by Robert Greenberger
I have to admit, it was the Frank Frazetta covers that convinced me to order the complete series of John Carter of Mars books from the Science Fiction Book Club. The visuals were so compelling as was the pedigree, that of Edgar Rice Burroughs, who I knew created Tarzan. I had seen movies and read the comics, but had never read ERB’s prose so I had to have these. And I still do. On the other hand, I only managed to make my way through the first two because as imaginative as Burroughs was, he was not that great a prose stylist.
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by Robert Greenberger
Today, Kitchen Sink Press’ legacy is probably resurrecting Will Eisner’s The Spirit, but that ignores many of the other wonderful accomplishments during the company’s brief existence. Denis Kitchen was one of the first independent publishers to span everything from comic strip reprints, such as The Spirit, to underground comics to alternative comics. He also fostered new talent among them, Al Williamson’s protégé, Mark Schultz. In Kitchen Sink’s Death Rattle we first saw what Schultz could really do with his story, “Xenozoic!” about a post-apocalyptic near future that brought dinosaurs back to the world.
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by Robert Greenberger
In the first issue of the new Life with Archie: The Married Life, Betty laments that all the boys — Henry Aldrich, Richie Cunningham, Zach Morris, Troy Bolton — she’s dated since Archie married Veronica were clones of her true love. It’s one of the few genuine moments in Michael Uslan’s script and pays homage to the template Archie Andrews has been a part of since his introduction in 1941.
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by Robert Greenberger
We’ve all come to know and love Popeye, the world’s best known sailor. Some can even tell you that he debuted in Thimble Theatre, a popular comic strip crated by Elzie Segar. As the story goes, Popeye was introduced as a walk on player in the Oyl family’s ongoing saga, but shortly after he departed, the readers demanded his return.
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by Robert Greenberger
By 1969, Jim Warren had moved his growing publishing company from Philadelphia to New York but the costs associated with the move proved staggering. Suddenly, he resorted to reprints in Creepy and Eerie and felt pushed against the wall. It was then he thought of something daring and new…a female-centric continuing character that would headline her own magazine. Clearly inspired by the recent success of Jane Fonda in Barbarella, he thought of a vampire heroine.
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by Robert Greenberger
Your image of Frankenstein’s monster all depends upon when you were born and first were introduced to the creature. After all, some generations know him from Boris Karloff’s marvelous performance in the first few Universal horror films, adapting the Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley novel. Others may know him from the more refined makeup sported by Glenn Strange for over a decade, which became the template forever after, as seen by Fred Gwynne’s comedic turn in The Munsters.
Today, it’s hard to say what people’s image might be of the creature made up of many dead parts. What’s safe to say is that all too few comic book readers conjure up images of Dick Briefer’s wonderful Frankenstein and that’s a shame. Fortunately, that’s about to change thanks to Yoe Books forthcoming volume Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein, kicking off IDW’s new The Masters of Horror Comic Book Library.
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by Robert Greenberger
Marvel Comics has spent much of this year focused on the female heroines of their ever-growing universe. First there was the slick magazine with articles and reprints from January, which I wrote for. Since then there have been the Girl Comics and Her-Oes miniseries and an honest-to-goodness good Black Widow ongoing series.
This summer, though, Marvel looks back one final time with Women of Marvel: Celebrating Seven Decades Omnibus. The mammoth 1160 page book will retail for $125 but you’re getting a real survey of how heroic women were portrayed through the years and it makes for an interesting look at Marvel in a new way.
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by Robert Greenberger
When Roy Thomas and John Buscema first introduced the Squadron Supreme way back in 1971, little did they imagine these DC knock-offs would thrive in the Marvel Universe. But since their arrival in Avengers #85, the Supreme and variations of the team, have endured, largely because they allow writers and artists to explore another world and what it means to have super-powers.
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by Robert Greenberger
You talk about the old Gold Key superheroes and fans will immediately think of Magnus and Solar thanks to their continued appearances via Valiant and later this year from Dark Horse. Some might remember Brothers of the Spear but only the true aficionado could conjure up the Mighty Samson. Gerry Jones and Will Jacobs described the series as featuring “a superstrong survivor on a post-apocalyptic Earth, with decent stories and competent but constrained art from Frank Thorne and Jack Sparling.” The constrained part has more to do with Gold Key’s editorial tastes than the talents of these pros as you will see in the first volume of Mighty Samson Archives, coming this month from Dark Horse.
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by Robert Greenberger
There have been numerous teams of collaborators to make their mark in comics, beginning with pioneers Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. They met at the Fox Features Syndicate and wound up working together at Timely Comics, where Joe was the company’s first editor and Jack was his Go To artist. When publisher Martin Goodman wanted a costumed hero, they whipped up a little something called Captain America. As pioneers and partners they developed the use of splash pages and spreads in addition to later introducing romance comics to readers.
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