Number 1608: Herman goes to the birds; Wood’s Munsters story

 A tip of the Pap-cap to Ken Landgraf, who supplied the raw scans for this 1965 story from Gold Key’s The Munsters #8. Wallace Wood and his assistants did the artwork. According to an e-mail from Landgraf:

I spoke to [Dan] Adkins before he died...He and [Richard] Bassford penciled the job. Most likely they used faces from other Munster comics... Wood inked all the main figures, the assistants mostly filled in black areas and worked on inking the backgrounds ... KEN

Thanks, Ken. That provides an interesting insight into the Wallace Wood studio of the era. “Strictly For the Birds” isn’t a great story, and just pops up in the midst of a series mostly written, penciled and inked by artist Fred Fredericks. But anything done by Wood has its place on any Golden Age fan’s comic radar.

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Number 1567: Tubby and the LIttle Men from Mars

Trust John Stanley to make a running joke out of the fifties fascination with flying saucers. Stanley made “little men” extra little so they could zip around and help Tubby without anyone spotting them. It led to an endless number of stories from Stanley’s inventive mind.

I have said before that Lulu, with the exception of her storytelling to Alvin, was usually grounded in the real world of little girls and boys. Or as real as any comic book characters can be, that is. Lulu and friends outwitted adults and each other, but unless I missed them there were no flying saucers in Lulu’s stories. Tubby had a life full of fantastic occurrences, ghosts, monsters, little men from Mars, which Tub took more-or-less for granted.

Several of the flying saucer stories are reprinted in Tubby and the Little Men from Mars, a Gold Key 64-page one-shot from 1964, from which I took my scans.

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Number 1488: Monsters of Karloff

Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery was a title of the 1970s from Gold Key/Whitman, which featured monster stories. What I remember about it from seeing it on the comic racks of its era was the art in each issue seemed uneven to me, a problem I found with most of the anthology comics of the time.

These two stories I found interesting and well drawn. “The Eternity Monster” is from issue #60 (1975), drawn by José Delbo; “The Axeman and the Taxman” is from #68 (1976) and identified (if you can call it that) as being by “West Coast artist?” by the Grand Comics Database.

There are more Boris Karloff monsters at Karswell’s The Horrors Of It All.
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Number 1217: Happy 100th birthday, Tarzan

According to Alistair Boddy-Evans of About.com, it was 100 years ago today, August 27, 1912, that Tarzan of the Apes made his first appearance when the October, 1912 issue of All-Story Magazine went on sale. It was an immediate success, and success continued to follow author Edgar Rice Burroughs.

In 1965, after Jesse Marsh left the Gold Key Tarzan for health reasons (and died the next year, at age 59), Russ Manning* took over the comic book. Manning’s first issue was a typical story that Marsh would have illustrated, but with the next issue, number 155, Gold Key began adapting Tarzan novels. The first was (naturally) Tarzan of the Apes. I've scanned my copy, bought off the stands in 1965. I've been a Manning fan since I first saw his work. (Later he took over the Tarzan comic strip, which is a whole other thing.)

Next to Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan is one of the most recognizable literary characters in the world. I expect that Tarzan will be known in the 22nd century and beyond. This issue of Gold Key’s Tarzan is an important issue, and I'm glad to present it to you on the 100th anniversary of Tarzan's introduction to the world.

Script adaptation of the original novel by Gaylord Du Bois.**

From Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan #155, December, 1965:

*The Grand Comics Database also gives Mike Royer credit for assisting Manning on pencils and inks.

**I've seen Gaylord Du Bois' name spelled Dubois and DuBois. Apparently he spelled it both as it is on his birth certificate, Du Bois, or DuBois. 

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