Hot Stuff meets...

I've been reading the recent collection of the best of the early issues of Harvey Comics' HOT STUFF, put out by Dark Horse. I'm not a huge fan of the Harvey line, while I like a lot of the artwork, the stories generally aren't that engaging to me, though I'm sure if I was in the target audience I'd enjoy them. Unlike a lot of the classic children's comics (by the likes of Sheldon Mayer, Walt Kelly, John Stanley, Carl Barks, etc) I don't find these too exciting as an adult, though I appreciate them in small doses for the art. Still I imagine that Dark Horse will do well with this new book, not only selling it to kids, but there should be a market for it in every tattoo parlour in the world ("You want an angry devil child with flames coming out of his mouth and smoke clouds? Thats a page 290, excellent choice").

In this book, actually, I find I prefer the Stumbo the Giant stories more than the Hot Stuff, as at least they're a bit more visually inventive. Also, great production on the material, with the bulk really crisp black and white pages and two well done colour sections shot from the printed comics.

That said, I'd be remiss in the bloggerly duties if I didn't spotlight the "The Apple Sauce Caper" from HOT STUFF #70, 1966. In it, Hot Stuff battles Hitler.






No, I'm not kidding.



Okay, he's not named in the story, but I'm sure you'll agree there's no doubt there. Truly bizarre concept for a story, Hitler decides that the key to world domination is cornering the supply of apple sauce, which brings him to Hot Stuff's woods, with a high tech apple sauce machine. This intrusion of course bothers Hot Stuff, who destroys their machines, and then drives them out by turning the apple sauce to apple steam.

No, I'm not kidding.

There's a line between offensive and brilliant. I'm honestly not sure which side this is on.

George Carlin, R.I.P.

A wholly inadequate farewell to George Carlin. A version of the "Stuff" routine below is the first clear memory of Carlin I have.

"Have you noticed their stuff is shit, and your shit is stuff?"

EC - Sinking of the Titanic (Wood)

Sinking of the Titanic
art by Wallace Wood, story by Al Feldstein
Weird Science #6 (1951)

No big surprises in this vintage EC science fiction story. A scientist manages to perfect a time machine, and his thoughts go back to the day when he was six years old...



...and lost his parents on the Titanic, only barely surviving himself thanks to a stranger taking him from his mother and putting him on a lifeboat. Yeah, you know at least one of the twists already. He goes back to 1912 and books a trip on the ship, meeting his parents and his younger self. In trying to prevent the crash into the iceberg, he ends up causing it, and just manages to save his younger self before sinking beneath the waves with his guilt. Wow, both predictable twists in one.

Some pretty good work by Wood, especially in the lush depiction of the sunken ship on the title page and the weird "flashback in the head" like in the panel above.

Hembeck TCR covers

Just got the new Fred Hembeck book. I'm a longtime fan, already having all seven of the Fantaco HEMBECK mags, but there's still hundreds of pages of new stuff for me.

More on that later, but for now, Daniel Best posted a few of Hembeck's colour covers to THE COMIC READER, so I figured I'd post a few more (cover #188, backcover #197), both inked by Bill Anderson. I'm not sure if these appear in the new book or not.