16 Friday Aug 2013
Posted in dinosaur
Tags
dinosaur, dinosaur comics, dr. watchstop, eclipse, Eclipse Comics, flight, fusion, Indie Comics, ken macklin, right stuff
In this three-page story by Ken Macklin, a dinosaur invents the first set of artificial wings. “Dr. WatchStop” was one of several original creations by Macklin, about whom I haven’t been able to discover much. It seems he was in underground comics in the 70s, too.
Collector’s Guide: from Fusion #7; Eclipse, 1988.
15 Thursday Aug 2013
Posted in golden age, science fiction
Tags
20000 Leagues Under the Sea, Charlton comics, Comet Feldmeyer, From Here to Insanity, giant squid, golden age, Jack Kirby, Julius Vermin
You have enjoyed our 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea posts featuring the Moby Books adaptations and Pablo Marcos artwork. Now, let’s just keep proving that Jack Kirby did it all — including a giant squid! Today you will find in our gallery a six-page story from 1955, published by Charlton Comics, that spoofs the Jules Verne classic.
Just for fun, we threw in a one-page superhero spoof from Uncle Jack, too: Comet Feldmeyer and his lovable companion The Electronic Nuisance! Consider yourself a major geek if you get the “Dial M for Myrtle” comics reference, and move to the head of the class.
Collector’s Guide: from From Here to Insanity #11; Charlton, 1955. All art by Jack Kirby other than four pages out of the 68-page issue.
Underwater adventures also await you in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea!
13 Tuesday Aug 2013
Posted in poetry
Tags
A few years ago, I attended a writing workshop on dreams and poetry. David Chorlton presented us with seven similarities between dreams and poetry.
Seven Similarities of Dreams and Poetry, from David Chorlton.
1. Appeal to the Senses.
2. Vivid Imagery.
3. Structures to Create or Communicate an Emotional State
4. Uncensored Communication
5. Subconscious Sources
6. Central Images: What details are left in, and which are left out? Ask yourself, “If I had to draw this room tomorrow, what details would I remember or choose to represent?”
7. Juxtaposition of Strikingly Different Objects and Images. A high level of surreal contrast.
13 Tuesday Aug 2013
Posted in first issue, golden age, superhero
One of our guest bloggers, Kandou Erik, covered Captain 3-D by Jack Kirby for us in detail. We refer you to that post! Since then, we found scans of the entire issue you might like to see. Enjoy!
Collector’s Guide:
– From Captain 3-D #1; Harvey, 1953.
Pencils by Jack Kirby; Inks by Steve Ditko.
12 Monday Aug 2013
Posted in science fiction
In 1957 and 1958, Jack Kirby created stories for Harvey’s six-issue series Alarming Tales. These hard-to-find comics from the Golden Age showcase Kirby’s early flair for science fiction.
You will see familiar themes like Martians, strange dimensions, conscious robots, and alien worlds. You will witness harbingers of future sciences like genetic engineering and cloning. And, you will see a few ideas Kirby revisited decades later, such as the walking dogs and rats of “The Last Enemy” who resemble the animalistic characters of Kamandi, and a flying chair that would get an upgrade to seat Metron of the New Gods. Enjoy!
Collector’s Guide: From Alarming Tales #1-4; Harvey, 1957-1958. Issues #1-3 are now collected in a Kindle version!
11 Sunday Aug 2013
Posted in golden age
Tags
Bill Draut, Black Magic, dreams, golden age, Headline Publications, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Mort Meskin
In this nearly forgotten issue of Black Magic from 1950, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby again tackled a subject of great interest to them in those years: dreams. Mort Meskin and Bill Draut also contribute to this issue. We saw their work alongside Kirby & Simon in Strange World of Your Dreams and other golden age gems.
