The Phake Phantom Two!

Here's another obvious swipe of a Sy Barry Phantom cover. This time a rather iconic King comics cover gets swiped by Fantomet.


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A Thanksgiving Story!

Donald was a bird with a great deal of self-loathing. He was possessed of a singularly short temper and this along with his abiding incompetence caused him to move from job to job regularly, making for a less than stable home for himself and his nephews. Out of this morass of discontent and to fill the void in his soul, came an eager desire to make holidays especially fanciful affairs in keeping with the mythology of each. This was particularly true when it came to Thanksgiving. Donald craved turkey, a bizarre enough desire given his own fowl heritage, but nonetheless he wanted nothing more on the grand American holiday than a resplendent turkey dinner with all the fixings. But sadly his inept habits often got in the way.


To overcome his incapacity to slay a turkey in the traditional manner, he would sometimes utilize bizarre techniques which smacked of extreme overkill. Always his desire to bring the turkey to bay with an axe was paramount in his increasingly disturbed search for holiday contentment.


His strange habits became the butt of jokes among his family, especially his nephews who derided him with elaborate faux tableaus portraying his lack of hunting acumen. This drove Donald into a rage of staggering proportions, even beyond his normal daily fury.


After many long, long months of cold and calculated planning, he waylaid his nephews at last and made a bizarre ritual complete with antique props, of their grisly slayings. Their deaths at last fulfilled his dark and insidious compulsion to consume his own kind. He at last found in his own nightmarish and depraved fashion the holiday pleasure he'd been seeking all these years. At long last Donald found he was happy on Thanksgiving, and as he sharpened his trusty axe, he was thankful for the many Thanksgivings to come.

The End

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

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The Phake Phantom!

Well it's not a fake really so much as a good old-fashioned swipe. Here's a vintage and juicy Jim Aparo original from his delicious late 60's run on the Charlton The Phantom comic.


And here's a 1975 cover from the Norwegian Fantomet. See the similarity; of course you do. I don't know who the artist "BC" is, but clearly he's been inspired by Aparo's original design. I don't know if this issue of Fantomet features a reprint of Aparo's story but it's likely I'd reckon.

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Bob Larkin!

Bob Larkin is one of the fine cover artists of our generation. He's done countless memorable covers for Marvel, Warren, and others. His run of Doc Savage covers alone shows his great skills. Right now he and his wife are going through a very tough time and could use some help. To see how you might be able to help and perhaps score a great bit of Larkin artwork check out this link:

FANTOM PRESS



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The Return Of Dave Cockrum's Doc Savage!

Here again are Doc Savage comic strips drawn by the late great Dave Cockrum with scripts by Dave Hannerfield. Many of these strips are in the possession of Terry Allen who has graciously allowed me to repost them here. Hopefully not only the great artistry of Cockrum is evident, but the story as well is developed nicely in the few examples we have. The pencil work is especially neat to my eye, having a vivid texture to it. These are beauts.














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Dumont's Flash Gordon!

The defunct Dumont television network offered up the first original TV adaptation of Alex Raymond's classic space opera comic strip Flash Gordon. The strip of course had wide success in the papers for King Features and on film with serial heavyweight Buster Crabbe in the lead role for Universal, but for the budding medium of television it took Dumont and an oddball foreign production to get the blonde giant to the little screen.

I've just finished watching a pile of these vintage TV shows and despite some small budgets, peculiar casting, and some definitely odd fashion sense, the show comes across as forthright, interesting, and even at times compelling.


Steve Holland, the guy soon to be Doc Savage on a gaggle of Bantam paperback covers thanks to Bama, held down the Flash role with gusto and verve. He's slender but cut and they don't miss many chances to get his shirt off. Irene Champlin is Dale Arden and this time she's a scientist. Some of the things they have her wear are pretty dreadful, but some of it is neat and she looks pretty dang good. Hans Zarkov is played by Joe Nash, and he looks the part pretty neatly, though frankly he is given little to do in the fifteen or so episodes I saw. They don't get this classic trio together as much as you'd think.

The stories are fairly varied with space pirates, mutated lion men, underworld despots, otherworldly witches, and whatnot showing up to offer conflict for the heroes.

Not unlike Gerry Anderson's productions a few decades later, this show seems to have a fascination with clothes. Holland as Flash will typically change his shirt at least once an episode, showing off those pecs and getting that classic lightning bolt on display in various designs. Some of the villains wear things that look like they've just gotten off stage at a German expressionism revival, and more than a few costumes have a slight S&M flavor to them.

My favorite episode has the team go back in time to 1953 and race around the streets of Berlin looking desperately for a bomb which will destroy the Earth thousands of years in the future. The site of VW Beetles full of cops chasing Flash, Zarkov, and Dale in a van around the streets of a still war-ravaged Berlin are fascinating.


This is diverting television and can be had for very cheap, with some copies I've seen going for a buck for half a dozen episodes. I watched the shows on the monster 150 episode package from Mill Creek. It's a powerhouse collection and I'm currently working on Rocky Jones.

Flash Gordon TV is recommended for sure.

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Bullpen At The Board!

Jack "King" Kirby
"Big" John Buscema
Gene "The Dean" Colan
"Happy" Herb Trimpe
John "Ring-a-Ding" Romita
Here's a heaping helping of Bullpen beauties. Inspired by the Marie Severin post yesterday, I dug up these great images. I love how these self-portraits all show the artist huddled over his drawing board, with the mythic figures from his imagination dancing in the backgrounds. You can pretty specifically tell when these were done by the characters each artist has chosen to mingle around him.

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