Famous Monsters of Filmland #58 - Warren

The Mad magazine for the horror set--i.e. a trail-blazing, Offensive To Everyone Except The Target Audience pop cultural landmark--Famous Monsters of Filmland was of course one of the most influential publications to one, if not several, generations. It probably single-handedly helped nurture and mobilize all the horror fans out there who had no idea there were others like them. It was Jim Warren's first big success, and it helped pave the way for all his future publications.

FMOF was definitely past its heyday by the time I came along, so I never paid much attention to it. Like I said about Mad in the last post, since horror magazines (and movies, and comics, and TV shows) were hardly rare as I grew up, I never got the sense of how huge it was when it started.

I bought this issue on ebay mostly because I was doing work on a Mummy movie poster and I wanted some reference, and this cover certainly seemed to be a good one for that! Not only does it have stuff on the classic film (plus that cool comic-book-style adaptation by Wally Wood), but it has articles on Basil Rathbone, Lionel Atwill, Bela Lugosi, Frankenstein 1970, The Maltese Bippy(!), tons of great Captain Company stuff (man, I wish I had that 6ft-tall Frankenstein pin-up by Jack Davis...*sigh*), plus an ad for some new magazine called Vampirella.

The sheer unbounded enthusiasm Forry Ackerman had for this stuff practically drips off the pages, making this issue of FMOF so fun to read. Maybe I oughta pick up some more...

Mad Super Special #28 - EC

Ok, let's give the marvel monsters a break for now, and let's get Mad!

This is another of those unbelievably-awesome, super-thick super specials that came with a full-color replica of an original Mad comic book; in this case its issue #7.

I think I got into this a little bit before, but it's hard to appreciate how revolutionary something was when, to you, its always been around. By the time I was a kid, Mad was an institution; something all kids read at one time or another.

But looking at these early issues, I get a better sense at just how much of a cultural grenade the original Mad was--it was so fast, so irrevrent, so chaotic that reading these early issues as they came out must have been something to behold. Reading a comic book that made fun of everything in 1950's America must have felt so...revolutionary.

In Mad #7, we have "Robinson Crusoe!" by Will Elder, "Prince Violent!" by Wally Wood, who manages to cram approximately sevety-five people in each panel; "Restaurant!" also by Elder; an insane adaptation of the poem "The Face Upon The Floor!" by H.Antoine D'Arcy drawn by Jack Davis; and one last Elder piece "Shermlock Shomes in The Hound of the Basketballs" which to me is more entertaining than any of the original Conan-Doyle stories.

In the Super Special itself, they start it off with about fifteen pages of new material by Mad staples like Sergio Aragones, Tom Rickard, and Bob Clarke. The movie parody is "The Towering Sterno" by Dick DeBartolo and (of course) the master Mort Drucker. After that is classic material by Dave Berg, Don Martin, Prohias' Spy vs. Spy, Arnie Kogen, George Woodbridge, Frank Jacobs, Al Jaffee, and Paul Coker, who draws a still timely piece called "Mad's CIA Agent of the Year".

And of course we get a Mad Fold-In, and a weirdly serious anti-drug poster on the back ("Who goes up...must come down!"). Kind of a discordant note after the seventy-plus pages of silliness that preceeded it, but hey, points for trying something different.

Thanks, usual gang of idiots!

Monsters Unleashed! #4 - Marvel

I'm still in my Monster Mood, so I thought I'd keep going with Marvel's Monsters Unleashed!

Behind (literally) the typically-spooky cover by Frank Brunner is a Warren-esque one-page feature called "They Might Be Monsters" by Tony "The Tiger" Isabella and Pablo Marcos, about Man's first meeting with they thought was a monster...something later called a Gorilla.

"Frankenstein 1973" by Friedrich and Buscema continues (from issue #2), with the sorta-hippie guy bringing Frankenstein back to life...wanna bet it doesn't go quite as he intended?

After the always fun Marvel-style letters page ("Readers Unleashed!"), is a reprint tale "The Hands", an incredibly freaky tale of amputation and experimentation, drawn by some new kid named Gene Colan.

Chris Claremont's text piece "Our Martian Heritage" is a lot of fun, though I wonder why it's in a book called Monsters Unleashed! (oh hell, close enough). After that is "Web of Hate" by Isabella and the late, great Dave Cockrum and stars Gulliver Jones, Warrior of Mars!

