Friday, September 9, 2011

Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Subway Slayer"

As a New Yorker, I can tell you riding the subway is always an adventure...
...as the hottest heroine of the Golden Age finds out!
The art credits for this story from All Top Comics #12 are questionable, as most believe that the penciler was not Matt Baker, though his inking, especially on the female figures is pretty obvious.
Jack Kamen was doing work for Fox, so this may have been an early pencil job reworked by Baker.
And, the story was most likely by Ruth Roche.

featuring goodies emblazoned with cover art that Fredric Wertham railed against in Seduction of the Innocent.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Reading Room: CROM THE BARBARIAN "Spider God of Akka"

...between the years when the ocean drank Atlantis and the Rise of the Sons of Aryas...
Oops! Wrong barbarian!
This is the second tale of the swordslinger who appeared before Conan in the comics!
Impressive!
He starts out totally-lost, with no food or water, and by the end of the story, he's become the ruler a city!
Man, he works fast!

This tale by writer Gardner Fox and artist John Giunta appeared twice within two months, first in Strange Worlds #1, then, along with all the other stories from that issue, in a color insert in the pulp Out of This World Adventures #2!
There's one more tale of Crom to be told before he disappears again into the mists of ancient history.
Watch for it!

Monday, September 5, 2011

Reading Room: JET DREAM "Super-Tiger of Targan"

It's Labor Day, but there's no rest for our favorite femme fatale...
..as she goes on the hunt in this short story from Man from U.N.C.L.E. #9 (1966)!
Ah, the Swinging Sixties, when a story like this actually seemed plausible...
Though the story by Dick Wood is silly, it's made quite palatable by the Mike Sekowsky/Mike Peppe artwork.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Fat Connoisseur"

It's Phantom Lady versus Fat Man...
...in a pop art tale about fine art and aficionados from Phantom Lady #18!
Doesn't it figure that it takes an artist to see the obvious; that Sandra Knight is Phantom Lady?
The usual team of writer Ruth Roche (probably) and artist Matt Baker (definitively) provide the titillating tale!
featuring goodies emblazoned with cover art that Fredric Wertham railed against in Seduction of the Innocent.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Reading Room: SCARLET PHANTOM "Curse of Gold"

Here's the never-reprinted origin of a hero you've never heard of...
...in a story with a title that has no relation to the actual plot!
And that's it!
The Scarlet Phantom never appeared after this tale in All-New Short Story Comics #2 in 1943!
Heck, he never even got a logo!
I guess, having avenged his father's death, Jack Winstead went back to full-time reporting.
The art, BTW, is one of the first examples of work by a very young Joe Kubert, apparently channeling Lou Fine.