Redartz: Greetings, all; and welcome to another weekly dose of bountiful Bronze age badinage! You all know the routine; the first commenter names the topic of the day. But before we get to the action, here's a little personal tidbit. Recently my wife and I have been nosing around flea markets and antique malls , all part of holiday shopping (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). One one such visit recently, in a small town antique shop, I happened to come across a small wicker basket. In said basket lay a stack of bronze age comics! Notable in that they were in pretty nice condition, I leafed through them; most were nothing of interest. But I did pick out two comics from the long-defunct Atlas/Seaboard line, an issue of Iron Jaw and the first issue of Howard Chaykin's Scorpion. I've never read any of those Atlas books, so a dollar each seemed a safe price for the experiment. I'll let you know how it comes out...
And now, the mike is yours! What shall we discuss today...
And now, the mike is yours! What shall we discuss today...
14 comments:
Well, Red, since you mentioned the Scorpion, and Atlas/Seaboard, here's my suggestion for today's topic (which is kind of an elaboration of one of those "If I had a buck..." posts a few years ago at the BAB): let's talk about all non-Big 2 material (Altas, Charlton, Gold Key, the Warren magazines, heck, even Archies or Harveys if that's your thing) from the Bronze Age and beyond. You can talk about an entire line, specific series, or even a specific story/issue. (Remember, though: *no* Marvel or DC).
Personally, I just wanted talk about the Scorpion since Red brought him up; I bought the first two issues (which Chaykin did, he was out by the third, and final, issue). Both have really fun stories, as the then young Chaykin was flexing his talent and tying out some ideas that he would use later. The Scorpion is often considered the prototype for Dominic Fortune, and that's true enough, although there are some differences. Most notably, it's strongly implied that the titular character is an immortal who's been swashbuckling for centuries - which vastly multiplies the type of stories you can tell with him as the main character.
These are the only Altas comics I've ever read, but it's not hard to believe that they're among the best - which is an opinion I've come across more than once.
Good call Edo and Red on the Scorpion!
I pretty much pruned out my Atlas comics from the long boxes but held on to the Scorpion based on Chaykin's art and the nostalgia created by Kaluta and DC's Shadow.
Though I have not read it in a few years, my recollection was that at times I could not follow the artwork, which for me was not unusual with Chaykin.
Other stuff I'd spend my coins on, outside the big 2, were the Sad Sacks and Rickie Rich from Harvey.
And, there were the occasional Charlton's like E-man and reprints of Captain Atom and such that would surface.
When I was a kid, my brother and I would pick up some of the Charlton war comics. He liked Fightin' Marines, and I think the five issues of those that he had remain the only comics he has ever read. (I still have a minor stack which I should look over again someday).
Like Charlie, though, I picked up some old Charlton (not reprints) issues of Captain Atom with the Ditko art. I also like the Byrne Charltons as well Doomsday+1 and Space: 1999, which to my mind is potentially the perfect blend of my Bronze Age favorites, Space: 1999, Byrne, and comics!
I have the whole Atlas catalog except for the last two issues of Vicki, I think. #4 being particularly hard to come by due to a low print run.
Wow, this topic makes me think of all those books I haven't spent time with in a while!
Thanks!
I vaguely remember Charlton and Gold Key stuff on the stands when I was a kid, but I don't think I read much of it. As for Indie stuff, the first thing that came to mind was Jon Sable; great Grell art (and writing) and the characters are pretty realistic ... at least for comics.
I tried most of the Atlas titles off the rack, the two I seemed to like the most were the Brute and Phoenix (which I used to butcher the pronunciation as a 10 year old).
Brute was just starting to get good when it ended on a cliffhanger!
Phoenix went off the rails when he became The Protector, too bad.
My drug store didn't seem to carry Charlton, but I did get some Gold Key Star Trek which my TOS fix going.
As a kid I had a number of Gold Key issues from “The Man from UNCLE” to the “Twilight Zone”. Inherited those from a cousin.
I did not have any Atlas-Seaboard until later in life and for some reason always liked “The Brute.” Not a favorite I know. I found it interesting because the creature was almost immediately a killer unlike the misunderstood Hulk. It was a weird knockoff.
Other than that I sure read a lot of Sad Sack, Dennis the Menace, and Carlton ghost stories.
In the 1960s, I may have felt like an iconoclast for liking stuff other than the Big Two. Gold Key Tarzan, Korak, and Turok, plus all those licensed adaptations of Disney, Hanna-Barbera, and Looney Tunes characters. AFAIR, 1960s (post-Western) Dell was mostly TV adaptations (Get Smart, Hogan's Heroes, Garrison's Gorillas, The Monkees), usually with photo covers.
Tower Comics published T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and a couple of spin-offs. They were obviously inspired by the 1960s spy-fi fad, and they sort of faded away when the fad passed. Attempts at revivals in the early 1980s by JC and Deluxe never really caught on.
I had a few issues of Charlton's Captain Atom and Blue Beetle. In the late 1960s and/or early 1970s, Charlton got the rights to do comic books with King Features characters (Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Beetle Bailey). Their Phantom comic was the first time I ever saw artwork by Jim Aparo, who later went on to do The Spectre and Batman (in The Brave & the Bold) at DC.
I sort of drifted away from the medium in the 1970s, and never saw any Atlas/Seaboard comics or Charlton E-Man comics when they were new. I did buy some back issues of Tiger Man from the LCS's quarter bins in the 1980s.
I do remember E-Man from First's revival in the 1980s. They did about two dozen issues with all new stories, plus a mini-series that reprinted the Charlton stuff.