"A Monster Reborn", by Steve Gerber and Pablo Marcos has an unusual setting for a horror tale (or a horror comic tale, at least)--a synagogue. Tony Isabella contributes another text piece, "The Monster Maker" a book review about the genius Ray Harryhausen.

"The Killers" is another reprint tale, drawn by...Bernie Kriegstein!! Wow! While this is obviously far from the best work Mr.Kreigstein ever did (it's a pretty obvious tale about monsters besetting a small lake community), it's still really neat to see such a genius' work show up in a Marvel monster mag!

"To Love, Honor, Cherish...", by Chris Claremont and Don Perlin, features a monster Mr.Perlin excelled at--werewolves! And speaking of werewolves, the issue ends with a heartfelt tribute to Lon Chaney, Jr., who has just recently died. Even though Lon had a rough life and career at the end (a long while before the end, sadly), he of course was remembered fondly--and still is today--as a Legend.

Howl one at the moon for me, Lon!

Monsters Unleashed! #2 - Marvel

I'm still in a monster-ish mood so we have more Monsters Unleashed! for today. And you can't get a more iconic-monster cover than this one by Boris Vallejo--you've got a monster, a damsel in distress, an angry mob...it all spells monster!

First up is "Frankenstein 1973" by Gary Freidrich and Big John Buscema, which is the fairly unusual tale of a pair of bickering, sorta proto-hippies who come across the poor monster stuck as a carnival sideshow attraction. The guy, who's a real dick, decides to take over the world (!), and is convinced the Frankenstein Monster will help him do it! As Cartman would say "damn hippies."

Next is a text-article on Boris Karloff, a review of a biography about him by my pal Tony Isabella, and full of stills of the great Boris. Third is "Lifeboat!" by Gerry Conway and Jesus Blasco(?), which is a mix of a Hitchcockian-premise with a horror element thrown in. Nice artwork by Jesus!

Fourth is a reprint tale "The Madman", an uncredited, goofy tale of a mad scientist and his weird creations. That never, ever goes well.

"The World's Most Wanted Monster" is another text piece, this time by Martin Pasko, about Karloff as Frankenstein. It's a damn shame Karloff didn't live long enough (he died in 1968) to see the enormous wave of reverence and nostalgia that would've greeted him just a few years later.

Next is "Sword of Dragonus", a Conan-esuqe tale beautifully rendered by Frank Brunner. What it's doing in Monsters Unleashed! I don't know, but it's still a nice little story--you know where it's going, but it's still fun getting there.

Finally is "The Roaches!" by Gerry Conway and Ralph Reese, a really creepy story of a woman who has a very improper relationship with the throng of roaches in her apartment building. Sure, the set-up is pretty formulaic, but Conway takes it a step further at the end, and having once lived in an apartment that had roaches, the whole thing makes my skin crawl. Yeesh, let's move on...

We end with an ad for the next issue of MU, which we talked about last time--behold, The Man-Thing!!

Monsters Unleashed! #3 - Marvel

One of my favorite magazine titles, its long overdue I got to talking about an issue of Monsters Unleashed! I picked this one out of the ones I have simply because I love this Neal Adams cover so much--creepy, brilliantly composed, and just a hint of the kind of material you wouldn't be able to find in a Marvel color book (women's shirts never ripped in the regular Marvel universe).

First is "Man-Thing", starring guess who, by Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, and a wonderfully moody art job by Gray Morrow. This story is the origin of Man-Thing, which as everybody knows is very reminiscient of Swamp Thing. Ted Sallis' story is a little more grim and violent, maybe owing to it appearing in a black and white mag.

Next is a reprint, "The Cyclops", which is goofy in the extreme, but it's drawn by the legendary Jack Davis so everything's okay. Then we have a text article on the movie Frankensteins by Martin Pasko, which is a fun read. I know these were done as cheap page fillers, but the enthusiasm for the subject matter shines through since the writer(s) were most often big monster fans.

Fourth is "The Death-Dealing Mannikin" by my pal Tony Isabella, Kit Pearson(?), and drawn by Win Mortimer. It's a fun (?) story about witchcraft (plus it's got Nazis!), but I have to say Win's kinda dull art sort of works against it. Someone more suited at creepy horror material might've been a better choice, or even just someone with a more exciting art style. Oh well, can't win' em all.

