From Girls’ Love Stories #145, August 1969 comes this fabby full-page ad for DC’s Brit teen supreme, Scooter. Okay it’s not quite summer yet, and in the UK we’ve had a lot of rain of late, but why not be optimistic about the months ahead? The issue in question is #20, which was a giant-sized 68-page extravaganza for the Paul McCartney look-alike. A bright, breezy slab of fun for all the family!

Art by Henry Scarpelli, who was doing a lot of this kind of work at the time—so much so that he was recognized with a Shazam award for his inking. He later went on to do much the same thing with the Archie titles.

Image ©2012 DC Comics

Occasionally you may notice some slight similarities in cover design between titles. And then, very rarely, you might get something like this:

The Witching Hour #31, June 1973

The Witching Hour #45, August 1974

Both designed by Carmine Infantino, both drawn by Nick Cardy, printed just over one year apart on the same title! Clearly something was going on here. I wonder if there had been a very positive response sales-wise to the earlier issue and so when it came time to design the latter, Infantino, stuck for fresh ideas, trotted out one of the more successful designs from the previous year. Or, it could be that, as the earlier cover image has very little to do with the actual story inside, that editor Boltinoff commissioned a tale to go along with it and then had Cardy re-stage the original. Or, perhaps the cover was designed first and Boltinoff solicited story ideas from a couple of writers and liked them both, deciding the run the second a year later.

Whatever the cause, just feast your eyes on a master comics craftsman at the height of his powers—twice! Nick Cardy we salute you.

Images ©2012 DC Comics

Haunted Love #9, May 1975

It’s early 1975, Nixon has gone, Gerald Ford is in the White House, and Charlton Comics is still pushing the Gothic Romance! Beneath Don Newton’s eerie painted cover are three spooky tales.

Joe Gill and Sanho Kim assure us that “Death Waits for Moonrise”. You’ll be unsurprised to discover this is a story with a werewolf theme and concerns young lovers Anya and Gregor. Gregor has discovered, and isolated, what he believes to be a werewolf virus. Using this he hopes to develop a vaccine for lycanthropy—not that anyone else actually believes such a thing exists. Later, Gregor is scratched by a wolf, and the need for the vaccine becomes urgent. He works night and day, hoping to have it finished before the full moon arrives. On the fateful day, Anya drugs her overworked boyfriend to force him to rest, and goes off leaving him to sleep the night away. Unfortunately, that night brings the full moon. Anya rushes home, only to find Gregor has indeed transformed into a werewolf. He lunges at her, but she succeeds in injecting him with the vaccine. “My darling… I’m cured…” says the grateful scientist, now far less hirsute.

Pat Boyette draws “Twilight Tears”, a slow-moving story of the widowed Marie, who is surprised when the new stranger in town bears an uncanny resemblance to her dead husband, Philip. The man claims to be Philip’s cousin Raoul, and swiftly goes about wooing Marie. His technique works, and he and Marie soon marry to live happily ever after. The story’s coda reveals that, 50 years later, Philip’s grave was discovered to be empty…

“The Night on Fog Island”, written by Joe Gill and drawn by Enrique Nieto, sees Isabel Talcott escaping to Fog Island following an unhappy love affair. The island is always shrouded in fog, and legends surround it after an incident 100 years ago that saw Isabel’s grandmother lose her husband, Joshua, in the fog after she allowed a beacon to go out. The house on the island is long-deserted and Isabel spends the day cleaning up. That night she hears a sound from the fog and lights the beacon. The ghost of Joshua looms out of the mist and attacks a passing sailor in his attempts to reach the beacon. Half-blinded by the beacon, Isabel puts it out so she can better see what’s happening. The ghost, lost once more, disappears into the fog and Isabel rescues the sailor. The sailor’s name is Sam and he’s quite a dish—Isabel is clearly smitten. Out in the fog, the pair hear the sound of the lost sailor, still trying to find his way home after 100 years…

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One of the duller issues of Haunted Love this, with none of the tales having much to recommend them. I suspect there’s a halfway decent plot struggling to escape the poor execution of “The Night on Fog Island”, and with a rewrite or two it would’ve made for a good episode of Night Gallery—Rod Serling could’ve used Don Newton’s cover to introduce it. Otherwise it’s all pretty much by-the-numbers fare.

