In which I turn a plug for Andrew into a plug for me.
So I had a question or two in response to that long-ago post about the Flaming Carrot Comics magazine that I finally acquired. JRC and BobH asked about Flaming Carrot’s appearances in the Visions ‘zine/con program from about the same time period. This was an annual publication produced for the Atlanta Fantasy Fair, and the Carrot appeared in the first issue in 1979, and reappeared in the following issues up through 1987 (according to the Wikipedia article). This means at least a couple of FC’s appearances in Visions did predate the release of the magazine. Well, three, to be exact, since there’s an ad in the back of the mag for Visions #1-#3.
BobH specifically asks if the Visions material (and the 1981 mag) had ever been reprinted, or at least repurposed/retold, and to the best of my knowledge, they haven’t. The only reprintings I know of have been the Dark Horse collections (later partially reissued via a Kickstarter campaign, it appears) but those were just of the Aardvark-Vanaheim/Renegade Press era comics. One of the Visions issues listed in the back of the FC mag notes a story with the Artless Dodger, who appears later in the regular series, though I suspect the latter is a brand new story rather than a reworking of the original. I would love to see these comics from Visions collected someday, but frankly, if it hasn’t happened yet, it’s not going to, barring some unforeseen, but quite welcomed, Flaming Carrot renaissance. Or if someone just walks into my shop with them someday to sell to me. I’d gladly pay upwards of a dollar each for them.
Also from that same post, Chris G. asks how far along I am in my Atlas/Seaboard collecting. As you may recall, Atlas/Seaboard launched in the mid-1970s several color comics (and some black & white mags) by lots of top talent, with the intention of competing with Marvel and DC, and, for various reasons, all those titles went under just a few months later. It’s…interesting, if not always necessarily good stuff, and I decided a long time ago I was going to put together a full set of these. I sort of let it go for a while, but then I started getting large numbers of them in collections brought to my shop, and that restarted the ol’ collecting bug again.
Some of my most recent acquisitions were the first couple issues of the Archie Comics-a-like Vicki, which are among the harder-to-find comics from the Altas/Seaboard line. However, my old boss Ralph is currently holding for me two of the Atlas magazines (a Thrilling Adventure Stories #1 and a Weird Tales of the Macabre #1) so I’ll be a couple of comics closer to finishing the collection. I think I only have about a dozen or so to go. I suppose I could just hunt them down on the eBays, but the fella I bought a bunch from at the shop still has several more boxes to bring in to me, so we’ll see what happens there.
Hey, lemme thrown in a couple plugs for pals here:
Tegan has just added exclusive content for Patreon supporters that you can read about here.
Joe Hunter has a Patreon going for his cartooning, with exclusive content for contributors. He’s a swell and talented guy, so please check him out.
Andrew is doing Black Orchid Month, because why the heck not, you know? Black Orchid, As Seen on TV if You Watched the Recent Justice League Dark Animated Movie There, which I did just the other day, so I’ll probably have some thoughts on that posted here soon.
You are aware that Vicki was relettered Tippi Teen (the longest running Tower title), correct?
we are about the same age, I believe, so we both seem to share the same fascination with Atlas. Vicki is acknowledged as the hardest 4 color Atlas book to find (I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a copy, but I don’t get to many stores or cons either). But the magazines are really tricky. I have seen (and own) copies of Thrilling Adventure Stories, but have never seen a copy of Macabre, so congratulations on that find.
While you are waiting to get the Atlas version, you can (legally) read some of the original Tower versions at the Comic Book Plus website. It has thirteen issues of TIPPY, one of TIPPY’S FRIEND GO-GO, and ten of TIPPY’S FRIENDS GO-GO AND ANIMAL. As you can see, there was a whole Tippyverse.
This site also has the Tower war comic FIGHT THE ENEMY, which is interesting for a couple of reasons: One of the regular features bears the great name “Secret Agent Mike Manly” (and the first story is by Dick Giordano, making me wonder if this was a surplus Sarge Steel story that was re-purposed), and the second issue has a story by Boris Vallejo–a rare, if not unique, example of him doing actual comics (and, surprisingly, not a Frazetta imitation, though the Milton Caniff influence is strong).
I bought almost everything published by Atlas the easy way, by buying them as they came out in the seventies. I have the impression that Atlas distribution was spotty, but I live in Scotland and it sometimes seemed like all of Atlas’ returns were shipped across the Atlantic and dumped on Scotland.
I bought everything except Vicki (I can’t remember ever seeing it; even if I had, I was a teenage boy, and wouldn’t have been interested), Gothic Romances (see Vicki, plus it was illustrated text, so would probably have been stacked with the true confessions magazines)and quite a few issues of their horror movie magazine, which didn’t interest me much, and the few issues I bought weren’t very good.
Atlas ran the gamut from the very worst (Phoenix The Protector #3, the only comic book I’ve ever read that was so bad that I hurled it across the room in disgust once I’d finished reading it) to the very best (issue two of Thrilling Adventure Stories, which is the single best issue of an anthology comic I’ve ever read — Neal Adams, Archie Goodwin, Walt Simsonson, Russ Heath, John Severin and Alex Toth all in one issue.)