Next is a "Marvel Mini-Monsterpiece", a crazy two-page tale by madman (and I mean that in a good way) Tom Sutton. I wish comics had more stuff like this nowadays--fun little throwaways that add a little spice to the main story(ies) and aren't meant to be anything more than that.

"Swamp Girl" is another reprinted tale, and is not as fun as the title suggests--yeah, there's a spooky girl in a swamp, but she doesn't look like a female Swamp Thing or anything. Next is a text-and-spot-illustration "preview" of Marvel's newest sensation, Son of Satan! I still don't know how Marvel got away with that...

"The Cold of the Uncaring Moon", by another pal of mine, Steve Skeates, and the unlikely art team of George Tuska and Klaus Janson(!), is a classic werewolf tale, full of agonized, tortured souls, brutal attacks, and full moons. Tuska and Janson actually make for a pretty decent art team.

Finally is a Marvel classic, reprinted many times but worth it, is "Birthright" by Roy Thomas, Gil Kane, and the Crusty Bunkers, who look a lot like Neal Adams. A fantastic tale, full of savage adventure, sex, and giant monsters, as well as a typically-70s downbeat ending. Kane, Adams, and whoever the hell else inked this really went to town; this is one of the nicest art jobs I've ever seen in a Marvel magazine.

All told, an enormously fun issue, full of great talent and at a high level of enthusiasm. Let's unleash more monsters!

In The Days of the Mob Advertisement - DC Comics

As you can see, DC put a little more effort into advertising Kirby's In the Days of the Mob than they did for Spirit World. This ad actually makes the book look exciting and action-filled, like one would expect from Jack Kirby!

I had always thought that each month's books contained all the same advertising, so when I went through my 1971 Justice League of Americas (the only book I have every issue of) and I couldn't find the ad, I wondered where the heck it might've appeared.

On a whim, I looked through my issues of The Phantom Stranger from that year (I love those Wein/Aparo PS comics) and, lo and behold, here was this ad in #14, the August 1971 issue. Maybe DC assumed that The Phantom Stranger's readership was a tad older than their other superhero titles, so that would be a better spot to advertise a magazine aimed at those same people?

In any case, I'm so glad I found I this--I find that I enjoy the ads for the stuff I like (like treasury comics) just as much as the stuff itself! I don't think DC ever did another ad for this book, but if someone knows of one, please drop me a line!

Spirit World Advertisement - DC Comics

This was part of the very limited advertising DC did for Jack Kirby's two magazine projects, Spirit World and In The Days of the Mob (see previous posts).

And even though DC's name is nowhere on the cover of Spirit World, here's an ad for it in one of their flagship books, Justice League of America #93 (Nov.1971).

As you can see, DC put the least amount of work into this baby as possible. Hell, they didn't spring for a color cover reproduction, or even a line-art version, which was the usual way of doing these ads--just a sloppy xerox, with a sadly weak tagline.

Why didn't this sell, again?

Spirit World - Hampshire Distributors LTD...aka DC Comics!

Prophecy! Reincarnation! Haunting! Black Magic!

Boy, this timed out nicely. I wanted to follow up my post on Jack Kirby's odd In The Days of the Mob with his one other magazine from that same time, Spirit World. And what better day to do that than on Friday the 13th?

On the surface, Spirit World seems like a better fit in terms of being the type of material better suited for a comic magazine, rather than the 30's-era gangsters of In The Days of the Mob, but once you get a look inside (and past the at-least-partly-drawn-by-Neal-Adams cover), you see the contents were even more offbeat.

It opens with "The President Must Die!", a three-page photo collage sequence about the real-life woman who supposedly had premonitions that JFK would be killed, which leads to a written-and-drawn-by-Kirby sequence "Premonition--Black Art or Mass Art?" hosted by Dr. Leopold Maas, who will provide hosting duties similar to Warden Fry in Mob. Dr. Maas tells the story of Lucille M., who tried to contact the President to tell him of her premonition, her visions of a man and a rifle. Unfortunately, she calls too late--the President has already left on his trip. Oddly, even though the story mentions Dallas, and the idea of the motorcade, Kennedy himself is never shown or mentioned specifically.

