton Horror from the 1970s. Some very nice and horrific covers on that trove, Karl!

Christine at the Other Murdock Papers has a long, and amusing discussion of Daredevil #30-32 featuring the "Blind Daredevil". Wait a minute, wasn't DD always blind? Yeah, but not in the way he was in those issues. Recommended!

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Around the Comics 'Sphere

Bill Jourdain has two terrific podcasts up on his site. In the first, he gives the history of Crimebuster, a golden age boy hero. I confess, I did not know much about CB, but when Bill described his origin story I was blown away. And thanks to the miracle of copyrights actually expiring, you can read the origin story online by downloading the CBR file from the Golden Age Comics site. It's arguably a better origin than that of Batman, which I still rate as the gold standard. Bill also has a podcast up of his adventures at the Baltimore ComicCon, including some interesting moments with Don Rosa, the creator of the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. As you all know, I'm a Silver Age fan, but I heartily agree with Bill that the L&T of SMcD is among the greatest comics series ever published.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Superman Fan's blog? Almost better than surfing over there every day is surfing over there every week and seeing all those new awesome posts. But surf over there every day and get a jump on me! I love this post on the bipolar Superman, and this one on Jimmy Olsen, movie director and this one on the Ghost of Jor-El. Great blogging!

If you haven't been checking out Jacque's posts on Marc on the Man's Side, you have missed quite some entertainment. Apparently DC hired/created this hilariously sexist advice columnist around 1971, whose general admonition to women can be summed up this way: "Be glad a man's taking you out to dinner, and don't gripe that it's McDonalds." Very entertaining!

How to Get a Job, circa 1969, and Will Eisner.

Discussion of the Comics Code Authority at Speed Force.

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Link-Fest

The Beat Down has a tribute to one of the most unique villains of the Silver Age, the Composite Superman.

A nice (and timely) Captain America tribute to the first responders of 9-11 over at Bob Mitchell in the 21st Century.

Who is Galexo? Well, he's the guy who replaced Batman in the Batman comic strip back in the 1970s. And if that's as much a surprise to you as it is to me, surf over to Booksteve's and check him out.

Cartoon Snap has a longish post on the artwork of Jimmy Thompson on the Golden Age Robotman stories. Robotman was a terrific feature during the Thompson run and the post includes the complete Robotman story from Star Spangled #26.

While we're on the topic of complete stories, The Comics Bin has part 7 of the famous "Monster Society of Evil" story from Captain Marvel Adventures, which for many, many years was the longest continuing superhero story. This installment features the Nazis and Herr Hitler himself.

Still no more updates at Comic Coverage, but Mark has organized his three years of posts by topic, so you can surf through all the Monkey Business posts, for example. If you're like me, kicking yourself because you didn't go through all of Dial B for Blog before it disappeared, don't miss this opportunity!

H at the Comic Treadmill indexes the giant props of four more issues of Batman (134-137) and uncovers 10 more examples of the giant prop era.

Comics of Rhodey has a interesting post on the signature stylizations of five comics artists. It's a neat topic, and certainly nobody would disagree with his Gil Kane pick.

Tom O of Random Longbox was not finished with Superman #215 (I linked the first part last week as part of my post on Superman #175). He covers the backup story, a reprint of Superman's First Exploit. I agree with him, this is one of the best Superman stories off all time. In fact, it was, I believe, the very first story DC ever reprinted, as it was the leadoff tale in Superman Annual #1.

Sequential Crush continues her series on Marc, DC's advice for the lovelorn columnist you love to hate.

Whew! That's a lotta links! Who says this isn't the golden age of comics blogdom?

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Blogroll Roundup

Jacque Nodell is back from the San Diego Comic-Con, with reports on the panels she sat on, including her handout discussing several romance artists, including Jim Steranko's lone romance story. Definitely an interesting pair of posts.

While we're on the subject of the con, 4th Letter covers a panel on making comics more relevant to the youth of today. There are so many terrific points made in this post, but this was where I knew I had to link it:

And even then, should we be looking at superheroes for racial sensitivity, anyway? This past year has convinced me that the only sensible answer is… no. Superhero comics, by and large, aren’t built for nuance. They are built to punch bad guys, be deconstructed occasionally, and to have large explosions. Nine times out of ten, superheroes are going to approach a subject from a black and white point of view, there is right and there is wrong, and that really isn’t how race and racism works. You can’t beat up racism. There are too many shades of gray, too many varied experiences, and too much baggage for that to ever happen. Sorry. Time to look elsewhere. There’ll be the occasional gem, but then there will also be Superman making proclamations and an entire generation rolling their eyes so hard that they go blind.

Amen. I like an occasional "message" story, but there are few writers that can carry it off gracefully, without making it seem like a "lecture". And I did have to laugh at the idea that "This panel explores one reason for this shrinking market: the divergence between the identities of mainstream comic icons, who are typically straight, white, male, and American, and the demographic makeup of a new generation of readers."

Of course, comics companies have labored mightily to introduce gay, ethnically diverse, female and international characters for years, only to see them not sell. DC right now has a lesbian Batwoman as the headliner in Detective. I'm not objecting, but I am saying that the idea that comics don't sell because they don't have enough gay, female or ethnically diverse lead characters is silly.

H at the Comic Treadmill covers five Brave & Bold issues, including two issues that I have reviewed in the past, B&B #64, and B&B #69. As H points out, Bob Haney did improve quite a bit from those issues, but those particular stories were worse than even the depths of the Jack Schiff era.

I wholeheartedly second the thoughts of Nashville Beatle on why he's not much of a fan of modern comic books.

