A Simple Sunday Question!

Martinex1: In the latter days of  the Bronze Age, many iconic heroes got a new look. Fashion changes were all the rage for the spandex clad heroes.

Nobody seemed immune to the wardrobe revolution... Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Superman, Batman, Daredevil and countless others had a new look.

What did you think of the changes? Were they hits or misses?  How did you respond to these changes then and now?

Have a great Sunday all!  And be sure to share your thoughts and any Sunday recommendations.  Cheers!

The Brave Or The Bold: Weapons of Choice!







Martinex1: What is the best comic book weapon?   Offensive?  Defensive?  Or a combination of both? 
How many can you think of?  Web-Shooters, Mjolnir, a Golden Lasso, or Repulsor Rays?
What was your favorite?  Star-Spangled Shields, the Ebony Blade, or a Star Sceptre?
What is the worst?  Billy Clubs, Batarangs, or a green ring?
Of all of the weapons that heroes wield in the four-color world, which captured your imagination the most?  What was the most imaginative?  And what seemed silly?  Compare and contrast battle armaments today at BitBA!  Cheers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adventures in Comics: Comics and Halloween!

Redartz:  Welcome, comics and Halloween fans. Enter freely and of your own will...

Comics and Halloween; both so full of fun, it's only natural they'd pick up elements of each other. Kind of like Reese's Cups- "You got chocolate in my peanut butter"; "You got peanut butter on my chocolate". Today we will chat about some of those blending experiences. And I might have to run out and grab some Reese's cups for our Halloween candy dish...

 





One obvious area where comics and Halloween intertwine is, well, comics. I've gotten in the habit of, each year, selecting a few appropriate books to leaf through on Halloween night. There might be a "Tomb of Dracula", or a "Swamp Thing", probably some old monster reprints. But there also will be some Archie Halloween tales, definitely a "Sugar and Spike" issue (Sheldon Mayer never failed to salute All Hallow's Eve on the cover of his classic kid kaper). And most assuredly, there will be an issue of Simpson's "Treehouse of Horror". 


 




Speaking of the denizens of Springfield, that brings us to another annual aspect of Halloween: the specials on tv! My wife and I unfailingly catch "The Great Pumpkin", and Garfield's Halloween Special (both on dvd, conveniently). On the Sunday night nearest Halloween, we always devour "Simpsons Treehouse of Horror", a Halloween tradition for many years now. Those episodes are among the series' best. This season wasn't any different...

What else does Halloween have to offer? Trick-or-treating, and costumes, of course. One of my earliest Halloween memories was of dressing up as Casper. Surprisingly I never went as Spider-Man, but in college I did attend a Halloween party dressed as Mr. X (from the 80's Vortex series by Paul Rivoche). I sadly have no photographic record of that occasion, but I looked pretty much like this (bald head wig included):

Now, at our house this year, there won't be any tricks, but there will be treats. But not just candy; also comics! Giving away (age appropriate, of course) comics with the candy might bring a smile to some of the neighborhood kids. It will help clear a few from my 'dispose of' pile, and it may just help create a few future comics fans. And I'm not alone in this: last week I stopped by our local comic shop, and they were selling bags of Casper Halloween comics, already prepped for trick-or-treats! Man, I'd have loved that when I was going door-to-door as a kid.

So we can see there are many ways that the fun of comics and the fun of Halloween can combine. Perhaps you have some more examples. Do you have any Halloween traditions? Any favorite Halloween-themed comics? Maybe you were the one who did dress up as Spider-Man. Tell us your thoughts, and I'll give you an extra handful from the treat bowl!

Pulled from the Pack: Halloween Candy

Martinex1: What's in your basket this Halloween?  What treat do you give at your house?  What sticks to your teeth?  What candy do you love?  And what sugary confection do you despise? What candy did you only see at Halloween time back in the Bronze Age? And what candy don't you see any more?  What was the weirdest treat you ever received while "Trick or Treating"?  Did anybody ever give you a full size candy bar or were they all "fun" sized?  What did you trade for and what was quick to go?  How about money - any pennies in your sack?  Or for that matter, did anybody ever trick you?