Next is a profile of what supernatural believers called "The House of Horror"--a haunted mansion in New Jersey called The Calder House. A group of ghost hunters investigate and, based on what you see them encounter, they were lucky to escape with their lives!

Things get really weird with the next story, "Children of the Flaming Wheel", which is a fumetti, or photo-illustrated, sequence, about a weird ritual one man went through over his obsessions with UFOs. Helpfully included in the middle of the magazine was a pull-out poster, similar to the idea used in Mob, except this one is another photo-collage of weird, vaguely-creepy images, adorned with the word "Souls"--and that's it--in big letters:

If any kid felt compelled to hang this on their wall, I hope they turned out ok.

Another Kirby tale, "The Screaming Woman", follows, about a woman who believes she is reincarnated from a woman who lived through--and suffered the torments of--the age of Torquemada. The level of gruesome violence and almost-nudity in this tale is a little shocking--its certainly not something you expect coming from Jack "King" Kirby, and I think it only goes to emphasize that he was reaching for a very different audience with these books.

Next is another faux-true-life text story by Steve Sherman and Mark Evanier, this time "based upon the notes made from research done in conjunction with Dr. E. Leopold Maas." I bet these guys had fun writing these things.

Kirby illustrates the next story "Amazing Predictions", all about Nostradamus and his visions of the future. It ends with this cheery, full-page photo illustration:

...and with that, we conclude the first issue of Spirit World! See you next time!

Oh, wait...not just yet. After the above, we get a full-page of Sergio Aragones' "Weird Humor", which looks even weirder considering what its opposite.

As I mentioned in the previous post (and gone into more depth in Allan Harvey's excellent article in Back Issue! #10), Kirby had dreams of supervising a whole line of full-color, slick, ad-revenue-driven magazines that would feature comic-book content, but not exclusively. He would run everything from California, envisioning a whole new audience for more adult material (btw, you can see some of the material Jack prepared for the never-published Spirit World #2 in the first three issues of DC's Weird Mystery Tales color comic).

Somehow, that didn't pan out, and DC "downgraded" these two magazines into black-and-white (to make them more like the competition, one would expect), but Kirby, being the pro he was, did his best to make these as good as he knew how despite the new restrictions. And while I don't think either of these magazines (or the one that never even saw print, a romance comic-magazine called Soul Love) would've ever succeeded in the long run, you can see how Jack was trying something different, and what's wrong with that?

In The Days of the Mob - Hampshire Distributors LTD...aka DC Comics!

The roaring 30's come alive!

This is one of the oddest magazines in my collection, and maybe even in all of b/w comics. In The Days of the Mob was one of two one-shot publications (the other being Spirit World, which we'll cover next) produced, conceived, and (mostly) executed by Jack "King" Kirby for Hampshire Distributors Ltd., aka DC Comics.

Why, exactly, DC didn't put it's famous name and "DC Bullet" on these books is still somewhat of a mystery; even the recent, excellent article on these oddities--in TwoMorrow's Back Issue! #10--couldn't answer that riddle.

After the beautifully designed grabber of a cover, the magazine opens up with the inviting words "Welcome to Hell!" as Warden Fry (!) invites you to take a tour of his maximum security prison that looks an awful lot like Hades. He introduces you to one of its most infamous residents, Ma Barker, which leads to the main story "Ma's Boys", all about the criminal gang, written and drawn by Kirby.

Warden Fry continues his Cain-esque tour of the prison, and reveals that big-time mobsters like Arnold Rothstein and Dutch Schultz also reside here. After they start fighting amongst themselves, he helps keep them in line with the help of a flame-thrower! Warden Fry doesn't mess around.

Next is "Bullets for Big Al!", the story of, you guessed it, Al Capone! Before we get to the next feature, a text piece about crime in that era called "The Breeding Ground!" we're presented with a full-size, pull-out "wanted" poster of John Dillinger! Then there's a text story from Kirby compatriots Mark Evanier and Steve Sherman, called "Funeral for a Florist!" which is, according to them, "A factual account in the tradition of ace reporters of the thirties!"

