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from Ellery Queen #2 (Summer 1952)

1. There’s a lot of set-up prior to those three panels, but really, that’s all you need to know.

2. Ah, the ol’ “convenient plank left on a rooftop for a quick getaway to another rooftop” trick. There’s no way that can possibly go wro — EEEAAAA

3. “Jo-Jo?”

4. At least there’s a moral at the end of this story, delivered by Lt. Straighttalk: SHAPE UP AND FLY RIGHT, YOU DAMN PUNK KIDS, OR BE A MANGLED BLOODY BODY IN THE GUTTER.

5. This is another scan from a coverless comic we received recently. Sure did get a lot of these. Also, since somebody asked…the scan from yesterday came from the same coverless issue of Suspense Stories I’d pulled some images from just a few days ago.

6. Yes, it’s another crime comic scan. I’ve been having a busy week…I’m not quite at “Low Content Mode” this week, but it’s pretty darn close. Thank you for your patience…and your readership!

Yes, the birds were involved in the crimes, but they were just innocent patsies.

This guy is my favorite:

…the utter despair he’s expressing at being a hapless victim of armed robbery just emanates from the page. Give that guy a Best Supporting Actor comic book Oscar.

The perspective on the arm looks a little funky to me. I just tried holding my arm in a position similar to that one, and…well, I think I’m close. It’s a little uncomfortable. And how many of you reading this just tried it yourself, right now?

I’m trying to duplicate odd-looking poses in comic books. So it’s come to this. Thank God I’m not doing this with an early ’90s X-Men book…my spine would be broken.

Now that’s how you kick off a story:

This is from a Johnny Craig-illustrated story in Vault of Horror #19 (Jun/Jul ’51), though this particular scan came from one of those double-sized EC reprints published by Gladstone/Russ Cochran in ’90 or ’91, and darned if I can remember which one now. I just happened to come across this panel as I was listing some of those reprints on the eBay (ahem) and I remember thinking at that moment “wow, you never saw a set-up like that in a Superman comic!” (Or maybe you did…there are a whole bunch of Superman stories from the ’40s that I haven’t read.)

Anyway, I like that panel, crummy reproduction and all. And that’s pretty much the beginning and end of my insight, there.

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Speaking of gigolos: Chris Sims of the Invincible Super-Blog, a comics site of some renown, has recently announced the launch of his own comics imprint Action Age, which is quite possibly more awesome than we mere mortals deserve. Read about it at his weblog, then gift your eyes with the Action Age site itself. Tell ’em Mike sent you!

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Aside from the slabbed ‘n’ graded versions, the inadequately censored version of All Star Batman #10 doesn’t seem to be having quite the panicked eBay sales rush it was a few weeks ago. I’m that much closer to having my own copy!

And then there’s this auction with that Obama issue of the New Yorker being sold in a lot with the ASB #10. …Sure, why not?

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And this is just a link to Neilalien, because all comics bloggers must pay homage to Neilalien for paving the way. ALL HAIL NEILALIEN.

(original here)

So I came home one evening to find this flyer stuck in my front gate:

Dude. If you’re gonna try to sell someone on new TV service, there is no better way than with the mighty power of El Santo. Guaranteed.

If I watched enough television to make it worthwhile (not that I’m a TV hater…I just don’t seem to have the time any more), I may have gone for it.

Suddenly…EL SANTO VERSUS BLUE DEMON:

In the story titled “The Man Who Meddled,” scientist Paul Hartwick was experimenting with the acceleration of life cycles in mice, making them live out a typical two-year life span over the course of minutes. Of course, there’s an accident, as the devices used in this experiment blow up in Paul’s face…but Paul appears to recover fully and that’s that.

Some months later, Paul and his wife have a child, and to all appearances that child appears perfectly healthly:

…But shortly, it’s discovered that all is not well in the Hartwick household:

Before long:

And the end result is that the baby dies, and Hartwick himself suddenly ages to near death over the course of one panel, but that’s bit of a downer. Let’s look instead at Balding Pipe Baby, because that’s absolutely 100% fantastic:

So he just kicks it in the crib, occasionally climbing out to raid Pop’s smoke stash and grab the paper? Or does he just cry out: “Mommy? Can I have a pipe and the sports section, please? That’s a dear…thanks!”

In other news, Man Has Arms Replaced with Those of A Gorilla. Check it out, in a story that could only be called “Killer’s Arms.” Well, maybe not only that, but whatever:

John, Anne, and Anne’s father Professor Morton fly off to Africa to capture a gorilla and use one of its arms to replace Morton’s missing arm, using the professor’s experimental grafting technique. However, one night at their camp, a gorilla finds them…and John gets the worst of it:

Morton shoots and kills the gorilla, but he and Anne come across a horrifying scene:

Well, luckily for Morton he just happens to have a gorilla arm-donor dead and ready for the transplantation procedure. He begins the operation with maybe one of the greatest comic panels ever:

John wakes the morning after the surgery, probably with totally flyblown wounds at the edges of the graft since nobody bothered with any kind of bandaging:

…well, unless the grafting serum includes some kind of bug repellent. The serum could just be That Amazing.