Collector’s Guide: The first three issues of Black Magic are now collected in a Kindle version! Originally from Black Magic Vol. 1, #2, Headline Publications, Dec. 1950. Produced by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby
Cover art by Jack Kirby. The Scorn of the Faceless People!, art by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby; dream analysis story. The Cheerful Old Lady in Black!, art by Mort Meskin. The Cloak!, art by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby; Paul Darvas orders a new cloak, only to receive a cursed cloak from Asmodeus himself. Out of Your Mind text story. I’ve Seen You Before, art by Bruno Premiani. Yesterday You Died!, art by Bill Draut; When Grace Hanley is looking to buy a house she sees a ghostly image of a murder that has yet to happen in that house. 52 pgs. $0.10. Cover price
11 Sunday Aug 2013
Tags
fushicho daiko, japanese drumming, matsuri, memoir, music, taiko
Once upon a time I saw Kodo perform at the Power Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and realized I was witnessing the most awesome musical force ever assembled on our planet. Wouldn’t it be cool to play drums like those guys? I fantasized about it for years.
Shortly after moving to Phoenix, I picked up a bulletin at the Burton Barr public library. I needed something to do and knew zero people. A guy named Tony was going to give a demonstration of taiko drumming at one of the library branches. I drove up there to check it out. Within minutes, Tony Trapasso went from performing to teaching. He didn’t just give a demonstration. He taught us how to play a rudimentary song — a practice song, really, not a complex composition. It was still a lot of fun. Suddenly, I was doing that stuff Kodo did! Yes!
After the seminar, Tony gave out his number in the event that any of us wanted to take lessons with his student group. That’s how I joined the student group of Fushicho Daiko, led by music teacher Eileen Morgan — Fushicho literally translating as “not dead bird,” or a Phoenix. I studied briefly with Tony before his commitments in China made him unable to teach consistently here. Tony and I also made some practice drums for a project of his. In his garage, we built drum heads on stands, basically. He took them to juvenile detention centers as part of music therapy for the kids there. Tony moved to China eventually, but not before meeting him had changed the course of my life over the next two years.
Eileen took our student group to several performances. We rocked out in the middle of the streets in Tempe as part of a Festival. Okay, we had to move under an awning, as it was raining that day. We almost got the middle of the street. For a first time performing as a group — and really the first time many of my clasmates had ever perfomed music publicly in their lives — this date went really well.
A few of us performed on a flatbed trailer hooked to a truck as part of an annual gay pride parade here. But it was a very informal affair. We even improvised a little bit, which you don’t really do with the kind of compositions we tackled. I remember a woman with glittery rainbow hair yelling at me to “beat that proud drum!”
The entire group put on a seriously tight show at the Chinese Cultural Center, a shopping center here that hosts an annual festival, too: food, art, shopping, booths, the usual stuff. The stage there had zero shade and I remember we were mostly in black – plus, I had taken my bicycle there. I put on my motorcycle gloves to prevent dropping the sticks from my profusely sweating palms.
It felt kind of rock and roll — a traditional Japanese rock and roll with a big freakin’ drum! It was kind of against the dress code, but I confess that beating these big drums in public was more rocking than some hard-rock gigs I had played as a guitarist. I don’t think my intensity level was shared by other members, but this was like living out a better fantasy than, say, being in Metallica for me. These drums went beyond metal.
There were a couple others after that, but the highlight was Matsuri, a pretty major Japanese culture festival. Matsuri translates as Festival, and it happens every year downtown. Our student group got to play a well-attended stage — major adrenaline high for me. All those drums. All those people. And compositions like Buchiawase rock pretty hard. It’s like being part of a thunderstorm or something elemental when the group really gets the groove.
That show had a unique challenge for me. Along with Diane, a really cool pilates instructor in our group, I did a duet. It involves multiple drums on racks, spaced so that the drummers dance around, between them, through them, playing every head at some point. The rhythm of the drumming is complex enough. You take a non-dancer like me and give him footwork — wow! It was tough but oh so worth it. Diane and I practiced relentlessly, memorizing this long, choreographed affair. As you see in the photos, Eileen kept a beat for us on a shime. It was probably the toughest musical performance I ever did, and a major rush.
Afterwards my focus turned to guitar, and I would spend the next four years or so performing solo and small combo shows. Also, I and the lovely lady with the parasol in the picture above rented a house for a bit. In the addition, I set up a typical typical rock drum kit, and started applying what I had learned about rhythm with one drum to a whole mess of drums. With the taiko group, you couldn’t really “do your own thing.” There was not a lot of individual expression. It was a regimented group affair, very much composed and choreographed. So, small jazz and jam combos gave me some freedom I lacked in taiko. But, I miss it. I miss the rush of those big drums. Maybe I will look them up again.
