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Friday, February 23, 2007

This Is What Started Me As A Collector....
Mood:

celebratory
Topic: Comic Book History

This Is What Started Me As A Collector....

... of comic books.... Journey Into Mystery #72 from Atlas Comics, (Atlas evolved into what we know as Marvel Comics today).

Before I was given this comic book, all I had been reading were 'funnybooks' with an occasional National (Superman) comic book thrown in.

Journey Into Mystery #72 was cover dated September 1961, which would have made me nine years old. The title had started with issue #1 in June of 1952, which would have been a month older than I was.

What made this one issue stand out enough to make me start collecting comic books???

It was the artwork that did it for me. It was when I first truly realized that it was real people that drew these comics, in this case they were Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers, who signed their work 'Kirby/Ayers'.

Before this comic, all that I was aware of were the 'cookie cutter' artwork in funnybooks of Chilly Willy, Woody Woodpecker, Mickey Mouse, etc. The art from one artist to another was almost indistinguishable, and no one signed their names to the artwork... However the artwork of this Journey Into Mystery was so far different from what I was used to, that I immediately looked for more by the Kirby/Ayers team and kept the book in better shape!

I didn't have too long to wait... as Kirby drew Fantastic Four #1 for the November 1961 cover date, which I picked up after seeing Fantastic Four #3 from March 1962 where the FF wore costumes for the first time!

It was unusual that this comic was given to me as it was a 'monster' comic, which probably would have been thought to give me 'nightmares', but I am glad that it was given to me and that it started my lifelong collecting bug of collecting comics!!!

I was fortunate to meet Jack Kirby at the SDCC before he passed away, and to have met Dick Ayers at Wonder-Con and the SDCC a few times through the years. They were definitely the great guys I thought them to be when I was a kid!! Thanks Jack & Dick for the memories !!

For those interested in seeing more Jack Kirby comics, we have several in our eBay Featured Store and eBay Pro Store! Thanks for reading !!

Michael

Posted by makeitsomarketing at 5:11 PM PST

Updated: Friday, February 23, 2007 5:14 PM PST

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Get Smart !
Mood:

mischievious
Topic: TV Shows

No, That's Not A Command... It Was a Comic Book!

And a TV Show... and a Theatrical Movie.... and a Toy Line....

Originally 'Get Smart' was an American comedy television series. It satirized the then popular secret agent genre that was started by the James Bond novels and movies.
The 'Get Smart' TV show ran on the NBC television network from 1965 to 1969, and then on CBS from 1969 to 1970, airing a total of 138 different episodes!
It was such a hit that it was my high school English Teacher who requested my class to watch the show... which my folks didn't really believe was part of my high school 'homework' !!
The TV series, which was written and created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, won seven Emmy Awards and was also nominated for an additional fourteen Emmys and two Golden Globe Awards during its' long TV run.
Dell Comics published a comic book series for eight issues during 1966 and 1967, some of which were drawn by Steve Ditko, co-creator of the Amazing Spider-Man!
In 1980 the theatrically released 'The Nude Bomb' (also known as The Return of Maxwell Smart or Maxwell Smart and the Nude Bomb) was popular. Later the made-for-TV movie 'Get Smart, Again!' was shown in 1989 on the ABC network.
However, ABC lost out on a short lived 1995 weekly series when the FOX TV network aired 'Get Smart' with Don Adams and Barbara Feldon reprising their characters, as their bumbling son, Zach (Andy Dick), becomes CONTROL's new star agent.
As a historical footnote....with the final revival series on Fox, 'Get Smart' became the first television franchise to air new episodes on all of the current four major American television networks, NBC,CBS, ABC and then FOX!
For those wanting to 'Get Smart' or even close to being smarter, we have TV & Movie Comics in our eBay Featured Store and eBay Pro Store!

Michael

Michael Selling TV Show Comics at the San Diego Comic-Con in 1973 !

