"A" Is For Anthro!

Howie Post created the fascinating Anthro. I've picked up a few issues of the character over the years, but I mostly remember the great ads the comic generated.


Howie Post was a fantastic artist, his lively line giving life to Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost and Hot Stuff and other comics for Harvey Comics. He created, wrote, and drew the adventures of the caveboy first in Showcase and later in a six issue self-titled run. The debut issue is featured above. Below is the original artwork. I love the way the logo is blended into the background.


Here is the inside-the-cover black and white ad from the summer of 1968 which was featured in many DC Comics of the time, announcing not only Anthro, but other new DC heroes as well.


Here is that ad flipped for easy reading.


Howie Post's Anthro lasted only a brief time, but made a deep impression on me and others as well I'm sure. Here is a link with a wonderful interview with Post.

And below is an Anthro cover gallery. All the covers feature artwork by Post save the final issue which is inked by Wally Wood. I must say I much prefer the stone logo the Showcase debut features as opposed to the slick logo used on most of the issues. It seems far too smooth for a prehistoric saga.







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Shocking Tales!

Collecting comics is a hobby full of small regrets. With all the comics available over the decades why buy this one and not that one? Why did this one comic get traded or sold and this other get retained?

One of the tiny regrets I have is not getting more of the vivid digest which were available during the late 70's and 80's. I have many, but some still eluded me for whatever reason, and I never bought them with much focus or vigor.

One of the digests which stood out in this regard is Shocking Tales Digest #1 from Harvey Comics. This digest has an outstandingly lurid cover, featuring a fabulous yellow head surrounded by bizarre elements from myriad stories contained within.

The stories are from the 1950's Harvey series Alarming Tales, Witches Tales, Race for the Moon, Black Cat Mysteries, and Man in Black. They feature excellent artwork by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Howard Nostrand, Bob Powell and others. Some of the S&K stories offer up glimpses of ideas which will be developed further in some of the King's later DC work specifically Jimmy Olsen and Kamandi.

This is a sweet little collection, tiny but packed. I found this copy hidden at Half-Price Books (my new favorite store) in a box of Underground Comics tucked away under a counter where kids couldn't get them. I'm not sure what this was doing amongst them, but I got a somewhat worn copy for a few bucks and feel fortunate to add it to the collection at long last. That's one less regret.


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The Case Of The Television Detective!

Currently in my DVD player is the Granada television series Sherlock Holmes starring the late Jeremy Brett as the famous fictional consulting detective. These shows running from 1984 to 1994 are incredibly entertaining adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle's short stories and novels.


Brett as Holmes is fascinating, mercurial but oddly constant as the truly peculiar character Sherlock is. We've become so accustomed to the oddities of Sherlock Holmes that it takes a craftsman like Brett to realize it all again in a fresh way to make the strangeness resonate. Brett's Holmes is heroic, but hardly immaculate, a flawed man who is compelled to solve the mysteries which tumble his way, driven by compassion for the weak who are sometimes abused but just as often to fulfill his own cravings, excite his own bizarre needs. Brett's Holmes is charming at times, but callous at others, with no real connection save in the tiniest way to wider world which is perceived by him as a network of puzzles and not people.


The humanity of Holmes is rooted in Watson as always and in these shows David Burke and later Edward Hardwicke play that role, the man who is the conduit for Holmes to the greater population. Without Watson, Holmes would be a lost man, spinning endlessly in his own mind often numbed by drugs. Watson here, the competent if sometimes overly passionate human being is the linchpin to making Holmes an effective agent for justice in a Victorian world chock full of laws and overwrought with order.


I still regard Basil Rathbone as the definitive Sherlock Holmes. His World War II era flicks are still the celluloid Sherlock I first think of, but Jeremy Brett's interpretation of the great detective is so outstanding he challenges for that iconic status, which given the ideal matching of Rathbone to the part seemed utterly impossible before Brett's efforts.

I've long had these adventures (most of them anyway) on homemade VHS tapes, which I'd break out at school from time to time if opportunity warranted. They were perfect companions, so it's great to at long last have these stories in a clean DVD format. If perchance you've never seen these, I cannot recommend them more highly. They are a dandy departure, a proper presentation of the great cerebral detective who in modern times has been reduced to yet one more action hero.

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Haunted Art!

Here's a glimpse inside the process with some original artwork by Steve Ditko for Charlton's Haunted comic magazine.

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Weird Paperback Tales!

Weird Tales is a title which conjurs all manner of dark and bizarre images. It served exceedingly well for decades as the source for strange fiction which punctured the expectations of the general public and appealed to those of us with a hankering for peculiar and odd folk and their doings.

Lovecraft and Howard are the two giant names most associated with the title, but many are the writers and artists which have appeared in the pages. The title lasted in its original incarnation from 1923 to 1954, then later in the 70's another four issues appeared. The covers pictured here are from the first of two 1980's revivals, this one helmed by Lin Carter. The first three books appeared in 1981 and the final one in 1983.

With the magazine format finding trouble, marketing these types of paperbacks was an experiment tried a few times. Zebra was an imprint which offered up quite a bit of material which first appeared in the pages of Weird Tales so it makes sense they'd offer up this approach.

The first three covers are by Tom Barber. The fourth has been identified as by Doug Beekman. Girls and bulls seemed to be a favorite theme.




Weird Tales would return again later in the decade, this time under the editorial auspices of George Scithers. It would find some success and in fact continues to the present day. Here is a link.

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And The Kitchen Sink Too Two!

Here's something I chanced across a few days ago at my local comics shop. I at first thought this was new, but quickly saw it was a history of Kitchen Sink from 1994. Still and all it's chock full of interesting details about the development of the the independent publisher. I've long admired the company which gave us great reprints of the Spirit, new comics like Megaton Man and Xenozoic Tales, and lots more. This one at fifteen bucks is well worth the price of admission.

See this link for details.

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The Ghost Of Pat Boyette!

When Charlton took on the King Features characters, they developed comics for Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim, and of course Lee Falk's The Phantom. The former two lasted briefly, but The Phantom found real success in the market. The early issues of Charlton's Phantom are very well regarded as Jim Aparo was brought aboard to draw the character and he gave the world a Phantom they'd never seen before, sleek and sophisticated and which ran for eight issues.

But like both Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim, the artist who eventually got the nod to draw the strip was Pat Boyette, and fans still dispute how effective his take on The Ghost Who Walks was. I personally like it, but then I like most of the stuff Boyette did. In some ways, Boyette's Phantom is a glimpse of what it might have looked like if Milt Caniff had drawn character, though of course Boyette had his own distinctive style which departed from his clear inspiration.

Whatever the case, King Features was not happy ultimately with the choice and in fact in at least one interview Boyette has said he wouldn't have selected him for the job, as he considered his style to idiosyncratic. As a result of the displeasure, a youngster named Don Newton was given the nod to draw the Phantom which he did for seven issues.

Boyette drew the most issues of any artist at Charlton, but sadly his work is overshadowed by both Newton and Aparo. But for three years, from 1970 to 1973 for twenty-one consecutive issues, it was Pat Boyette's Phantom who walked across the newsstands. Like Aparo, Boyette did the full artwork and the lettering too, so it creates a specific atmosphere for each comic unlike anything else on the stands by any other artist. You are all in with Boyette, either you like or you don't.

Here's a glimpse at the covers Boyette did for the character.





















Here are a few Boyette Phantom splash pages.





And here is the first page of a Phantom story. Here is a link to the full feature.


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