The Phantom 1776!

To celebrate the 4th of July, here's a true Bronze Age classic from Charlton Comics by the late great Don Newton. His brief stint on The Phantom ranks as one of the most memorable short shifts ever in comics. This lush story of a history that never was, is a great reminder of what we celebrate today and of Newton's exciting talent.

Rip Off

Marvel 1976!

Here are some beautiful patriotic images from Marvel's bicentennial year.

January by Frank Robbins & Frank Giacoia
February by Herb Trimpe
March by Bob Brown
April by Gil Kane
May by Keith Pollard
June by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito
July by John Romita
August by John Buscema & Joe Sinnot
September by Sal Buscema
October by Frank Brunner
November by Jim Starlin
December by Jim Mooney

I've made my guesses about the talent on each month. If you spot something off, please let me know. I'd love to pin down who the artists are on these spiffy images.

Rip Off

The Iger Comics Kingdom!

I found this 1985 Blackthorne Publishing production the other day. Jay Disbrow offers up an historical retrospective of Jerry Iger and how he came to be a player in the early days of comics and afterward. For 1985 this is a reasonably impressive package with lots of black and white photos and illustrations throughout. Along with that you have many cover scans as well as a checklist of Jerry Iger's output.


This volume is magazine size and clearly has been padded out to make it seem worthy of its $8.95 price tag. That was steep in 1985, but getting for the same price today made it seem a bargain despite the fact I already own the revised reprint of this work in Alter Ego #21. It's sweet to have the original too.


The image of Sheena by Dave Stevens is certainly one of his most magnificent and set against the black background on the original cover it pops with particular effectiveness. Disbrow painted his own cover for the book back then, but this magnificent Stevens work was chosen over Disbrow's effort. Frankly I doubt I'd have bothered to pick this tome up without that dazzling bit of classic good girl goodness.

Having said that I don't want to seem to criticize Mr. Disbrow's work which I've always found a bit formal but attractive. For more of Jay Disbrow, check out this link which features a ton of his work on a colorful space opera strip title Aroc of Zenith.

Rip Off

A Mighty Treasury!

These are two of the classic Jack Kirby images from his final tenure at Marvel Comics. Kirby was tapped to do lots of covers and he did some dandy ones including these, but clearly Kirby did not know that Hank Pym was both Giant-Man and Yellowjacket. It's clear to me, that Kirby puts both characters on the back cover because he thinks they are two different people. It's a neat time capsule from a time when Marvel's editorial oversight was at best shaky.

On the plus side, this features some great Frank Giacoia inking. Giacoia brought out the best in Kirby at Marvel, and it's on display with these two images for sure.

For the record none of the stories contained in the issue have a whole lot to do with the cover images. Here's a link for the contents of this issue.

Rip Off

The Herculoids!

What is it about this insane collection of outer space zoo animals and their adoptive family that makes this show so attractive? The concept of the Herculoids is wacky beyond of all belief. The name is at once goofy, appropriate and memorable.

There's this royal family led by the father Zandor and made up of his wife Tara and their son Dorno. They live in the wilds of the planet Quasar and are surrounded by animalistic allies. There are the duo Gloop and Gleep, amorphous creatures that can change their shapes in all sorts of ways. There is Tundro a big old rhino-looking beast who can stretch his ten legs and fire molten rocks out of his horn. There is Zok a flying dragon who can unleash bolts of energy from his eyes and his tale. And finally there is Igoo a gigantic and powerful ape-looking creature seemingly made of stone.


Looking at the assembly they form a fantastically effective fighting force. Zandor is the general, Gloop and Gleep are the flexible defense and intelligence force, Tundro is the tank-like heavy weapons platform, Igoo the awesome one-ape infantry, and Zok the amazing air force. They can defend from all points and when riled they come on like gangbusters.

That's just a wild and wooly collection if ever there was one. For more details see this link.


Somehow the late great Alex Toth created them, and Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera agreed to create a cartoon show around the concept. It's so zany it defies explanation. And it worked like stink.

Aside from Space Ghost, the Herculoids are to my mind the most successful of the Hanna-Barbera 60's cartoon creations. Their loyalty to one another against bizarre threats spoke of the possibility of many different races to work together accomplish their goals. It's a message that makes the Herculoids almost an inspirational creation.


But they didn't sell all that well apparently. They are fondly remembered though, and at long last their original adventures are available on DVD from Warner Brothers. It's one of their limited on-demand releases, but there it is nonetheless. This show is one of those I promised myself I'd get no matter when it came out, and I have gotten my copy in mail. I've not yet had opportunity to screen them, but I'm eager to begin.

Here's a comic book cover gallery of all of the Herculoid cover appearances. I have all of these, so it might be time to dig them out and give them a good reading. If you want to see what the stories were like, check out this link to the Ol' Groove.









Rip Off