A BELATED GOODBYE TO AN ARTIST OF NOTE...

Art by Francisco Solano Lopez



Sadly, as recently announced on numerous other blogsites, legendary Argentine comic artist FRANCISCO SOLANO LOPEZ (born Oct 26, 1928) died on August 12th. I'll leave further biographical details to others far more knowledgeable of the man's life and career than I am; suffice it to say that comic-reading children of the '60s and '70s had their lives enriched by exposure to all the many strips that Lopez (and his assistants) illustrated in British publications of the period.

Francisco Solano Lopez.  1928 - 2011

Who can forget GALAXUS, RAVEN ON THE WING, KELLY'S EYE, JANUS STARK, ADAM ETERNO and a whole host of other classics, still fondly recalled by readers of the time? To those who experienced U.K. comics when there was a thriving industry in this country, his demise is a stark reminder that - in the words of LEWIS CARROLL - "We are but older children, dear, who fret to find our bedtime near."

Alas, the sands of time are draining into the bottom half of life's hourglass - which, sadly, can't just be turned over when the final few grains have settled.

LOOPY LAPSES In LOGIC DEPT...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS.  Cover art JACK KIRBY & GEORGE KLEIN

Recently, over on Jaunty JIM SHOOTER's blog, Jim was discussing why the original AVENGERS/JLA team-up comic never materialized - the plot was pants, apparently.  It just didn't make much sense, and by the time it had been pummelled into an acceptable shape, most of the participants had lost their enthusiasm for the beleaguered project.

However, dodgy plot-holes that you could steer the TITANIC through are nothing new in comics; plots are usually (or used to be) just an excuse to get the heroes together for a fight - before they realize their mistake, become the best of pals, and then team up and rush off to confront the villains.  In an age when comics were primarily aimed at kids, logical, intricately thought-out plots were hardly considered a necessity, and, as long as events galloped along at an exciting, rip-roaring pace, it's unlikely that young readers ever dwelt on (or even noticed) any deficiencies in the details.

Take FANTASTIC FOUR #1 for example. Allegedly the greatest brain on the planet, REED RICHARDS decides to take a rocket into space - knowing that it doesn't have sufficient shielding to protect them from cosmic rays.  What's more, he drags along his fiancee and her kid brother - who are presumably about as useful as a fart in a spacesuit when it comes to piloting the ship.  Talk about irresponsible?

But there are even more howlers than you can shake a stick at.  Are secret rocket bases so negligently guarded that four people could 'sneak past the guards', gain access to the rocket, and then take off without the assistance of the ground-based launch crew which would be required to accomplish lift-off?  Well, in the world of four-colour comics it seems anything is possible.

Cover art JACK KIRBY & DICK AYERS (though The TORCH's
face has a hint of GEORGE KLEIN inks about it to my eyes)

Jump now to issue #2 - The SKRULLS From OUTER SPACE.  Hark at this amazing piece of 'logic' from JOHNNY STORM as he comes up with a 'cunning plan' for smoking out the four Skrull aliens who are impersonating them.  Reading in The DAILY GLOBE that a new rocket is to be tested, Johnny indulges in an amazing display of brainpower.  Are you ready for this?  "Our four imitators may get confused if one of us tries to sabotage that rocket site!  They may think it's one of them and reveal themselves!"

Sure!  The four aliens who are impersonating the four humans and are likely to be hiding out together in a group of four.  For the 'plan' to succeed, the alien impersonating Johnny would have to be absent from the group at just the right time, and what are the chances of that happening?  As a plan it falls far short of even being half-@rsed, but - can you believe it?  Reed Richards - the greatest mind on Earth, remember - actually approves it.  (And, astoundingly - to say nothing of preposterously - it actually happens that way in the comic.)  Is it only me, or does anyone else think Reed is a bit of a dipstick?

Cover art JACK KIRBY & DICK AYERS

Issue #3?  The MIRACLE MAN, greatest hypnotist on the planet, is also the thickest hypnotist on the planet.  Rather than go to all the bother of hypnotizing everybody so that he can rob jewellery stores and banks and thereby amass a fortune, why not just hypnotize them into thinking he has a wallet full of cash whenever he pops out on his weekly shopping jaunt to Tesco's?  "Say, miss - can you change this $100 note" he'd say, waving a piece of Monopoly money in front of the checkout girl's fizzog.  It always works for me.