"Kansas City Massacre", again by written and drawn by Kirby, is about Pretty Boy Floyd, and it leads to the final feature "Method of Operation!", which leads off with the cheery phrase "Not all our inmates are dead!" (good to know, Warden). And then as a weird counterpoint to all the death and mayhem in the previous forty-five pages, we get "Killyjoy Was Here", two pages of crime humor by Sergio Aragones!

The inside cover promises us a second issue of Mob, on sale August 15th, 1971 (one day before I was born!), but sadly that never arrived. Apparently DC was less than enthused about the sales of these definitely-unusual comic magazines, and cancelled them before Kirby went any further.

Which of course is a damn shame, since Kirby was trying with these magazines to explore different formats and different material, hoping to capture a different audience than was reading comics at the time. You could argue why he thought comics about deceased murderers would do that, but given the King's track record it certainly seemed like he deserved the benefit of the doubt. It's too bad DC didn't give In the Days of the Mob at least a few more issues to see if would've led somewhere.
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I thought this would be the perfect moment to plug another comics blog, this one called Guns in the Gutters, run by Crimeboss Christopher Mills. Apparently CM was a fan of this blog (oh, so he's the one) and it (at least partially) inspired him to do his own blog devoted to one of his favorite kinds of comics, crime comics! I think that's just great (there should be at least one historical/fan blog for every genre of comic--humor, romance, funny animal, whatever!) and GITG is a lot of fun.

Go check it out, or it's two in the hat for you!

The Spirit #2 - Warren

The second issue of the wonderful Spirit series produced by Warren in the early 70s. I think for my money, this was my favorite format for The Spirit--as nice as DC's Archive series is, there's something about reading Will Eisner's stories on grubby newsprint that helps set the mood.

This issue contains eight Spirit stories--"Heel Scallopini", "Powder Pouf", "Fallen Sparrow", "Merry Andrew", "Mortimer J. Titmouse", "The O'Dolan", "UFO", and "Silken Floss, MD", all but one in beautiful black and white. Like the newsprint mentioned above, I think these stories work even better in black and white--the grey tones are superb (of course), as is the artwork itself (ditto). The one story in color--"Mortimer J. Titmouse"--is nicely colored, but I think it shows how much better the rest look in black and white.

I'm at a loss here to say anything else because, what self-respecting comic fan doesn't know Eisner was about the best there was? His stories are so full of atmosphere, great characterization, and breathtaking storytelling that they still hold up, half a century after their first appearance.

So instead of yapping further, I'll just show some of Eisner's trademark splash pages from this issue. They speak for themselves...

1994 #24 - Warren

I went and saw Grindhouse last night with some friends, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. So when I went looking for something to talk about today, I wanted to find a magazine in my collection that had that same you-shouldn't-be-seeing-this kind of vibe. And no magazine fits that better than Warren's 1994.

1994 (first titled 1984) had originally been created a sci-fi magazine companion to Warren's other popular horror magazines; with the added Heavy Metal-esque touch of more risque subject matter. But under original editor Bill DuBay, and with (by his own admission) Jim Warren's lack of focus on his publishing empire during the 1980s, the magazine quickly became infamous for its rampant nudity, sex, misogyny, and gratutious violence, with the sci-fi elements just serving as background.

I of course wasn't aware of any of this in 1982--all I know is, when I saw this cover (by Fastner and Larson), full of sex and violence--I had to have it!

The opening story is "The Ugliest Woman in Creation!" There are no individual story credits anywhere in this issue, so based on the creators list on the table of contents, I'm betting this was written by Bill DuBay and drawn by Esteban Maroto (way more sure of the former than the latter!). The story is about a comely, topless (!) adventurer/bounty hunter named Madame Ruth, who is hired by a powerful shiek (a space sheik!) to find "the ugliest woman in the creation."

We see some of the contestants, like a woman with three heads, one with a dog's head, and a set of conjoined twins that with a male and female, in case the sheik was "having trouble deciding which way to swing." At twelve years old, I had no idea what that meant. Once I read Ruth talk about another bounty hunter, named Cain, and describe him as someone who "would f**k a woodpile in hopes there was a snake inside", I absolutely knew I should not be reading this!

Anyway, this Cain guy is hired (we first see him having sex with a woman with an ant's head(!!), and he does indeed find a truly hideous creature, although that doesn't stop him from having sex with her on the flight back. Yowza!