Posted by makeitsomarketing at 7:39 AM PST

Updated: Friday, February 23, 2007 7:45 AM PST

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Thursday, February 22, 2007

Time To Run For President..... Again ???
Mood:

mischievious
Topic: Comic Book Movies

OK... It's Been A While Since He Last Ran...

But Howard the Duck Ain't No Lame Duck !

Howard the Duck last ran for Prez back in 1976, as seen by the RARE Howard the Duck Campaign Button to the left.

Howard was originally just a comic book character, but became a movie star in the 1986 film produced by Lucasfilm and Universal Pictures, after his presidential campaign bid fizzled out...

The film about his life on Earth was directed by Willard Huyck from a script by Huyck and his wife Gloria Katz. The film starred Lea Thompson, Jeffrey Jones, Tim Robbins, and Chip Zien as the voice of Howard.

Supposedly the film was inspired by the Marvel Comics characters Howard the Duck and Beverly Switzler who were created by Steve Gerber, although their appearance and portrayals in the film almost completely ignored their original source material.

The film was widely panned by the critics and was a box office bomb and reviled by fans, but it renewed enough attention on the character for the Marvel Comics Group to keep Howard the Duck in the Marvel Universe as a Guest Star here and there....

So since Howard the Duck isn't as busy as he once was, perhaps it is time for us to draft him as a presidential candidate again! Instead of these early mud-slinging contests, Howard would excel at 'shaking the tail feathers' contests!! Especially since the Rock Band 'Kiss' has special interest in performing at his gigs, (See issues #12 & #13 of his first solo series).

For those interested in figuring out if Howard is truly the one to vote for, we have a few comic books about his early adventures in our eBay Featured Store and eBay Pro Store! Check them out and vote early (and often!!).

Michael

Posted by makeitsomarketing at 3:24 PM PST

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ANOTHER MARVEL MOVIE??? Namor the Sub-Mariner Is Swimming Your Way !!!
Mood:

lyrical
Topic: Comic Book Movies

Namor the Sub-Mariner... the Movie ... & Comics...

Namor the Sub-Mariner is a character featured in the Marvel Comics Universe, and is one of their oldest superheroes. The Sub-Mariner was created by writer-artist Bill Everett in the Spring of 1939 for Funnies, Inc., which was one of the first "packagers" in the early days of comic book publishing. Packagers would supply whole comic books on demand to publishers looking to enter the new medium without setting up their own shop.
The Sub-Mariner was created for a promotional comic, of which a few samples still exist. He was officially first published in Marvel Comics #1 (Oct. 1939), which was the first comic book from Timely Comics which was owned by Martin Goodman. Timely was the name of the 1930s-1940s predecessor of the company of which Marvel Comics is today.
During the Golden Age of Comic Books, the Sub-Mariner was one of Timely's top three characters, along with Captain America and the original Human Torch, (not the Torch of the Fantastic Four).
Namor was born to a human Sea Captain and a Princess of the undersea Kingdom of Atlantis. His powers were inheirited from his mother's side which had great strength and aquatic abilities.
The publicity that Namor has received since the 1940's is that he has alternately been portrayed as a short fused superhero, or as a hostile invader seeking vengeance against the surface dwellers for destroying his mother's realm.
Thus he was the first known comic book anti-hero. The movie in developement is supposed to play off the two sides of his origin, and is to be mostly an underwater film. The Magic of CGI !!
Tina thinks that Namor is one hot hunk, he is her favorite super-hero in the Marvel Universe.... even tho she thinks that Hugh Jackman makes an excellent Wolverine on the big screen ! So she is looking forward to the development of this film.

For those interested in comic book movies based on comic books, we have several thousand comics in both our eBay Featured Store and eBay Pro Store. Thanks for reading !! Michael (and Tina)

Posted by makeitsomarketing at 8:34 AM PST

Updated: Thursday, February 22, 2007 9:55 AM PST

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Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Jack Keller... Six-Gun Western Artist.........
Mood:

special
Topic: Comic Book History

Jack Keller... Six-Gun Western Artist.........