One can multiply examples of this kind a thousand-fold with just the application of a little thought when reading these bygone classics of yesteryear.  However, perhaps I'm being a little bit harsh.  These stories were intended to be read by undemanding kids who were only interested in action, adventure and excitement - logic was never part of the package and it hardly seemed to matter as long as the story thrilled and entertained its young readership.

Remember, we're talking about 'long-underwear characters' - absurdity is inherent in the basic premise from the get-go.  So, next time you're reading your favourite comic, don't get hung up on the details - just enjoy it for what it is.  Unless, that is, it takes itself so seriously that the writer deserves a slap on the head if you ever run into him.  (And, if so, give him a good slap from me while you're about it.)

For more Loopy Lapses in Logic, click here.

LEO'S LAST STAND...

The 1st issue of Monster Fun

MONSTER FUN COMIC was released on June 7th, 1975 (dated the 14th) and heralded the start of renowned creator LEO BAXENDALE's swan-song in British comics, with his series of BADTIME BEDTIME STORYBOOKS being given the entire centrespread of the weekly comic.  (Other artists also contributed from time to time.)  After this, he would go on to create his 3 volume WILLY The KID run before fading from high-profile comics consciousness - his madcap, anarchic drawing style being kept alive by the likes of artists TOM PATERSON and Leo's son MARTIN.

Click second image to enlarge text

(FRANKIE STEIN, who'd first appeared back in 1964 in the fourth issue of WHAM! illustrated by the legendary KEN REID, was the comic's figurehead editor, an obvious choice given its 'comedy-horror' theme.  He was 'resurrected' in 1973 in SHIVER & SHAKE, this time drawn by the amazingly prolific ROBERT NIXON, before moving over to WHOOPEE in 1974 when S&S was merged into it.)

 

Sadly, Monster Fun comic lasted for only 73 regular issues before being merged with BUSTER in October, 1976.  By that time, however, Leo's Willy The Kid was about to explode onto an unsuspecting British public.  Here, then, is the first of Leo's last weekly comics output - enjoy.  And be sure to visit his website by clicking on the link in the right-hand side (from your point of view) column.

FIFTY FANTASTIC YEARS...

Image copyright MARVEL COMICS

Was it really 50 years ago today that the very first entry of  the MARVEL AGE made its debut?  It was if you lived in America, but I've no idea when THORPE & PORTER first started distributing FANTASTIC FOUR in this country.  In the States, the cover was dated November, but the mag (as was the custom) was actually released in August, presumably to give it a longer sales potential on the spinner racks of newsdealers across the USA.  For overseas readers, once the required sum was printed for the home market, the date and price were removed from the printing plates (9d being substituted for 10c), and the presses rolled off another batch, with the name of British distributor (T&P) added to the indicia.

Here's to at least another 50 years - for all of us.

WHAT THE HECK? A JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

Here's a nice little tale from JOURNEY Into MYSTERY #85 by STAN LEE and DON HECK, called "FILBERT'S FRIGHTFUL FUTURE".  (Not too sure about that ending.  After all, if you can travel into the past, you're doing so from the 'future', surely?  It's all relative.)

The ADS THAT MADE AN @SS OUT OF ATLAS...

A genuine ad.  Copyright relevant owner

CHARLES ATLAS (real name Angelo Siciliano, born 1892) seems to have been around forever.  Practically everyone remembers the ads from comicbooks throughout the '60s and '70s, though they actually debuted back in the '40s.  He died in 1972, aged 80, so he was an old man for much of the period that people of my age group first became familiar with his athletic frame and visage staring out from the comics of our youth.

The ads are so iconic that they have become a target for affectionate lampooning in the pages of the selfsame publications that the originals were printed in.  Here, for your amusement, are just a few of the many parodies which have appeared - enjoy.  (And tell us your favourite in the comments section.)

A lampoon (as if you couldn't tell).  Copyright MARVEL COMICS

Click on image to enlarge, then click again for optimum size.

YOU GOTTA HAVE HOPE...

The one and only Bob Hope



October 13th, 1984.  That was the day I fulfilled my long-time ambition of drinking in a pub called The RED LION.  (Okay, it was only a Coke, but it still counted.)  I had always wanted to do so since reading the name in The WIND In The WILLOWS many years earlier, when Mr. TOAD had sauntered into a pub of the selfsame appellation and ended up stealing a motorcar on his departure.

