Old-fashioned Comics: October 2017

Monday, 30 October 2017

Cisco Kid Comics #01 (Cisco Kid Collection)

Publisher: Baily Publishing Company
Publication Date: Winter 1944
Number of Issues Published: 1
Color: Color
Dimensions: Standard Golden Age U. S.
Paper Stock: Glossy cover; Newsprint interior
Binding: Saddle-stitched
Publishing Format: One-Shot

Publisher: Dell
Publication Dates: January 1951 – October-December [1958]
Number of Issues Published: 40 (#2 – #41)
Color: Color
Dimensions: Standard Golden Age U. S.; then Standard Silver Age U. S.
Binding: Saddle-stitched
Publishing Format: Was Ongoing Series

Adaptation of the television series based on the character created by O. Henry. First issue was
Four Color 292

Credits
Pencils: John Giunta (signed) | Inks: John Giunta (signed) | Colors: John Giunta | Letters: John Giunta

Information thanks to the Grand Comic Database and Comicbookplus.com

The Cisco Kid is a fictional character found in numerous film, radio, television and comic book series based on the fictional Western character created by O. Henry in his 1907 short story “The Caballero’s Way”, published in the collection Heart of the West. In movies and television,
the Kid was depicted as a heroic Mexican caballero, even though he was originally a cruel outlaw.

Cisco Kid Comics, a one-shot comic book by Baily Publishing, appeared on newsstands in 1944.
Dell Comics published 41 issues of The Cisco Kid from 1950 to 1958.
Jose Luis Salinas and Rod Reed drew the Cisco Kid comic strip, syndicated from 1951 to 1967.

Cisco Kid Comics #01

Publication Date: Winter 1944
Number of Issues Published: 1
Price: 0.10 USD | Pages: 52
Color: Color
Dimensions: Standard Golden Age U. S.
Paper Stock: Glossy cover; Newsprint interior
Binding: Saddle-stitched
Publishing Format One-Shot
Notes: First comic book appearance of the Cisco Kid.

Cover   Cisco Kid
Featuring   Cisco Kid

Content   Genre: Western-frontier | Characters: Cisco Kid

Comic Story   "It isn't every day that the sheriff gives a send-off to anyone like this" (10 pages)
Featuring   Cisco Kid
Credits   Pencils: Charles A. Voight | Inks: Charles A. Voight | Letters: Charles A. Voight
Content   Genre: Western-frontier
Notes   This story (c) M.C, which is said to stand for Milton Cohen. Cohen was a letterer, inker and occasional penciler, who was also known to be an artist's agent. It is not know what role
Cohen played for this story, writer, agent, etc.

Comic Story Killer's Nemesis (1 page) Featuring Devlin Darrell

Comic Story "Superwomen, wondermen" (5 pages)
Featuring Super Baby

Text Story   Xmas in Mexico (1 page)
Featuring   Cisco Kid
Credits   Script: Walter Gardener | Letters: typeset

Comic Story Faust (6 pages)
Featuring Illustrated Stories of the Operas

Text Story   You'll Die Laughing... (1 page)
Featuring   Funnyman
Credits   Script: Bruce Elliott | Letters: typeset

Comic Story   You'll Die Laughing! (8 pages)
Featuring   Funnyman
Credits   Pencils: John Giunta (signed) | Inks: John Giunta (signed)

Atomic Mouse #01 - #52 (1953 - 1962) Complete Series. The Charlton Comics Story Part 05 [Charlton Comics Collection]

Atomic Mouse

Charlton, 1953 Series

Published in English (United States) United States

Publication Dates: March 1953 - February 1963

Number of Issues Published: 52 (#1 - #52)

Color: Color

Dimensions: Standard Silver Age US

Paper Stock: Newsprint

Binding: Saddle-stitched (except #26, which is Squarebound)

Publishing Format: Was Ongoing

Publication Type: magazine
Pages 36 Indicia Frequency: Bi-Monthly

Authors:

Script: Al Fago
Pencils: Al Fago (signed)
Inks: Al Fago (signed)
Colors: ?

Note:

Overstreet has listed #53-54, but there is no evidence they actually exist.

Atomic Mouse may have been a funny animal, but he was the most successful superhero Charlton Comics ever published. His … 54 issues, which came out between March, 1953 and June, 1963, put him way ahead of Thunderbolt, Nature Boy, E-Man (even counting post-Charlton appearances), Captain Atom (same) and even The Blue Beetle (a surprisingly long-lived character, but only for other publishers). Not one of those guys was ever in print continuously for over ten years, like Atomic Mouse was.