10 Saturday Aug 2013
Posted in indie
Tags
11, Gilbert Shelton, Indie Comics, OK Comics, Robt Williams, underground comix, Wonder Warthog, Wonder Warthog Visits the Ghetto
OK Comics Vol. 1, #11 has a classic mix of underground comix themes: satire, social justice, psychedelic art, a Robt. Williams cover, hippie sex fantasy, and… Wonder Warthog by Gilbert Shelton. If you are looking for kids’ books or are easily offended, OK Comics are definitely not okay for you! It’s hard to believe radicals and drug users published this stuff right about the time we popped into this world in 1973. Sometimes we wonder how much more interesting life might have been if these freaks had been our parents.
09 Friday Aug 2013
Posted in superhero
Tags
The destruction of the island of Genosha became a major continuity point in the X-men titles. So much of our favorite mutants’ history hangs on this heinous hinge. One can scarcely believe the dastardly deed took up only three pages in a single issue of X-men, though the subsequent issue picked up with scenes of X-men sifting through the tragic rubble. Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely made one of their most lasting contributions to the X-mythos in the final moments of X-Men #115.
Collector’s Guide: from “New” X-Men #115; Marvel, 2001. E is for Extinction, part 2 of 3.
08 Thursday Aug 2013
Posted in indie
The back cover of this issue of Angry Youth Comix is one of the few pages we’d feel comfortable sharing with you here. Having never read this title before, we picked this up off a 50-cent rack just because Fantagraphics published it. It turned out to be the most offensive, disgusting piece of cartoon nightmare nonsense we’d ever read. So of course, we read it two or three times.
Collector’s Guide:
– From Angry Youth Comix Vol. 2, #13; Fantagraphics.
06 Tuesday Aug 2013
Posted in superhero
Tags
Al Milgrom, Galactus, Infinity Wars, Jim Starlin, Magus, Ron Lim, Thanos, Warlock
Ron Lim goes all out with cosmic fireworks for the final showdown of Infinity War. While we couldn’t get into this series at all, despite being fans of Starlin’s older work, we do like a good light show.
This series follows the events of Infinity Gauntlet. Jim Starlin brings back Thanos and Warlock for another struggle for the fate of the entire universe. Warlock’s evil other self, the Magus, intends to conquer everything. We would have preferred the Magus stay dead after all the trouble Warlock went through to make sure he never existed. But, these Warlock/Thanos events proved too popular for Marvel to let the dead rest. And who are we to begrudge Jim Starlin the opportunity to cash in at Marvel with characters he revitalized or created in the 1970s? After the Metamorphosis Odyssey, he’d certainly earned the artistic right to crank out several volumes of standard superhero fare for a mainstream audience.
Collector’s Guide: from Infinity War #6; Marvel, 1992. Reprinted in Infinity War TPB; Marvel, 2006.
05 Monday Aug 2013
Posted in superhero
Tags
Hawkeye has enjoyed a recent resurgence in superhero popularity thanks to Matt Fraction and David Aja. A long time ago, he gave up shooting arrows to grow really, really big. Don’t believe us? Get the scoop right here from Roy Thomas and Gene Colan. It has to do with a death ray from the sky. Go!
Collector’s Guide: From Avengers #63 and #64; Marvel, 1969.
04 Sunday Aug 2013
Posted in science fiction
In 1957 and 1958, Jack Kirby created stories for Harvey’s six-issue series Alarming Tales. These hard-to-find comics from the Golden Age showcase Kirby’s early flair for science fiction.
You will see familiar themes like Martians, strange dimensions, conscious robots, and alien worlds. You will witness harbingers of future sciences like genetic engineering and cloning. And, you will see a few ideas Kirby revisited decades later, such as the walking dogs and rats of “The Last Enemy” who resemble the animalistic characters of Kamandi, and a flying chair that would get an upgrade to seat Metron of the New Gods. Enjoy!
Collector’s Guide: From Alarming Tales #1-4; Harvey, 1957-1958. Issues #1-3 are now collected in a Kindle version!
02 Friday Aug 2013
Posted in first issue, indie
Tags
Check out this single page of dream images arranged as comic book panels. It doesn’t tell a story like the Rick Veitch things we’ve shared with you, but we dig the style. Especially cool is the hidden face… Do you see it?