The ugliest woman in creation is indeed delivered, and the story ends with Cain and Madame Ruth getting it on, with the added touch of showing full-frontal female nudity. Gee, this never happened in The Brave and the Bold!

Any story following that is bound to seem low-key. And indeed, "Diana Jacklighter, Manhuntress!" is low-key--it's about our intrepid manhuntress tracking her prey to an icy, barren waste of a planet. I believe the art is by someone named Vic Cattan, who does a nice job. Nicely designed and great use of blacks and whites.

Next is "The Star Queen", which is a Tarzan-esque tale of a young girl raised by a society of ape-like creatures when she is left there as a baby. Being raised by these warriors has made her a fiece warrior, and when anoher group of would-be conquerors land on the planet, takes them on (not before we see our Queen involved in some three-way action with two of the ape-like guys). She's knocked out, kidnapped, and is almost raped by the leader, but manages to break free and kick the main guy in the store, fully nude during the whole final sequence. *Whew!*

Next is Frank Thorne's "Ghita of Alizarr" feature, which was always one of my favorites simply because I find Thorne's art to be so exquisite. Ghita is like an outer-space Red Sonja, except Ghita has sex with everything that moves, and says stuff like "I'll yet hack off your four arms and pee on you as I watch you die!", the kind of talk that might've even scared Conan.

The last story is "Coming of Age!", drawn by Alex Nino, and is basically a history of violence throughout the age of man. It's not a bad story, but a little pretentious, coming as it does on the heels of all the gleeful sex and blood-letting in the previous forty-five pages.

Top it off all with all the pages of cool Captain Company merchandise (like Superman Mego dolls, back issues of 1994 and Eerie, and a Heidi Saha poster), and you had one exciting package for a twelve-year-old. I had to make sure not to keep this issue with the rest of my comics, lest my parents see it and hit the roof. And that was probably 1994's intented reaction in the first place...

Creepy #139 - Warren

This was during Warren Publishing's last year of existence (*sob*), and many of the issues released during this time were, sadly, either partly or entirely reprints. In some cases, though, Warren really put together a nice package, dipping from their vast pool of great material.

This is an excellent example of one of those issues--an all-Alex Toth issue, featuring seven stories all drawn by the master. Of course, you'd never know it from the cover by Rudy Nebres. Toth never did a cover for Warren, so they didn't have one to reprint, necessitating using someone else's art for an all-Toth issue. So it's understandable, but you have to think using a Nebres cover--whose art style is about as far away from Toth's as humanly possible--was not the best way to sell this issue.

The first story (which the cover represents) is "Daddy and the Pie", written by Bill DuBay, about a kindly alien that's discovered by a family of farmers and taken in. It's a nice, warm story, much more gentle than the kind of tale you usually associate with Warren. Next is "The Monument", written by Archie Goodwin, about murder in the world of...architecture(now there's a field you didn't see used as a backdrop in most comic stories)!

Next up is "Grave Undertaking", also written by Goodwin, and features this breathtaking splash page:

Set in 1820's England, this is an EC-esque story of two undertakers with just a little too much ambition. Toth's use of heavy blacks makes the story feel claustrophobic and adds immeasurably to the--um, creepy--vibe of the story.

Goodwin also wrote the next tale, "Rude Awakening", about a guy having a really bad day. Toth contributed another astounding opening to the next story, "Survival!", written by guess who:

...this story is more of psychological mood piece, reminiscient of the tortured-psyche EC stories drawn by Benard Kriegstein. As usual, Toth knocks this one out of the park, knowing exactly when to pull in close, and when to pull back.

Gerry Boudreau's "Phantom of Pleasure Island" is a hard-bitten detective tale with a crazy, bizarrely-funny-yet-downbeat ending. A series of murders are taking place at an amusement park, and P.I. Hubb Chapin (great name!) arrives to investiagte.

The final story is "Unreal!", this time written by Toth as well, and is set in the world of silent-era Hollywood, yet with an odd, sci-fi twist. Toth uses a lot of repeated long shots which helps make the story feel like you're watching a Keystone Cops-esque silent film.

All in all, an astonishing collection of stories. Not only are the stories themselves good, if not great, but they all had the good fortune to be rendered by the master, Alex Toth.