He was Charlton's first funny animal superhero, but far from the last. A year later the company inherited Hoppy the Magic Bunny (formerly Marvel Bunny) when Fawcett settled the Superman/Captain Marvel lawsuit with DC, and got out of the comics business. Then there were Atomic Rabbit, Atomic Bunny (who were sort of, at least, two different guys), Atom the Cat, etc. In later years, the publisher even took a turn with Thunderbunny. But as a creation of Al Fago, whose Frisky Fables had entertained young readers for years, Atomic Mouse is probably the best remembered.

Atomic Mouse got his super powers by ingesting U-235 pills, provided by Professor Invento — a double no-no by today's standards, involving both drugs and radiation. But at the time they seemed innocent enough; and they did enable him to protect the citizens of Mouseville from the evil Count Gatto and his inept sidekick, Shadow (no relation).

Like Li'l Genius, Timmy the Timid Ghost and his other contemporaries at Charlton, Atomic Mouse ran his course and disappeared, leaving no cartoons, Little Golden Books, big little books or other paraphernalia in his wake. With those other '50s Charlton characters, he was revived in reprint form during the mid-1980s; but that, too, ran its course and went away. Now, the publisher itself is no more.

Unexpectedly, tho, Atomic Mouse has been re-revived anyway. In 2001, Shanda Fantasy Arts brought out a black and white comic featuring a mixture of reprints by Fago and new stories by Mike Curtis, Charles Ettinger and other modern practitioners of the funny animal arts. In this version, he was a comic book character within the comic book, transported into comic book "reality" through judicious application of comic book science, to protect the city of Rodentia from all that may threaten it.

Placing the old material next to the new makes a striking contrast. For one thing, in the old stories, the title character has the proportions of a funny animal (large head in relation to the rest of his body), while the new ones show him built like a superhero (smaller than average head). Still, there he is — Atomic Mouse, of all the unlikely characters, having brand-new adventures in the 21st century.

Maybe there's still hope for Super Rabbit, Fearless Fly, The Terrific Whatzit and Wiggles the Wonderworm.

[www.toonopedia.com]

The Charlton Comics Story Part 05

Bullseye logo, used from Sept./Oct. 1973

Final years

By the 1980s, Charlton was in decline. The comic book industry was in a sales slump, struggling to reinvent a profitable distribution and retail system. Charlton's licensed titles lapsed, its aging presses were deteriorating towards uselessness, and the company did not have the resources to replace them. In 1981, there was yet another attempt at new material, with a comic book version of Charlton Bullseye serving as a new-talent showcase that actively solicited submissions by comic book fans,and an attempt at new Ditko-produced titles. A number of 1970s-era titles were also reprinted under the Modern Comics imprint and sold in bagged sets in department stores (in much the same way Gold Key Comics were published under the Whitman Comics branding around the same time). None of these measures worked, however, and in 1984 Charlton Comics suspended publication.

In 1985, a final attempt at a revival was spearheaded by new editor T. C. Ford with a direct-market Charlton Bullseye Special.But later that same year, Charlton Comics went out of business;Charlton Publications followed suit in 1991, and its building and press were demolished in 1999.

Editor Robin Snyder oversaw the sale of some properties to their creators, though the bulk of the rights was purchased by Canadian entrepreneur Roger Broughton. He would produce several reprint titles under the company name of Avalon Communications and its imprint America's Comics Group (ACG for short, Broughton having also purchased the rights to the defunct American Comics Group properties), and announced plans to restart Charlton Comics. This did not occur beyond its publishing a number of reprints and changing his company name to Charlton Media Group

Most of Charlton's superhero characters were acquired in 1983 by DC Comics, where former Charlton editor Dick Giordano was then managing editor. These "Action Hero" characters were originally to be used in the landmark Watchmen miniseries written by Alan Moore, but DC then chose to save the characters for other uses. Moore instead developed new characters loosely based on them. The Charlton characters were incorporated into DC's main superhero line, starting in the epic Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries of 1985.
Fan revivals

In 2000, Charlton Spotlight, a fanzine devoted to Charlton, began publication.

The Charlton Arrow launched in 2014 from Charlton Neo and published through Mort Todd's Comicfix, the comic includes stories featuring Charlton characters and titles not owned by DC. In May 2017, AC Comics announced that they had entered into an agreement to bring print versions of Charlton Neo's comics to the direct sales comic shop market, starting with Charlton Arrow #1 in September.