First did some good stuff (Jon Sable, Badger, Nexus), as did Eclipse, Kitchen Sink, and Aardvark-Vanaheim. But then DC and Marvel flooded the market with high-priced reprint editions of classic Silver & Bronze Age issues (Captain America and Nick Fury by Jim Steranko, X-Men by Neal Adams), and crowded out the independents.
What may be interesting is that in the 90s and 2000s I went back and acquired some bronze-age series from the 2nd bananas (as Steranko referred to them, lol).
Flagg or Captain Flagg by Chaykin. I think it was fairly well recognized series. I bought around 20 issues for like $10 and it was great reading. (Though Howie's art can work against him at times if there are scenes with multiple characters and you can't identify who's who.)
Also, Airboy by Eclipse by Dixon. Nicely done.
And, though not Bronzey, Prince Valiant by Hal Foster and his successor which ran into the 1970s if not the 80s. Now that guy could draw and tell a story... If only Conan or other barbarian / viking/ knights errant had that depth!!!
Mn, one of THOSE Tuesdays for me again, teammates----
Honestly, through the 70's my pal and I had nothing but the typical zuvembie-esque disdain for any non-Big-2 offerings. With DC barely making it into acceptability at times. And yet. . . I still acquired a huge stack of the plethora of Sad Sack titles offered at that time (Harvey)--- including the rarely-seen Gabby Gob--- which for some reason was carried at one of our local drug stores. Go figure. Now, ya get into the mid-80's, with the explosion of independents in the . . . Early Modern (?) Age. . . and it's a different story. I'm ALWAYS in there stumpin' for the original run of THE TICK, in glorious black & white, from New England Comics. Yup.
And TC, I noticed THE MONKEES comic on your list. I have only one coverless issue of that 12-or-so issue run, and geeze, I would LOVE to acquire the rest of them w/out mortgaging the house, I tell ya-! A true gem of a deceptively funny comic that still amuses from an adult perspective. . .
HB
I was always a pretty big fan of the Charlton Ditko Action Heroes like Captain Atom, Blue Beetle and The Question. I was introduced to those comics through reprints that were available in those old 3-packs you could buy near the checkout aisles of stores like K-Mart and Woolworths, etc.. I especially liked the version of Captain Atom when he got his new costume with the silver arms. Ted Kord Blue Beetle was another huge favorite character of mine. I still can't forgive DC for killing him off like they did. I don't like the new version of Blue Beetle with the super-powerful space armor (or whatever).
I was very happy to be able to get all of those old Ditko Charlton stories reprinted in the DC Archives Action Heroes volumes. Really fun stuff that I highly recommend to anyone who has never read it.
I see a few of you mentioned E-man, who is by far my favorite non-Big 2 superhero. I was too young to catch the series when it was originally released, but in the late 1970s I read a few reprints (some may have had the 'Modern Comics' logo on them instead of Charlton) and I've been fascinated with the character ever since. About 10 years ago I tracked down and purchased the entire original 10-issue run and had it bound, to make my own shelf-friendly book. Here's links to a few photos:
The nondescript exterior.
The title page.
Sample pages from the interior.
One of the painted covers plus that virtually ubiquitous 'Look who's smiling now' ads.
The opening of one of the Ditko back-up stories.
And the first page of one of Byrne's now famous Rog 2000 stories, plus the presciently named letters page.
So, anybody else this obsessive about a series?
I have never actually read E-man.
Edo - I am curious about your decision to have those issues bound. Could you elaborate on why you chose to do that, and what were the options you faced in having it done? (i.e. cover and spine choices, bindings, etc...)
I work in a rare books library and I specialize in pre-19th century material so I see a lot of works bound, unbound and rebound, particularly ephemera, so I'm especially interested in occurrences of it happening to this particular medium.
Selanarch, I had them bound because I just don't like to have too many single issues - which is why I love this current (golden) age of reprints, as I actually prefer reading comics in tpbs or hardcover editions. At the time, though, those E-man stories hadn't yet been collected, and I also wanted the various back-up stories anyway). So having them bound wasn't a tough decision: they're all secure in one place, they can sit on a bookshelf and they're easy to read.
I've since had several other sets of comics bound, like the complete run of Logan's Run published by Marvel in the 1970s, the early '80s DC series Thriller, Marvel: The Lost Generation, a bunch of issues of Marvel's Battlestar Galactica, and a few other things.
As for the technical details, like covers, spine, etc., I just go with what's simplest and cheapest, i.e. plain, solid-colored covers, with the titles written on the spine and front cover in plain letters (there's no extra cost for that), and none of that fancy stuff I've seen people do, like replicating the logos or having the cover art, etc. printed on the outside binding. The only thing I insist on is that the pages are sewn rather than glued.
Excellent discussion, group! It's fun to hear about all the variety that everyone perused over the years. Great topic, Edo. You mentioned Dominic Fortune; I plan to read that issue after reading that Scorpion book. Should be an interesting 'side by side'...
Charlie and HB- you both mentioned Harvey publications, especially Sad Sack. Fun stuff. Those were the very first comics I ever read, and then I wouldn't even touch them for decades. Over the past few years I've rediscovered them, finding them rather charming. Sad Sack, Casper and Spooky all reside on my tablet. Oh, HB- those Sad Sack books once were as abundant as Richie Rich! There were so many Sack books; The Sarge, The General, Muttsy, Army Life Parade, and so on, and so on...
Selenarch- nice call on Doomsday +1. A fondly remembered bit of Byrne.
William- Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) was a blast in the bwa-ha-ha JLA. Oddly, I've never read his solo books. Your recommendation put it on my shopping list....
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