Doc Savage #2 - Marvel

It's another pulse-pounding adventure with everyone's favorite overly-tanned physician-adventurer, Doc Savage!

After a charming editorial by Marv Wolfman about how Michele, aka Mrs.Wolfman, is completely head-over-heels in love with movie Doc Savage Ron Ely (interviewed for this issue), is the main story "Hell-Reapers at the Heart of Paradise" (great title) by Doug Moench and Tony DeZuniga.

It features mad, out-of-time vikings, lost treasure, even more lost explorers, lizard men, and a mysterious valley under the surface of the earth, all told in high style. It's a fun, rip-roaring adventure, yet full of all the characterization and little Batman-esque gadgets that were hallmarks of the books. Moench had the ability to adapt his writing style to fit the subject, and the chance to tell longer stories in a comics format (this runs almost fifty pages) clearly energized Moench. These were straightforward tales of bold adventure, and a heck of a lot of fun.

Next is the aforementioned Ron Ely interview, which runs a few pages, with pics of him reading Doc Savage #1. It's a little sad to read him talk about the plans for a series of Doc Savage films, knowing it would all come to naught...

Weird Tales of the Macabre #1 - Atlas

This is another odd little publication, courtesy of the short-lived Atlas Comics in 1975. Atlas tried to take on the world of comics--and Marvel specifically--and one of the prongs of their attack was a line of black and white mags.

All in all, they weren't that bad at it--better, in fact, than they were at the color line, IMO. Not only did they put out Thrilling Adventure Stories (the second issue of which, already profiled here, was one of the finest single-issue comics of the seventies), but they did this, Weird Tales of the Macabre, which features some fine talent.

The nice spooky cover is by Jeff Jones (if only those logo colors had been a bit less garish), and the first story "The Demon is Dying!" is written and drawn by Pat Boyette. Set in a faraway land of Skaaland, this is a gruesome, violent tale of an evil man that many wish dead--and they get it.

"Time Lapse", drawn by Leo Duranona, is a contemporary tale with a twist ending; very reminiscient of the kind of stories you'd find in Warren mags at the time. The very next piece finds Atlas aping the Marvel b/w mags, with a text piece on Dan Curtis, the man behind Dark Shadows.

"A Second Life", drawn by Leo Summers (I think--the individual stories aren't credited, so I'm attempting to match the group credits at the front of the magazine with the art styles for each story), is a EC-esque tale of a guy who bumps off a beautiful woman and thinks he can get away with it. Next is "The Cheese is for the Rats", a gruesomely-funny story exquisitely rendered by the master, Ernie Colon. Ernie did a lot of work for Atlas, and it was all uniformily superb.

The next story, "Tour De Force", is a sort-of werewolf tale drawn by Ramon Torrents, about some people making a horror movie on location, far from the backlots of Hollywood. Ernie Colon is back drawing the final tale, "Speed Demon", a tale of a cocky race-car driver, which has got to be the first--and maybe only--horror tale set in the world of Car Racing.

All in all, not a bad start for a company's fledgling line of b/w magazines. They did do a second issue, which I have yet to get, but it's on my list (along with a million other ones!)...

Mad Super Special #24 - EC

What better magazine to talk about on April Fool's Day than Mad? And not just regular Mad, but the super-cool Super Specials that featured tons of material per issue, plus a full-color reprint of one of the original comic-book-size Mads! As the Usual Gang of Idiots say--$1.00--cheap!

This special reprints Mad #6 which features the classics "Flesh Garden" by Wally Wood, "Kane Keene, Private Eye" by Jack Davis, and "Mole!" by Will Elder. Everytime I reread one of these reprints, I'm reminded all over again just how good the original Mad was--a classic, through and through.

Much like the Warren reprints, Mad really had the ability to put together an amazing array of talent in these reprint collections--we've got two TV/movie parodies by Mort Drucker ("The Poopsidedown Adventure" and "Bawde"), plus material by Don Martin, Paul Coker, Sergio Aragones (of course!), Dave Berg, Al Jaffe, Prohias' Spy vs. Spy, and of course, a Mad Fold-In.

I think over the last few years people have gotten more interested in these specials and the fountain of material they contain, because I've seen the ebay prices for them go up considerably. They are an absolute delight; for just a few bucks you can get yourself a big heaping slab of classic Mad!