Image ©2012 the copyright holder

Fruitman Special #1, December 1969

You want strange? There’s not much stranger than Fruitman, believe me. Originally appearing as a backup strip in Harvey’s Bunny title, Fruitman told the adventures of one Percival Pineapple, a mild mannered fruit seller who was in reality the super-powered Fruitman. Whenever danger threatened—although we’re using “danger” in its broadest possible sense—Percy could transform himself into any type of fruit. Moreover, when in his fruit form, he could squirt any evil-doer in the eye with fruit juice! Verily, he was the fruit world’s answer to Manimal…

This one-shot special contains five stories reprinting the “best” of Fruitman, alongside a couple of other tales with such no hopers top characters as Sooper Hippie and Captain Flower. Needless to say this is all very silly indeed, and carried out, sadly, with little of the style and competence contained in most other Harvey Comics. Richie Rich or Casper, this is not. The primary aim of its (unknown) writer seems to have been to pack in as many fruit-themed puns per page as humany possible.

The world’s peachiest, berry grapest superhero? Y’know what?—he just might’ve been…

Image ©2009 Harvey Features Syndicate/the respective copyright holder

Nukla #2, March 1966

“Nukla Meets the Man in the Moon”

Jim Clarke informs Matthew Gibbs of a certain maniac called Baron Von Zee, who plans to take over the world by means of his nuclear arsenal. Matt overflies Von Zee’s base, and the madman has three rockets fired at his plane. Matt takes evasive manoeuvres, but the third missile explodes upon impact. Von Zee gloats.

Unbeknownst to those below Matt has transformed into Nukla, and, invisible, our hero zooms down to investigate. There, he finds more missiles ready for take-off, as well as several manned rockets. As they blast off, Nukla follows the rockets into space.

Orbiting the Earth is a space station large enough to house a crew. Unfortunately, having lost concentration, Nukla rematerialises as Matt. Von Zee picks him up on radar and fires a missile at him: “Just a small nuclear charge…” Hit by the atomic blast, Matt once again becomes Nukla—but he’s shaken and needs rest.

The US government fires a phalanx of missiles at Von Zee’s space station—nicknamed “Moon”—but its defenses prove impenetrable. Scared, the nations of the world negotiate with Von Zee, offering to scrap all their nuclear weapons, pay reparations of $10 billion each, and obey all future orders from Von Zee.

Still a bit sore from having been obliterated by nuclear blasts twice in one day, Matt goes to Von Zee’s base and hides in a mail sack. The sack is duly delivered to the “Moon” space station, where Matt is quickly discovered—not too difficult, they just, like, open the sack. Von Zee shoots Matt in the chest with a laser-ray-gun, gamely reveals his plan to take over the planet, shoots Matt again, and then throws him out an airlock!

Never fear, Nukla is made of sterner stuff and he dematerialises. This apparently means that he’s no longer suffering from his fatal wounds. Lucky that. Nukla uses his atomic power to shake the “Moon” and powers it out of Earth orbit. Von Zee attempts to escape, but is foiled when his fed up henchmen turn on him. Nukla wraps them all up in mail sacks and returns them to Earth—right into the arms of government troops.

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There are good comics, bad comics, and mediocre comics. The first two of those are normally hugely entertaining. Nukla, unfortunately, is one of the latter: mediocre. Despite all the action and incident on display, it still manages to be nothing but dull, dull, dull. Nukla himself is a kind of cut price Captain Atom, but his powers are inconsistent, and his relationships with his boss, Jim Clarke is ludicrous: “I always forget that you can become Nukla, Matt,” explains Jim after Matt has flown a few thousand miles in a couple of minutes. Would be girlfriend Linda is a wet lettuce.

You want stupid? Check out the scene where Matt is transported through the cold vacuum of space in a sack… Yes, a sack. Tied at the top with string. He returns the favour at the end. And then there’s the deus ex machina of the disappearing fatal chest wound: it disappears just because Matt becomes Nukla.