John is understandably shocked:

Ah, the old “transplanted body parts have the personalities of their former owners” trick. If you insist, story, if you insist:

Anne’s bedside manner could use a little work, too, attacking gorilla arms or no.

John’s on the move…note the grafting serum bottle:

“I couldn’t control my transplanted gorilla arms when they were killing my annoying girlfriend and her wet-blanket father, Your Honor…honest!”

So, back to the serum bottle: apparently by spilling on John’s head, it continues the process of allowing the body to accept the grafted gorilla arms apparently by changing him into an actual gorilla. Well, sorta:

I’m beginning to suspect that comic books are not my best source for accurate medical information.

stories from coverless copies of mid-’50s Marvel Tales and Suspense Stories

ad from Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #12 (Nov/Dec 1953)

I’m not denying the fun to be had in these short “Detective Chimp” stories, and I realize that Infantino himself said these were among his favorite comics work…but, seriously, that chimpanzee caricature crosses the line from “cartoony exaggeration” to “horrific freak of nature.”

from Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #18 (Nov/Dec 1954)
by John Broome & Carmine Infantino

So I was going through some comics, as, you know, I tend to find myself doing more often than not, and I happened upon one of these:

That’s an issue of Secret Weapons #11 (Aug 1994), which came sealed inside a manila envelope to prevent spoiling the surprise on the cover. Presumably it’s the reveal of new team members, though looking at the actual cover, I’m at a loss as to what characters those might be. In fact, I’m not sure why they went with the envelope at all, since I’m assuming that it was no surprise at the time that the team was getting new members, and the way the cover was designed, enough of the characters were obscured to perhaps spark some interest in who they were.

Well, okay, I do know why they went with the manila envelope…it’s a cover gimmick that made the book stand out on the stands, and this particular gimmick is one that stands out from the usual foil/die-cut/hologram covers you’d generally get.

Not that it helped, much…as I recall, it didn’t really fly off the shelves. In fact, I’m not sure it sold more than your typical issue of Secret Weapons usually did.

But it did remind me of another time Valiant Comics did the “obscuring the cover” trick, this time with Eternal Warrior #35 (Jul 1995), which had this warning sleeve over the regular cover:

Of course, what was actually on the cover was not nearly as bad as the warning made it sound:

…though I suppose the image of a severed arm may be seen as shocking and horrible to all those people who didn’t already see a bloodied severed arm in, oh, say, the original Star Wars movie:

…in other words, “virtually nobody.”** Again, it was much ado about nothing — just a gimmick to get someone to pick it up and look to see what the “graphic nature of this cover” actually entailed. (And it’s interesting to note that the warning wrapper doesn’t have “Eternal Warrior” anywhere on it.) But at this point in time, during the post-crash lull of the comics industry, anything that would get a potential customer to pick your book up off of a comic rack, thus bringing it one step closer to an actual purchase, was fair game. Most people, upon seeing what was actually on the cover, just sorta went “yeah, whatever,” and put it back…but I’m sure at least one or two people who picked up the comic to give it a little look-see kept it in their buy pile.

And of course, this too reminded me of other comics that have had the wraparound protective covering, but in these cases with a little more reason than Eternal Warrior had. Like this series from Slave Labor:

…an adult comic where most of the early issues came with a “plain brown wrapper,” a second cover that replaced (or partially censored) the image on the real cover. I thought this wasn’t a bad gimmick, with the “plain brown wrapper” element giving it sort of a self-aware bit of humor to the porn proceedings within. Not that the very title itself isn’t self-aware humor all by itself…er, so to speak.

There were other adult comics with double covers, like Howard Chaykin’s Black Kiss (though those tended to be cover-covering inserts in the polybags, rather than true double covers), and this infamous example:

If you want to see what was actually under that wrapper, I suggest you hie yourself hither to UGcomix.info and look it up, since it’s…pretty out there, and maybe a bit much for my more-or-less general audiences (well, maybe 13+) site. But trust me, it’s filthy, and NSFW if you do plan on looking for it. And it was apparently popular, too, since we have in our possession both a first printing (pictured above) and a fifth printing with a $2 cover price.

By the way, the UGcomix site itself may have a NSFW ad or two on the front page…but it’s really a great resource for underground comix information. You may even see a scan or two that I contributed over there.

* Shameless, I know.

** Okay, I’m sure someone out there is probably totally disgusted by seeing severed arms, and…okay, I don’t mean to disregard your opinion. But, in general, by normal standards in action/adventure entertainment, this particular image is not one that most people are going to have an issue with. I think. …I’m going to get e-mails from “People Against Severed Arms in Movies and Comics,” aren’t I?

Well, you knew it was coming, so let’s get it over with: more follow-up on the feedback to this “liveblogging” of Batman and Robin.