THE END

Tarzan: The Joe Kubert Years Volume 3 HC

Writing, drawing, and editing a monthly Tarzan comic-book series in the 1970s,

Joe Kubert was able to illustrate the adventures of his childhood hero and produce some of the most inspiring pages of his career. Dark Horse Comics is proud to present this final collection in a series of Joe Kubert's complete Tarzan comics. Tarzan: The Joe Kubert Years Volume Three features an incredible, four-part adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' 1934 adventure novel, Tarzan and the Lion Man. Tarzan attempts to protect two beautiful actresses and a Hollywood production crew from the many dangers lurking in Africa's jungles . . .

and from a deranged geneticist who calls himself "God."

This volume also includes previously unpublished pages of Kubert's original Tarzan notes and thumbnails from the early 1970s, the Tarzan stories "Moon Beast," "The Magic Herb,"

and "Ice Jungle," and a Korak, Son of Tarzan, tale, "Leap into Death,"

which was inked by Russ Heath.

• Introduction by Joe Kubert!

• This volume features previously unpublished pages of Joe Kubert's original Tarzan notes and thumbnails from the early 1970s!

• A great reference for students of comics art and the human form in action!• Represents a key period in Kubert's career, when he was juggling roles as Tarzan's editor, writer, and artist.

Creators:    Joe Kubert

Genre: Action/Adventure

Publication Date   July 05, 2006
Format:    HC, 216pg, FC, 6 1/4" x 10 1/4"

Scan: Minutemen-Endriago

Covers of the 9 stories of Volume 3

Link⇊⇊

Ben Bowie and his Mountain Men 07

Publication May-July 1956| Price: 0.10 USD | Pages:36

Featuring Ben Bowie and his Mountain Men

Credits Pencils:? (painting) | Inks:? (painting) | Colors:? (painting)

Content Genre: Historical | Characters: Ben Bowie

Text Article Another Outstanding Award for Dell Comics (1 page)

Credits Pencils:? (photos) | Inks:? (photos) | Letters: typeset

Content Characters: George T. Delacorte, Jr. (photo); Col. Draper F. Henry (photo); Major General Lucas V. Beau (photo); Hon. John I. Lerom (photo); Col. C. Short (photo)

Notes Dell Comics wins the Civil Air Patrol citation for Outstanding Service to Youth. On inside front cover in black and white.

Comic Story Forcing the River (17 pages)

Featuring Ben Bowie and his Mountain Men

Credits Job #: B.B.#7-565

Content Genre: Western-frontier | Characters: Ben Bowie; Zeke; Nakah; Jim; Stace;

Red Hand

Comic Story The Indian Alliance (17 pages)

Featuring Ben Bowie and his Mountain Men

Content Genre: Western-frontier | Characters: Ben Bowie; Zeke; Nakah; Jim; The Prophet

Notes Story continues on inside back cover and back cover. Inside back cover is in black and white.

More information on this collection HERE

Coming soon: Ben Bowie and his Mountain Men #08

Classics Illustrated is an American comic book series featuring adaptations of literary classics such as Les Miserables, Moby Dick, Hamlet, and The Iliad. Created Classic Comics for Elliot Publishing Company in 1941 and finished its first run in 1971, producing 169 issues. The series name-changed in March 1947 to Classics Illustrated ... More information

Classic Comics (1941) - #2

"Ivanhoe" - Sir Walter Scott

Elliot Publishing Company

Writers: Al Kanter, Sir Walter Scott Pencillers:Edd Ashe Jr., Ray Ramsey

Inker(s): Edd Ashe Jr., Ray Ramsey Colorists: Unknown Creator

Letterer: Unknown Creator Editor:Malcolm Kildale

Cover Artist: Malcolm Kildale

Cover Date: December 1941

Cover Price: US $ 0.10

Format: Color; Standard Comic Issue; 64 pages

Tarzan: The Joe Kubert Years Volume 2 HC

A stunning, five-part adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Return of Tarzan
highlights this archival collection, which reprints
Joe Kubert's Tarzan comics, issues 215 through 224.
With color restoration based off of Tatjana Wood's original colors,
this beautiful hardcover is a must-have for fans of pulse-pounding adventure tales
and students of the graphic narrative.

Writing, drawing, and editing a monthly Tarzan comic-book series in the 1970s,
Joe Kubert was able to illustrate the adventures of his childhood hero and
produce some of the most engaging pages of his career.

Tarzan: The Joe Kubert Years Volume 2, also includes "Death is My Brother,"
"The Renegades," "The Black Queen,"
and other dynamic stories inspired by Burroughs' classic books.