Slo Pokes, Pixie Stix, Mary Janes, Bit of Honey, Hubba Bubba, Charms Pops, Tootsie Rolls, Candy Corn, Circus Peanuts, and Popcorn Balls are all part of the conversation today!  We are having a BitBA Halloween feast today... so discuss all things Halloween candy related!  Whether you drooled over it or it made you gag, share your sweet tooth preferences as we get ready for the 31st!  For those of you who did not partake in the candy grabbing madness, share what your favorite treats are anyway - maybe it is something we are unfamiliar with! Cheers!

Chew the Fat: Uncanny Tales- the Horror Anthology Comics!

 


Redartz:  Most likely, if we were to take a peek inside our longboxes, check our bookshelves, or open up our tablets, we would find a wide variety of superhero comics. Tales of adventure and daring, loaded with characterization, drama and fancy costumes. If we delve a bit deeper, we might find some humor comics. Maybe some Archies, or some vintage Charlton/Gold Key tv funnies. And if we keep going, way into the back of that longbox, we just might find some horror books. 





Horror comics have a very long history, going way back to the late Golden Age. In the 50's, they had a veritable Renaissance in the form of EC Comics. "Tales From the Crypt", "Haunt of Fear", "Shock Suspenstories"; these books and others kept countless kids wide-eyed at night. Filled to the grim brim with work by such comics masters as Wally Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, and Graham Ingles, those classic EC's still command a big following even today. 

Ah, but this isn't "Back in the Atomic Age"! And, even though EC Comics never made it out of the 50's ( with the exception of Mad, which is another story), the horror genre (and it's sister the science fiction genre) kept on going. Going, that is, right through the 60's and well into our beloved Bronze Age. 

Although those books tended to get overshadowed by the superhero comics, the horror comics still attracted some big creative names. At Marvel; think of all those Kirby and Ditko  monster tales from the early 60's. Stories that many of us discovered in 70's titles such as "Uncanny Tales", "Vault of Evil" and "Where Creatures Roam". Anthology titles, featuring several short stories by various creators; some all reprint, some with new stories included.  Indeed, as the Bronze age dawned, some great new stories were being produced at the 'House of Ideas'. Steranko had an incredible story in "Tower of Shadows" #1. There was work by Wrightson, Wood, Adams, Buscema, and many others. All 'hidden' away in the dark corners of the horror comics shelf. 

Oh, and DC was even more 'horrific'ally inclined. They had quite a few such titles in the Bronze age: "Unexpected", "Witching Hour", and the twin pillars of "House of Secrets" and "House of Mystery". And DC went way beyond Marvel in continuing new chillers, all through the seventies you could find them. Alex Toth, Alex Nino, Neal Adams, Bernie Wrightson, all the top names of the comics field brought ghastly life to the stories in those books. Adams and Wrightson, in particular, seemed to have a lock on cover art for those DC horror titles. There's more  beautifully eerie artwork on display there than in Rod Serling's Night Gallery!

Meanwhile, the other comics publishers of the era were busily putting out packages of fright-fraught fun. Charlton ("Dr. Graves", "Scary Tales") , Gold Key ("Twilight Zone"), even Archie ("Madhouse", "Chilling Adventures in Sorcery"). At any spinner rack you haunted, you could count on finding sevefral horror books lurking within. 

Some were excellent, some were fairly dreadful. But they were always fun, and ideal for a late night sleepover with flashlights after the parents were asleep. I didn't pick up many of them at the time, though. My loss. I now love to grab them up, often found on the cheap in quarter boxes. We often talk of books which "the cover made us buy"; well, there are many fine examples of spookily spectacular art to be found throughout the Bronze age. Now let's open the vault and have a look at some...

Although I'm late warming up to this genre, I love anthologies, and these are fun reading and often inexpensive as well. Hard to argue with all that. How about you? Any mavens of the macabre among you?