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)

Scatterday Morning Post

Apparently today is Scatterday. Every time i try to focus on something, thoughts skitter off in multiple directions. I've started three different posts this morning, and the ol' peripatetic brain wandered off in the middle of each.

So, let's go back and check in with some old faves.

What's Don Newton up to...?

Umm...

Maybe it's not a good time?

I'll try again later.

damnfoolery by Don Newton from Return Of The Skyman (1987)

Behind Alyce

As planned, i went back to review the first Alyce painting yesterday morning. I did indeed find fixes that needed doing, but i didn't do them. I will.

I'll get back to those corrections at the same time i'm making another pass on the second painting in the series...

Yeah, now things start to get a little odd...

art by -3- (2020)

Seeing Eye Comics

So, i was chatting with the Mindbender (from a more than social distance) about some of the old Centaur comics line and i mentioned that i was using one of their characters in The 3rd Colony. 

Eventually, it occurred to me that we had yet to see that character here, even though it was one of the great ODD characters of the Golden Age. So let us turn back to 1939 and gaze upon The Eye.

I'm not going to try to describe or summarize The Eye for you. Here are the first three tales by Frank Thomas from Keen Detective Funnies and you can see for yourself -

 

As you can see, the Eye was an interesting character, but rather limited in dramatic character interaction for an ongoing series. However, i thought that as a mysterious guide, aid, and plot mover, The Eye might work rather well in a video game context.

Or maybe it's just more clutter in project.
Either way, i rather like The Eye, or Detective Eye as it was sometimes known (like in its own title).

Here's is the cover to the 3rd tale above -

I expect we'll be seeing more of The Eye - maybe quite soon.

page art by Frank Thomas from Keen Detective Funnies #s 16-18 (1939, 1940)