As noted previously in the comments, director Joel Schumacher was the target of some derision in an episode of the animated Batman series…you can see the brief scene in question right here. Pal Dorian notes

“That scene has always struck me as needlessly mean-spirited, and just over the line into outright homophobia.”

And yeah, it’s a bit over the top. You know, if it weren’t for the kid rubbing the pink feathered boa all over himself, the scene might have been fine as a swipe at Schumacher. But having him posing with the boa makes the scene read like “oh, and Schumacher is totally gay, too…let’s laugh at that!” It’s pretty crass.

Matt adds

“…The gay-bashing in that scene was totally uncalled for, especially because it tarnishes what is otherwise one of the best episodes in the animated series.”

What he said. It’s just this ugly little thing in the middle of some clever adaptations of Batman stories and styles, and it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Tim ponders

“I’m still a little surprised this film hasn’t become more popular with fans of bad films. Is it possible that it crosses the line from so-bad-it’s-good into so-bad-it’s-simply-unwatchable?”

Well, there was one fella I pointed out yesterday who enjoyed the film strictly for its comedic value. And I suspect there are more than a few people who’ll watch the film just for the sheer ridiculous slow-down-for-the-car-wreck feel of it.

CW asks, slightly off the B&R topic:

“Thirty-two responses? Mike, is that a record for your blog? I don’t ever remember seeing that many before, but I could be wrong.”

Oh, no, I’ve had several posts with far more than that. But I don’t tend to get a whole lot of comments, usually. Not like my internet chum Chris who can post “I farted,” and immediately get, like, 60 responses. Of course, some of those comments will be “why didn’t you sneeze instead” or “I liked your old farts better” or “why do you hate Strangers in Paradise,” so there you go.

Ah, insular humor for fellow webloggers. The snake is eating its own tail, friends. Let’s move on.

Rob says

“There is one thing that made Batman and Robin wonderful. It killed the comic movie franchise for a couple of years and made Hollywood take a long and serious look about how comic movies should NOT be made.”

There’s certainly something to that…Batman and Robin pushed things about as far as they can go, re: goofiness and “camp,” and by and large, everyone said “no, thank you, sirs” and rejected the film. So having reached the goofy ceiling, there’s nowhere to go but down. At least, that’s what we can hope.

Suedenim writes

“I actually think Schwarzenegger gets something of a bum rap for this movie… if only because I can’t imagine *anyone* doing much with the abominable material they give his character.”

Yeah…that’s why I’m willing to give Clooney a pass, too. There’s only so much you can do with what you’re given. But they did have their moments…after Arnie and Clooney have their final confrontation, with Batman simply talking to him…as I said previously, that was a reasonably solid scene from both actors aside from Arnie’s terrible “take two of these” line read. But Uma…she was trying to do “over-the-top sexy cartoon vamp,” and only succeeded in making me wish that almost anything else was on my sceen at those moments.

Jay V is trying to kill me:

“Mr Freeze lines that didn’t make it into the movie.

‘I’m hungry, lets have some chili.’
‘I’m freezed to meet you.’
‘You might say Batman and I are polar opposites.’
‘Don’t like the temperature in my hideout? Are you some sort of brrrly-man?’

“I’m freezed to meet you.” Oh, Jay.

And now, because things aren’t confusing enough…a couple of comments on comments for my post about comments.

First up is M.A., who says three things

“A) By posting on comments and allowing further comments on that post, you’ve proven that Batman and Robin is a perpetual blogging engine.”

Oh, God, let’s hope not.

“B) I think we can all agree that the third film, which introduced Robin, should have had the Batman and Robin title, while the fourth should have been Batman 4ever.”

That does seem like a bit of a missed opportunity. I remember people wondering about the “Forever” name (“for the 3rd film? Really?”) at the time the third film came out.

“C) The theater I saw it in was packed, and remained so. The movie didn’t make over 100 million (1997) dollars from elves, you know.”

…to which he adds that he isn’t arguing the movie’s good, just that it wasn’t entirely the unpopular flop people remember. And that’s a fair point…Batman still had enough draw to get people’s butts in seats, and it does amuse me slightly that so many people actually sat through this film. And depresses me that so many of them would likely never read a comic. Or certainly won’t after seeing this film.

Aqualad Knox strikes again:

“When we were in the theater watching Batman and Robin,my friends and I alternated between cringing in embarrassment and guffawing at the ineptitude up there on the screen.”

And that’s the other thing, perhaps tying into why, as Tim above wondered, this film didn’t become some classic of bad cinema. Perhaps the cringe quotient was just too high to allow for an enjoyable “bad movie” experience. That “burning shame” feeling for viewers on behalf of the film doesn’t sound like too much fun to me!

And finally, because I gotta stop at some point, Mercury727 has this to say:

“Comments on a blog post devoted to comments, how meta!”

Not the first time this sort of thing has happened here, and likely not the last time. BLOGGING EATS ITSELF.