There is one saving grace: the art is nice. Dick Giordano and his brother-in-law Sal Trapani do a solid, if unspectacular, job, though it lacks the spark, the heightened reality that made Marvel’s super-heroes so successful. Even so, this is probably Dell’s best super-hero book—however, that’s faint praise given the competition!!

If you’re a Dick Giordano fan this might be worth a glance if you find a cheap copy. Otherwise avoid.

Nukla #1

Image ©2012 the copyright holder

The following smorgasbord of great house ads comes from Wonder Woman #124, August 1961.

First up we’ve got the third Superman Annual. Now, the first Superman Annual was published in 1960, so DC clearly had a fairly loose understanding of the term “annual”. They went on to publish eight annuals in just 4 years!

The second ad up there is one one of the most fondly-remembered comics of all time—well the 1960s anyway. For the first time in a single volume DC collected together several notable origin stories, including the Flash, Green Lantern, Adam Strange and Wonder Woman. There was also the fun story that first paired the World’s Finest team of Superman and Batman. It’s a great comic, and was reprinted in its entirety in 1998.

Next we got another giant tome, this one Batman Annual #1. This was later reprinted in 1999, and is a fine addition to anyone’s Silver Age collection. The stories all come from the early to mid-1950s and so are still pretty solid fare, before the true silliness set in in  the late 50s. In a similar manner to Superman, DC managed to get 7 annuals out of the years 1961 to 1964!

Finally, we have a paired ad for Brave and Bold #37, featuring the Suicide Squad in their second go round in the try-out title, this being their fourth appearance, and JLA #6.

I love these things. So simple, and yet so effective. Even now I want to rush to my long boxes and pull out the comics for a re-read—and that, surely, is the mark of a good ad.

Image ©2012 DC Comics

“Time ago and gone…”

Showcasing another page of Colleen Doran’s fabulous art from the sadly neglected DC series Reign of the Zodiac from 2003. Here we have the second splash page of the first issue showing a higher panoramic shot over an Eidolon city, with the focus firmly on one of the trans-dimensional portals that allowed passage from Eidolon to Earth.

Primary among the achievements of the first issue was a very clever storytelling technique whereby Keith Giffen’s dialogue told the story from one point of view, while Doran’s artwork showed the reality—or at least the same events from a counterpoint. It was hard going at first, but very rewarding once you got into the metre of the story. There was an attempt to clarify things further by using different coloured dialogue boxes for each speaker, but this was unfortunately undermined when a few production errors crept in. This wasn’t fatal, but didn’t help the cause of what was already a very complex plot.

Regardless, Reign of the Zodiac, across its eight issue run, proved something of a minor masterpiece—merely hinting at the true greatness that we missed by dint of the series’ early cancellation. This really could’ve been another Sandman, or Y: The Last Man had it been given more of a chance.

Click on the images below for a better look. Pencils by Doran, inks by Bob Wiacek. Lovern Kindzierski provided the colours in the finished book.

Reign of the Zodiac ©2012 Keith Giffen

Originally at just 50c, and later rising to the heady heights of 60c—as here—DC’s 100-Page Super Spectaculars were worth every penny. With prices being what they are today I dread think how much one of these would cost if published today! While the reprints that made up the bulk of the content were often poorly chosen—though not always: Archie Goodwin made some fabulous choices when he was editing Detective Comics and had to fill several of these volumes—they were at least available to read, and so much cheaper than having to go out and track down the originals. Many of the reprints came from the Golden Age of the 1940s so were the kind of thing you were unlikely ever to see in their original home.

These ads ran through most of the DC line during 1974, changing each month to reflect the new crop, and enticing indeed they were. In 1974 I’d never even seen an US comic book, let alone a 100 page one, but once I began to pick up some back issues later in the decade my brain was frazzled at the very idea of such a chunk of panelogical goodness! Much, much later, once I had access to a comic shop, it became easier to seek these out, and I’m now well on the way to owning a complete set.

Biggest bargain in comics? Y’know, they just mighta been…

Image ©2012 DC Comics

Girls’ Love Stories #145, August 1969

If some enterprising publisher were to put out a mag titled Girls’ Love these days it’d most probably be a very different kind of magazine! And it would almost certainly have the apostrophe in the wrong place too—but that’s a whole different kettle of worms.

