art by Wallace Wood, story by Wallace Wood & Jerry De Fuccio
Two-Fisted Tales #34[#17] (1953)
Sunday, February 19, 2006
EC - Trial by Arms (Wood)
Trial By Arms
art by Wallace Wood, story by Wallace Wood & Jerry De Fuccio
Two-Fisted Tales #34[#17] (1953)
This story is a nice showcase for Wood's artwork, with a middle ages setting that allowed for some elaborate costumes and a lot of silent segments (including three full pages of combat with just brief captions or dialogue on the top tier). The story is simple enough, with one knight accused of killing another, and asking the Duke for trial by combat to prove his innocence. That sets the way for the three pages of Wood drawing the battle, and the finally ending that proves right doesn't always make right, and the illusion of honour is often more desirable than the fact of it.
art by Wallace Wood, story by Wallace Wood & Jerry De Fuccio
Two-Fisted Tales #34[#17] (1953)
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Stuff of Interest - May 2006 - Phoenix (Hi No Tori) v7
by Osamu Tezuka
At the end of the Heian Period (12th century), a hunter named Benta comes to Kyoto in search of his abducted assistant, Obuu. Obuu becomes the attendant of a powerful man of the time, who is searching for the phoenix. Meanwhile, Kyoto is driven into civil war, and their world is thrown into chaos and confusion.
Softcover, 6x9, 424pgs, B&W $15.99
MAR063510 Viz Media
That won't be the actual cover, of course, but I kind of like how it looks. Certainly more than the generic Phoenix images that Viz is putting on these books. Anyway, good to see that the long gap between v5 and the upcoming v6 was an aberration. The historical chapters of PHOENIX have been my favourite of Tezuka's work, so it's good to see we'll get another thick volume of that soon. And with only three to go after this (or less, if any of them are shorter ones that will be combined), hopefully PHOENIX will be all available in English by sometime in 2007.
Grog Grows Own Tail
I have no idea what this thing is...
...but somehow I now find myself in the market for one.
Score one for the power of advertising.
(on the other hand, I don't think I'd pay the cover price of over 10 new comics for it, which is what this would have cost in 1963. I guess in today's terms that would put the price at between $25 and $30)
...but somehow I now find myself in the market for one.
Score one for the power of advertising.
(on the other hand, I don't think I'd pay the cover price of over 10 new comics for it, which is what this would have cost in 1963. I guess in today's terms that would put the price at between $25 and $30)
My Collection - SUPERBOY [1994 Series]
36 issues [1994 - 2000]
1 - 30, 50 - 51, 56, 69 - 70, 0
This version of Superboy was probably the best thing to come out of that whole "Death of Superman" thingee back then. The series lasted up to #100 a few years back, and I think the same character, with a different costume, is the Superboy still hanging around at DC right now, although who knows what's going on there in the next few months.
I didn't really expect to like the series that much when it launched, but I had liked some of Karl Kesel's writing before, and Tom Grummett's artwork looked nice. It wound up being a pretty good monthly read, nothing groundbreaking but a nice mix of short adventures, cliffhangers and a large supporting cast, including Dubbilex, the DNAlien from Kirby's 1970s run on JIMMY OLSEN. The use of the Hawaii setting was also good, at least different from the New York and New York stand-ins so common in comics.
Noteworthy issues:
#4 has some nice artwork by Mike Parobeck doing a version of the book in the style of the Superman/Batman animated shows of the era.
#8 has a nice old Superboy vs. new Superboy, with some nice tributes to the original version, and one of the better things to come out of DC's "Zero Hour" crossover.
Stuff of Interest - May 2006 - Showcase Presents Superman v2
Written by Jerry Siegel, Jerry Coleman, Bill Finger and Otto Binder
Art by Curt Swan, Wayne Boring, Al Plastino and Kurt Schaffenberger
Cover by Swan & George Klein
The second Showcase spotlighting the Silver Age exploits of Superman features ACTION COMICS #258-275 and SUPERMAN #134-145! The Man of Steel faces off against a wide array of threats, from the impish Mr. Mxyzptlk to the deadly alien Brainiac to the utterly incomprehensible Bizarro.
576 pg, B&W, $16.99 US MAR060299
I love that cover. What a great choice for this volume, much better than the one they picked for the first volume. I've getting close to done with that first volume, hopefully finishing just before the SUPERMAN FAMILY volume reprinting the early JIMMY OLSEN series comes out, which should last me until this one. This one should be a lot of fun, with a fair number of Jerry Siegel stories that are always entertaining and more Curt Swan art than the first volume (though SUPERMAN FAMILY will have the big Swan motherlode, with over 500 pages of 1950s Swan pencils). And of course me am always hating some Bizarro.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Stuff of Interest - May 2006 - Abadazad
by J.M. DeMatteis & Mike Ploog
This book marks Mike Ploog'’s first return to regular comics in years! Prepare for a wonderful all-ages story that features dozens of creatures and fantastical settings. If you like smart, literate, and lavishly drawn stories that can charm a nine year-old as well as adults, Abadazad will thrill you to no end!
Kate and her brother Matt are growing up in the big city, and life isn't always easy. They find refuge in the world of Abadazad - —a series of books written over 100 years ago by classic author Franklin O. Barrie. Kate and Matt spend hours reading the Abadazad books, and know every character. One day, Kate takes Matt to the fun fair. He steps onto a carousel, goes around once, twice - —and then disappears. Though Kate and her mother search for Matt for years, they never find him. Finally, Kate tells her mother they must give up looking - —but on that very day, Kate meets an old lady, Martha, who also loves the Abadazad books, and seems to know more about them than anyone. Martha tells her that Abadazad is a real place, but Kate doesn'’t believe her - —until a mysterious blue globe arrives at Kate'’s door, and Kate sees her brother trapped inside it. Now Kate knows what she has to do: she must go into the real Abadazad and find her lost brother, no matter what dangers it might hold.
Hardcover, 6x9, 144pgs, Full Colour $9.99 MAR063249 Hyperion Books
by J.M. DeMatteis & Mike Ploog
Fans of old-school children's fantasy from authors such as L. Frank Baum (The Wizard of Oz), C.S. Lewis (The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe) and Roald Dahl (James and the Giant Peach) will get a kick out of this latest installment of Abadazad!
Hardcover, 6x9, 160pgs, Full Colour $9.99 MAR063250 Hyperion Books
I'm not absolutely certain, but I think these are actually illustrated juvenile novels based on and going beyond the shortlived comic of a few years back. The comic looked really good, although a lot of the charm was Ploog's storytelling, so I might take a look at these, depending on how much Ploog art there actually is. Maybe see if my library picks up copies. DeMatteis can be pretty hit-or-miss with me, and I'm not sure how his prose will read (the prose passages in the original ABADAZAD comics were kind of strained, but they were meant to evoke a certain quaint style, which I don't imagine he'll use for the actual series). Pretty good price for a hardcover illustrated short novel, depending on how many illustrations there turn out to be. It'll be interesting to see how it does in the mainstream book market, as it's an odd mix of traditional and postmodern concepts.
Here's an interesting old interview with DeMatteis with a bunch of concept artwork by Ploog from before the comic series launched. I'd forgotten they'd originally planned to have another artist draw the "real world" segments.
Okay, now this is just disturbing...
Apparently coming this summer from Slave Labor Graphics. Check Evan Dorkin's LiveJournal for more photos.
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