The FABULOUS FANTASTIC FOOM COVER GALLERY OMNIBUS EDITION...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS & respective owners

Strike while the iron is hot, so they say, which is good advice. So, having  taken two years to work through all 22 issues of FOOM magazine and some of the contents, I thought it would make for easier reference to the covers to publish them all in a single post.  Also included is the famous poster by STERANKO, which you'll find at the foot of the page.

Should you want to read some of the articles (in case you missed them first time around, or have forgotten them), they can be accessed by clicking on the links to earlier posts, which appear periodically in the 'You might also like:' facility beneath this post.  (Or at least it used to - don't know what's happened to it.)

Update: Below is the front cover to a FOOM one-shot published in 2017.  The back cover was just an ad, so I haven't bothered including it.

The COMPLETE DENNIS The MENACE BOOK COVER GALLERY - PART FIVE...

Images copyright D.C. THOMSON & Co., Ltd.  The illustration on the
back cover is the same as on the front, with the logo slightly reduced

Believe it or not (though there's no reason why you shouldn't), the first DENNIS The MENACE book came out in 1955 (for '56) and the last one in 2010 (for '11) - and I've got them all!  That's not quite so impressive as it sounds though, as it only came out every two years up until 1977 (for '78), whereupon it took a holiday until 1982 when the '83 edition was issued.  After the ones for '85 and '87, it finally became an Annual, being published yearly right up until the the final edition - 39 books in all.  That means I only have six more to show you, which you'll see in the next and final instalment in this series.

Just think - a period of 55 years covered in a mere six posts.  It hardly seems possible, but it's true nonetheless.  Whoever it was that said time flies sure wasn't kidding, eh?

FRANK HAMPSON - The ROAD Of COURAGE...

Copyright relevant owner

FRANK HAMPSON is a name that should be familiar to all readers of British comics from the '50s & '60s.  He was the main artist on DAN DARE in EAGLE comic, and though his star slightly faded for a while after being replaced on the strip in 1961, in '75 he was rightfully recognised as one of the medium's true masters when he was voted the best writer and artist of strip cartoons since the end of World War II.  He finally departed this mortal vale in 1985 after suffering a stroke and the lingering effects of throat cancer.

With the aid of his long-time art assistant JOAN PORTER, he illustrated the 56 part strip, The ROAD Of COURAGE - The STORY Of JESUS Of NAZARETH, which first appeared on the back page of Eagle weekly, cover-dated March 19th 1960.  In 1981, DRAGON'S DREAM published a hardback volume of the complete strip, printed, I seem to recall reading, from the original art boards.  At least, the first page certainly was, as a small patch from one of the lettering balloons had dropped off in the intervening years since first printed back in the '60s.

Interestingly, although the Reverend MARCUS MORRIS was credited with authoring the strip (he had started the script in the early 1950s), he paid GUY DANIELS half of his £20 fee per episode to write it on his behalf when it was given the green light.  However, with an unfinished script, it was left to Frank to do the actual historical research over in Palestine, in an attempt to make the strip as visually accurate as possible.

Anyway, just to demonstrate what an accomplished artist Hampson was (and Porter too, of course), here are the first three instalments from that landmark series.  Also shown is the cover to the Dragon's Dream book, but TITAN BOOKS republished the strip a few years back (with bonus material), so if you can't track down the original volume, you should be able to obtain the 2010 version.  Check out your nearest comicbook store or have a look on Amazon.)

Click on images to enlarge, click again for optimum size.

Note in the first panel below (scanned from the original art for the 1981 reprint), that the lettering correction patch has fallen off.  The second was scanned from a 1960 published issue (for the 2010 presentation) after the alteration had been made, hence its lack of clarity. 

BABE Of The DAY - ERIN GRAY...

Here's actress ERIN GRAY, who

we all  lusted over in the '70s when she

played COLONEL WILMA DEERING

in TV show BUCK ROGERS In The

25th CENTURY.  Lucky Buck!