Not that I had the intention of doing anything similar (though I could've nabbed an ashtray as a memento if I'd wanted to) - it's just that there was something about the name that appealed to me.  It conjured up images of old-world charm, of another era when things seemed simpler and more pure.  Ruddy-faced gents crouched 'round a roaring fire, quaffing from flagons of ale held nonchalantly in their weather-beaten hands, as coachmen and travellers, filled and fortified, prepared to embark on the next leg of their journey.

I repeated the feat two or three years later, when I had lunch with the assistant editor of IPC's BUSTER in another Red Lion pub just across from Downing Street in London.  That was still in the future however; for now the heady rush that came from watching JOHN LOWE score the first-ever televised nine-dart finish in history (on another pub's TV later that evening), and then meeting the legendary BOB HOPE an hour or so afterwards, just before commencing his gig at The EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE.

I met Bob again in 1994 at The GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL, and had my photograph taken with the great man and his wife.  I have his autograph several times over, on records, books, magazines and photos.  Above is the one he sent me a few weeks before his concert in Edinburgh on that magical and eventful night back in 1984, and below is the photo taken ten years later.

So - hands up all those who've ever drank in a pub called The Red Lion?  H'mm, quite a few of you, eh?  Okay, hands up all those who've met Bob Hope - twice?  (Nope, thought not.)

The STEADY STRANDS Of SUN - PHEW!

 

Art by Neal Adams



The past few days have been of the gloriously warm, sunny, summer kind that we imagine all our childhood summers to have been like, and as I stepped off the train from Glasgow early yesterday evening with The DEADLY HANDS Of KUNG FU #12 in my possession (bought from a back issue shop in the city), my mind drifted back to a similar gloriously warm, sunny, summer late afternoon of 36 years before, when - as a mere freckle-faced teenager - I'd first purchased my original copy of this black and white magazine.

I'd also obtained the very first MONSTER FUN Holiday Special on the same day.  (IPC were quick off the mark with this one, as the weekly publication had only been out for a very short period - a matter of weeks, in fact.)  I remember that it reprinted the initial SAM'S SPOOK strip by LEO BAXENDALE, which first appeared in SMASH! in Jan/Feb of 1971.  It still sported the "starts today" blurb on the top left-hand side of the logo, no doubt the result of an editorial oversight as such blurbs were usually removed from out-of-sequence reprintings.

(NOTE: My memory of this was confirmed when, a week after typing the previous paragraph, I obtained a back issue of this comic also.  I've inserted the cover and Sam strip above.  Click to enlarge.  Interestingly, the page had previously been resized into two for the Smash! Annual for 1975, issued towards the end of '74.)

Art by Rudy Nebres

Back in 1975, a friend was with me when I bought these two publications, at some stage during a day out in Glasgow.  On our return, I accompanied him (still clutching my precious comics) as he visited his sister's in-laws, who resided not too far from the house I'd lived in when Sam's Spook first made his debut, and from which my family had moved only three years before in 1972.  (In fact, their house was the architectural double of my old one, so it was almost like revisiting my former home.)  It's because of this that I associate both these comics with my previous neighbourhood just as much as with my then (and still) current one.  Funny thing, memory, eh?

Art by George Perez, Rico Rival, and The Tribe

I'd bought this ish mainly for The MAN With The GOLDEN GUN cover art and article, having seen (with the same friend) ROGER MOORE's second 007 movie not too long before.  (It had its UK premiere on December 19th 1974, but my local cinema didn't screen it until sometime in '75.)  Reading it again for the first time in nearly 40 years, I was surprised by how much of it I remembered - even down to actual paragraphs.  The mag also had SHANG-CHI, MASTER Of KUNG FU and SONS Of The TIGER, with artwork by RUDY NEBRES and GEORGE PEREZ, plus a BOND pin-up by the great GRAY MORROW.

I often think back fondly to that particular summer day - and many another day from long ago also.  (Perhaps I may even have warm recollections of yesterday in the years to come - I hope I've got at least another 50 ahead of me, optimistic as that may be.)  Little did I then realize that my friendship with the pal I'd known since I was 7 would last barely another six years, but such is life - something to look forward to in blissful ignorance of what might happen, and to look back on in fond reminiscence (hopefully) of what did.

