Confusing Time Travel or Rex Havoc & The Missing Magic Trick

Today, let us travel back to 1984 in 1978. As confounded as that might sound, it's actually pretty simple - the year was 1978, the comics appeared in Warren's 1984 magazine.

When a series opens with "You will never see anything more horrible than a boy's dead dog return from the grave to bite its young master's face off" one might immediately suspect that things are going to get a bit strange. And then when you see who's doing it, fun strange can be expected.

The team of Jim Stenstrum and Abel Laxamana, who we've seen previously with their Joe Guy: America's Foremost Hero, bring us another odd hero - Rex Havoc. As you might suspect from the opening statement, our hero lives in a world of monsters and denizens of the unknown.

Let's take a look, shall we?

Unsurprisingly, Rex Havoc's adventures were gathered together into a reprint magazine -
 

But! They skipped the second tale since they only had 72 pages, and this one was another 14 pages long. However, in so doing, they jumped right past the great magic trick, in which Abel and Jim turn a carrot into a potato -

That blurb should read "NEXT: The Scroll Of RA-Sisboom-Bah" but i guess the old Egyptian censors didn't like the nudity.

page art by Abel Laxamana for 1984 #s 4 & 5 (1978, 1979)

No, It Was NOT Comics Code Approved

While gathering some bits on one Odd hero about whom i wanted to talk, i noticed a rather egregious error in the Grand Comics Database.

According to their entries, Captain Klep (originally from Dave Angus, Nick Landau, and personal favorite Kevin O'Neill) only appeared in 4 issues of Tornado before it merged with 2000 AD.

I beg to differ -

It would be more accurate to say that the Captain appeared in all but 4 issues of Tornado. You'd still be wrong - but not by much. He was in, or rather - on the back cover of - all but 5 issues.

back page art from Tornado #s 1-7, 9, 12-18, 20, & 22 (1979)

Okay Now Mister! I Want The TRUTH!

Meanwhile...

You can frequently track what i'm doing by what appears on this blog. Though i may plan things, what really happens is i just tend to record where my brain wanders. So, when it kind of just stops - well, you get weeks like the one just passed. I tend to think most folks don't want to read the blog page equivalent of a dial tone. (Do they still have those? It's been so long since i touched a phone, and they've changed so much, i have to wonder...)

Anyway, while not doing tremendously better at the moment, i have managed to dig into some of those 'plan' piles to prep some work. Just a little bit back, in July, i made mention that we should look more at Eddie Eddings' work. If you don't recall, or never saw that post, it was the toon with Superman commenting on Jimmy wearing pink, too, that triggered the mention.

I believe i also made mention of him taking on some of the art chores for Don Rosa's Information Center, too -

Those columns were, of course, for the Rocket's Blast Comic Collector, wherein all of today's artwork appeared back in 1978 & '79. Some of these are deeply enmeshed in the times, others one could drop in an orange hairball and run them today -

If you were perhaps wondering what some more traditional comic book art would look like from Eddie, here he is working with Kerry Gammill...

...and by himself -

Okay, that's about it. I'm exhausted and gonna stop wrangling the beast for a bit...

art by Eddie Eddings from RBCC #s 141-149 (1978, 1979)