The comic book industry lost one of its most prolific artists of the 1950's and 1960's when Atlas/Marvel and Charlton Comics artist Jack Keller passed away on January 2, 2003 at the age of 80. Jack had a long comics career encompassing the years 1941-1973. He was best known for his long runs on two features in particular, the KID COLT, OUTLAW comic book title at Atlas/Marvel and the entire genre of hot rod and racing cars titles at Charlton Comics.
Jack was born on June 16, 1922 in Reading, Pennsylvania. He would spend most of his entire life there.
In 1950 Keller showed up at Stan Lee's office at Atlas Comics and would begin an association that would last the entire decade. Martin Goodman, owner of Atlas, had just instructed Stan Lee to fire the entire Bullpen and put everyone on freelance. Jack Keller showed up right at this moment and was immediately given work with stories for Western titles, early pre-code horror, crime comics and a few romance stories.
As 1953 came by, Jack added more horror and war stories to his credits, but the Western comic book that he had drawn since 1951, 'KID COLT OUTLAW', began to be his flagship title. When Stan Lee gave Jack the KID COLT feature in 1951 it was nothing more than another assignment but while other artists came and went on other various Atlas Westerns, Jack had never really 'left' Kid Colt and drew his adventures both in his own long running title and also in the anthology Western title 'Gunsmoke Western', right up to the Atlas implosion in the spring of 1957.
Throughout Jack's long run at Atlas he would continue to do Western back up stories, but his non-Western work practically vanished by 1955 as his entire output was dedicated to the Western comics genre.
Then in the spring of 1957 the infamous 'Atlas Implosion' left Jack and scores of artists without their main source of freelance income. Martin Goodman had lost his comics distributorship and had to pare down the Atlas Comics line from a high of about 70 comic titles a month to just 16 bi-monthly titles. Martin had to use the  distribution for his Atlas comic books from his major competitor, National's (Superman) distributor, Independent News, and Stan Lee began to use backlogged inventory for the remaining 8 books allowed per month for distribution.
Jack, who had always been a tremendous car buff, secured employment at a car dealership in his home of Reading, but almost immediately the Western comics back inventory ran out and Stan called back his Western artists, Joe Maneely, Jack Keller and Dick Ayers. Jack would return to the Kid Colt Outlaw title, but time constraints limited his work to some degree. Stan Lee would call back additional Western artists to help out, especially with the tragic death in 1958 of his star artist Joe Maneely, and slack in the Western books was picked up by other artists like Jack Davis and John Severin. By 1962 Atlas Comics was known as Marvel Comics.
Realizing like other artists, that having a second comic publisher account would be a good thing, Jack also secured Western and war scripts from Charlton Comics in comic book titles like Billy the Kid, Cheyenne Kid, Fightin' Marines, Battlefield Action, Fightin' Air Force, and Submarine Attack among others.
A long professional association with Charlton's editor Dick Giordano ensued and by 1959 Jack turned his love of cars and racing into a long writer/artist tenure on the title 'Hot Rods and Racing Cars' which lasted until 1973. Jack would also add other hot rod titles over the years like Hot Rod Racers, Drag n' Wheels and World of Wheels to his Charlton Comics work.
It was by 1967 that Jack had finally left Stan Lee and Marvel Comics for good and would then work nearly exclusively for Charlton until 1973. It was shortly thereafter that Marvel would go reprint only in their western titles. Jack retired from drawing and writing comics and went back to selling cars and indulging his hobby of model cars and die cast car models.
I would have to say that the main reason for Kid Colt Outlaw being my favorite Marvel Western Comic was due to Jack's artwork. It was a mainstay during my reading of the comic book and I looked forward to the continuity of the comic book artwork. When the title went all reprint I stopped picking it up off the newstands.

For those interested in western comic books inlcuding Jack's work on Kid Colt and more, we have several hundred in our eBay Featured Store and eBay Pro Store.

Michael

Michael Selling Marvel Westerns at the San Diego Comic-Con in 1973 !

Posted by makeitsomarketing at 8:06 AM PST

Updated: Friday, February 23, 2007 7:47 AM PST

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