Collector’s Guide: From Ground Pound Comix #1; Blackthrone, 1987. Art by John M. Pound, 1978
01 Thursday Aug 2013
Posted in indie
Here is a fun four-page story from High Times by Paul Kirchner in 1975.
“Dope Rider” might remind you of a another flaming skull comic book character who rides a motorcycle. But the Comics Code Authority would never have approved this adventure! The big splash on page three is our favorite. You know what suckers we are for psychedelic 70s indie art.
31 Wednesday Jul 2013
Posted in superhero
This week, we have a quartet of zany superhero tales from vintage issues of The Brave and the Bold to share with you. We found these scans while looking for something else entirely, but a few stories caught our eyes.
Today, Hawkman stars in “Strange Spells of the Sorcerer!” and “Shadow-Thief of Midway City!” The real star of this show: Joe Kubert! Shadow Thief also would go on to become a definitive member of Hawkman’s rogues gallery after this.
Collector’s Guide:
– From The Brave and the Bold #36; DC, 1961.
Script by Gardner Fox, art by Joe Kubert.
30 Tuesday Jul 2013
Tags
This week, we have a quartet of zany superhero tales from vintage issues of The Brave and the Bold to share with you. We found these scans while looking for something else entirely, but a few stories caught our eyes.
Today, the Atom and the Flash star in “The Challenge of the Expanding World.” The real stars of the story: bogus atomic science and a psychedelic journey through matter itself!
Collector’s Guide: From The Brave and the Bold #53; DC, 1964. Script by Bob Haney, art by Alex Toth.
29 Monday Jul 2013
Posted in superhero
This week, we have a quartet of zany superhero tales from vintage issues of The Brave and the Bold to share with you. We found these scans while looking for something else entirely, but a few stories caught our eyes.
Today, Aquaman and Hawkman star in “Fury of the Exiled Creature.” But you know the real stars in our book: those gnarly sea critters!
Collector’s Guide:
– From The Brave and the Bold #51; DC, 1964.
Script by Bob Haney, art by Howard Purcell.
28 Sunday Jul 2013
Posted in art studio
It’s the worst time of year to go walking in Scottsdale looking at galleries and the SMOCA (scottsdale museum of contemporary art). It’s 115 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, and humid as a motherfucker. On the upside, no one else is crazy enough to be there in this weather. You can talk at length to the people who run these galleries, and the sidewalks are clear. Which is nice, because you may have to pass out on them. Anyways, the point is that we stuffed our brains full of high-priced abstract art and then came home to paint our impressions of it. All of it, at the same time.
28 Sunday Jul 2013
Posted in educational
28 Sunday Jul 2013
Posted in educational
28 Sunday Jul 2013
Posted in educational
28 Sunday Jul 2013
Posted in science fiction
In 1957 and 1958, Jack Kirby created stories for Harvey’s six-issue series Alarming Tales. These hard-to-find comics from the Golden Age showcase Kirby’s early flair for science fiction.
You will see familiar themes like Martians, strange dimensions, conscious robots, and alien worlds. You will witness harbingers of future sciences like genetic engineering and cloning. And you will see a few ideas Kirby revisited decades later, such as the walking dogs and rats of “The Last Enemy” who resemble the animalistic characters of Kamandi, and a flying chair that would get an upgrade to seat Metron of the New Gods. Enjoy!
Collector’s Guide: From Alarming Tales #1-4; Harvey, 1957-1958. Issues #1-3 are now collected in a Kindle version!
27 Saturday Jul 2013
Posted in superhero
Tags
Aqualad, Bob Haney, Brave and the Bold, Bruno Premanini, first appearance of Teen Titans, Kid Flash, Robin, Teen Titans
This week, we have a quartet of zany superhero tales from vintage issues of The Brave and the Bold to share with you. We found these scans while looking for something else entirely, but a few stories caught our eyes.
Today, you will witness the first appearance and origin of the now world-famous Teen Titans in “The Thousand-and-One Dooms of Mr. Twister” and “The Town that Would Not Die!”
Collector’s Guide: From The Brave and the Bold #54; DC, 1964. Script by Bob Haney, art by Bruno Premanini.
26 Friday Jul 2013
Posted in educational
Stressed out today? Why don’t you go shove your face in the community sock?
Mars Will Send No More 