Wednesday, September 29, 2010

"Good ol' President Brown"

Over at the Boston Globe, cartoonist Ward Sutton has reimagined the classic comics page from a tea party viewpoint. The joke wears a bit thin after a while, but Sutton does an amazing job capturing the styles and imagery of the originals.

(click for the punchline)


Saturday, September 25, 2010

For Harry Harrison fans

To science fiction fans, Harry Harrison will always be the creator of the Stainless Steel Rat and Bill the Galactic Hero.

To fans of bad movies he will always be the man indirectly responsible for perhaps the greatest of all bad movie closing lines.



But on top of that, Harrison was a successful comics artist in the Fifties. Here's a suitably weird sample (including the cover) from... BEWARE!











Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Conchy -- worth remembering

One of my great indulgences growing up was the Scholastic book form. I've long since forgotten most of those book, but one of them has managed to keep up with me from city to city and state to state. It was called Conchy on Half Shell.

Conchy was a funny, introspective strip from the early Seventies. Don Markstein has speculated that, if not for its creator's suicide, it might "be remembered as another in a league with King Aroo or even Krazy Kat, strips that never achieved high circulation but were loved by the critics."

As is, Conchy is remembered by very few, but it is fondly remembered.




In general, you just can't trust a guy with horns








From Prize Comics number 49

Monday, September 20, 2010

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Bored?

Why not brew yourself a nice cup of tea and watch some MippyvilleTV? That's what I've been doing.

Friday, September 17, 2010

When it was just a succubus, a tree fairy and a reconstituted cyborg vampire with an enormous

...all fighting off an alien invasion, that was one thing...



but jumping into an entirely different strip, that's just weird.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Wolverton's Moosler

The earthbound Spacehawk stories were never Wolverton's best work but this one does offer an enjoyable take on WWII propaganda.









Target vol. 2 #4

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Bill Benulis -- another famous artist you've never heard of

Bill Benulis had a brief but outstanding career before trading in his pens for the steady pay check of a postman. Enjoy.*










* The cover is by Maurice Whitman, not Benulis, but how could I possibly leave it out?

More Kubert -- "Love Came Second"

When Simon and Kirby launched Young Romance in 1947, they started a genre that rivalled the Golden Age of superheroes in popularity. It doesn't get much attention now but its impact was huge and it remained a major genre for almost thirty years.

If you've never read a romance comic, you could do worse than this example from St. John's Hollywood Confessions. The story is typical of the genre and the art is typical Kubert, which is to say, very good indeed.