In those more innocent, halcyon days, Girls’ Love was a romance comic. Nah, let’s give it a capital ‘R’… It was a Romance comic. That now much maligned genre, created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in 1947, helped save the entire industry following the disastrous post-war sales slump caused by the returning GIs dropping comics from their reading lists. The arrival of Romance comics to the newsstands saw women and girls buying comics in significant numbers, and very quickly every surviving publisher jumped on the bandwagon. Although the initial excitement and strong sales didn’t really survive the mid-1950s Kefauver/Wertham witch-hunts, Romance comics remained a staple ingredient of Marvel and DC output until the mid-1970s when they were all cancelled. I doubt we’ll ever see their like again—at least not in “traditional” comics, still largely a male preserve. Manga, of course, is full of romance—and guess who’s reading?

This beautiful cover is by Nick Cardy, and was what initially attracted me to buy the comic in the first place. It was the very first Romance comic I’d ever bought—I was well and truly an adult by then, by the way, I’d not have been caught dead buying such and item as a teenager!—and the quality of the artwork opened my eyes to what was available in these shunned books. It’s not too easy to pick up Romance titles in the UK, as so few comic shop proprietors bother to stock them, but I’ve persisted over the years and now have a few hundred. True enough, the artistic quality rarely rises as high as that displayed by the always magnificent Mr Cardy, but there are real gems hidden away—and find one is worth the time spent plowing through the >ahem< less accomplished efforts.

Cardy has drawn a lovely piece here, the girl in the foreground contrasting brilliantly with the stark white background, her knees leading the eye to the mischievous teenage boys at the next table. Wonderful. And, I would contend, as worthy a piece for hanging on the wall as any Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece.

Image ©2012 DC Comics

Shocking Tales Digest #1, October 1981

This is a bit of an oddity, published by Harvey Comics in 1981 this 100-page, digest sized reprint title contains a smorgasbord of Jack Kirby and Bob Powell sci-fi stories from the late-1950s. It’s nice to have these collected in a single volume—and is a cheap way of reading stories that would be fairly pricey to collect in their original form.

The Powell material largely consists of Man in Black tales, but the Kirby stuff is as varied as you might expect from the King. Interestingly, a couple of the stories appear to be “seeds” for much better known ideas from later in Kirby’s career—literally in the case of “The Cadmus Seed!”, which tells of a scientist stumbling on a method of growing humans from genetically-modified seeds. The Cadmus name was, of course, later re-used in Jimmy Olsen during Kirby’s Fourth World stint on Superman’s Pal. There, the Cadmus scientists were working on all kinds of wacky genetic-modifications, creating monsters and clones aplenty.

“The Last Enemy!” finds a scientist using a time-machine to travel to the year 2514, where he finds man has died out and been replaced by clothed, intelligent, talking animals. Above ground, the various big cats fight dogs, foxes, bears and wolves, while below, the rodents plot awaiting the outcome of the war. Our hero is faced with the dilemma of which side to help. This story, clearly, was the inspiration for Kirby’s hit 1970s DC series Kamandi, which told of a future Earth AD, After Disaster, where intelligent, talking animals ruled over the remnants of humanity. The name of the eponymous hero came from a failed newspaper strip proposal Kirby worked up at around the same time as “The Last Enemy!”: Kamandi of the Caves.

Then there’s “I Want to be a Man!”, which concerns Fabiac, a super-computer that wants to be human. So much so, that its scientist creator builds it a body—with disastrous consequences. This whole notion is the central theme of one of Kirby’s very last creations: Machine Man. In that 1978 Marvel series, the robotic Aaron Stack traveled the US determined to prove his right to the same treatment as humans in the face of fear and revulsion.

In addition there are another half-dozen or so thoughtful SF stories, with the obligatory Twilight Zone-type endings, all worth reading, all beautifully drawn. A must-have for the Kirby fan I’d reckon! Here’s a bit of Kirby art from the back cover, featuring Fabiac:

Images ©2012 the copyright holder