When I finished reading I didn't feel entertained. I felt bad. Movies like Saw and Hostel have the same affect. They aren't entertainment, they are an all out assault. My opinion is that if comics are to survive they need to be more like Brian K Vaughn's "Runaways" and Grant Morrison's "All Star Superman" which are everything that has been and will be great about comic books. In the mean time I will be happy to re-read my Silver Age comics.

This is in regards to the new "Black Hand" storyline in Green Lantern; I should break out my copy of the first Black Hand appearance back in the Silver Age and do a review.

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Wednesday Walkabout

Bill Jourdain has a terrific post on a very significant Silver Age Batman story, and how it was swiped from a Golden Age Robin tale. Great find, Bill!

Jacque Nodell covers hippie love at a rock concert. In the comics, and promises a whole bunch of Woodstock romance stories in August for the 40th (gulp!) anniversary of that festival. I was a 14-year-old kid heading up with my parents to my aunt's house on the lake that summer and we got caught in the famous traffic jam that shut down the NY State Thruway (fortunately we got out of it reasonably quickly).

While we're on the subject of romance, here are 66 types of men that women should avoid, by John Glenn Taylor. This post starts out good and gets better and better. Very funny and a terrific job!

Mark Engblom has another of his terrific themed puzzles, this time about fire-oriented superheroes. Gotta act on this one quick, though because today's the final day to submit answers. I know that #2 is Fire Boy (from the Substitute Legion) and #23 is Sun Boy, but I'd really need to Google hard to find the rest. I think #16 was that Japanese guy that was in X-Men, but you can see how pathetic I am about comics past 1977 or so.

I have had Ramon Villalobos on my blogroll for awhile, and discovered that he's gone the podcast route. They've got some issues to work out with the relative volumes of the two guys doing the show, but it was interesting to hear them discuss the new Wednesday Comics. Also check out some examples of Ramon's art; it's quite obvious he's lying when he says he's "an incompetent artist."

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Great Posts on Other Blogs

Our buddy Chris is dedicating the entire month of March to the Bat-Mite canon. Bat-Mite is one of the characters that disappeared with the New Look Batman of 1964, but he was a fairly regular character, and was introduced in the 20th anniversary issue of Batman's first appearance in Detective Comics.

While we're on the subject of Batman, go check out Building Batman, the most unique concept I have ever seen for a blog. "Bruce" is training himself in the various Batman skills, from boomerangs to lock-picking to knot-tying. If you always dreamed of being Batman, this guy is living the dream!

Sticking with the Batman theme, the Comic Treadmill has another one of his "Prop Star" posts about the giant props that Bill Finger used to feature in his Batman stories. It's an interesting and different way to look at the Silver Age Batman.

Bill Jourdain has a long and informative post on the first year of Batman. As you probably know, Batman is approaching his 70th anniversary either on April 18th (the date Detective #27 went on sale), or in May (the cover date of that issue).

Highly recommended for inside dope is Funny Book Fanatic, the blog of Dave Olbrich, the former publisher of Malibu Comics. I know, their output was minimal in the Silver Age (probably because they didn't start until 1986, the slackers), but Dave's not just interested in the modern stuff and he's got some interesting tales about the inner workings of the biz as well as trivia quizzes and the like. Hat Tip to the Groovy Agent for pointing me to Dave's blog.

Comics of Rhodey has a reminiscence of his own history with comic books.

I pretty much ceased purchases after college as marriage soon beckoned. During my second year of teaching (the early 1990s), my wife told me she wanted me to get rid of some of those boxes of comics I had lying around.

Nicholas Cage had something similar happen to him as I recall. ;)

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Odds & Ends

Blog-buddy Michael Grabois has an interesting post on the changes that have occurred to the story in Adventure #247 as it has been reprinted over the years. One background character was changed to look like Colossal Boy in Superman Annual #6, and in subsequent reprints he's Brainiac 5. Yet another example of why you can't trust reprints.

John Glenn Taylor covers the dysfunctional Kents. I'm always amused by these "Superman is a dick" types of collections, although it's also interesting to wonder why the original comics had those particular panels. I think the rug-eating one was caused by Red K, and I know the last panel was Ma and Pa Kent's only way to discipline Clark. The one where the Kents are dressed as Jor-El and Lara is from Superboy #100 and the nominal reason is that the Kents have gone insane, although you never know, that could be a trick to fool the aliens.

I don't usually link to webcomics, but I did get a kick out of the story The Collector at this site. It starts out as a takeoff on the movie Comic Book Villains, but with an ExCellent twist at the end.

I Believe In Batmite has a review of the Batman as Superman story from Batman #113, a Dick Sprang story. That story features some of Sprang's amazing robots, which I forgot to include in my Sprang tribute:



There are a number of Sprang stories with these robots or ones very much like them:



They strike me as a perfect combination of sci-fi, menace and wackiness all at the same time.

Bill Jourdain covers some of the early romance comics, including the very first graphic novel (from the 1950s), It Rhymes with Lust.

Mark Engblom rates the top headquarters for comics heroes and villains. One that I would definitely argue for inclusion is Luthor's Lair, a lead-lined abandoned museum in Metropolis that features this Hall of Heroes:



How can you not love that?

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New On the Blogroll

I'm kind of shocked that I never put Grantbridge Street on the list; I am sure I have surfed over there a number of times. It's the blog of longtime commenter Joe Bloke. My apologies for not linking before, Joe, I could have sworn I'd put you on the sidebar ages ago! It does take a little time to load (weekly archives might help there), but it's well worth the trip! Check out Joe's post of the first issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland posted in memory of Forrest J. Ackerman, who passed away over the weekend.

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