I hope all your summers turn out to be gloriously warm and sunny - even if only in memory.

Art by Gray Morrow

BATMAN - WITH ACCESSORIES...

Copyright DC COMICS

Above is an extremely rare LOUIS MARX BATMAN toy from the 1960s.  I had two of this figure (at different times) when I was a kid, and have very happy memories of playing with them, especially the second one I received for Christmas in 1966 or '67.  (Could even have been '68.)

Marx had a soldier figure out at the same time (in fact, it actually predated the Batman one), which had the exact same head (minus the black mask - a sticker - on the face in the above pic) as his Caped Crusader counterpart.

I had a great time dressing up 'little Bruce' in his various pieces of equipment and subjecting him to all sorts of imaginary ordeals and adventures.  (Oo-er, it's just clicked how pervy that sounds, so I'll deny it in court.  Someone please tell me I wasn't the only one.)

Incidentally, despite the backing card's claim, the only thing that moved on the legs were the boots, which turned from left to right - or all the way 'round if you preferred.  Hardly what one would call fully-articulated.

I eventually swapped the toy with a pal for the soldier version and then, the very same night, watched Bats meet his doom as an older lad (ROBERT FORTUNE) launched him into the air while saying "Let's see if he can fly..." - only to see Batman smash to pieces on his descent.  My stunned pal immediately wanted to effect an annulment of our swap, but I was having none of it.  Poor Bats.

Anyway, if you were fortunate enough to have had one of these figures as a kid, here's a look back into the past - happy reminiscing.  (If not, this is what you missed.)

YOU'LL BE THUNDER-STRUCK...

Issue #1.  Images copyright relevant owner

One of my favourite comics as a boy was THUNDER, containing such gems as ADAM ETERNO, STEEL COMMANDO, BLACK MAX, GAUNTLET Of FATE, and various others, including a couple of one-page humour strips.  Looking back at my collection, over 40 years later, I'm surprised by how boring the covers were - perhaps the most effective were issues 2 & 3 - and it was probably the comic's inability to stand out on the newsagent's counter which contributed to its remarkably short lifespan of only 22 issues.

Issue #2

Thunder's most impressive strip was undoubtedly Adam Eterno, the man who couldn't die - unless struck a fatal blow by an object made of solid gold.  (So a glancing blow on the back of his head from a gold-plated cigarette lighter was hardly going to bring him down.)  Adam survived for quite a few years, first when Thunder was absorbed by LION, and then when Lion was merged with VALIANT - before disappearing into comics limbo and the fond memories of former readers lucky enough to have caught this short-lived comic thunderclap.

 

Issue #3

Below:  The first-ever instalment of Adam Eterno from Thunder #1.

See also here - and here.

NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS...

 

Art by Ian Gibson

 

I've just watched a programme called SCOTLAND'S AMAZING COMIC BOOK HEROES on TV.  How nauseating to see a particular ex-editor gush sycophantically about one of two currently high-profile writers he once described to me as "a couple of pretentious w*nkers!" when they contributed to the comic on which he used to work.  Funny how those who never had a good word to say about someone suddenly change their tune when the person becomes famous and successful - especially if there's 5 minutes screen time on the telly to be had.

And why was PAT MILLS, the creator of 2000 A.D., 'airbrushed' from the comic's history and not given a mention?  (Apart from the fact that he's not Scottish that is?)

The CAMPY CAPED CRUSADER GOES WEST...

ADAM WEST as The BATMAN 

Yeah, don't worry about the title - it doesn't make much sense.  (Grabbed your attention though, didn't it?)  Look at the above photo - I can't help but think that it actually goes some way to capturing the dark and mysterious aspect of BATMAN as he was originally envisioned.  It makes me wonder what the result would have been had the TV Producers decided to go down that avenue instead of the one they ultimately chose.  Would it have been as successful as it was?  Who knows?  One thing's for sure, however - the childhoods of kids in the1960s would have been markedly different.  Anyone got any thoughts on the matter?

Adam's screen test costume

ONE TO LOOK OUT FOR...

Artwork by Jack Kirby

Due to be released any time soon is the above little beauty.  Keep an eye out for it and if you see it before I do, give me a shout.  Just love that cover!