24 September 2017

Len & Friends go Crazy, Crazy, Crazy

Sunday Morning Funnies time once again, and still dropping Odd bits from Len Wein after we lost him two weeks ago. So this time, let's go to Crazy #1...


Okay... That's not at all confusing. Just a little Crazy. Len's parody is in the 1973 black & white Crazy #1. But let's take the long way there, starting with 1953's Crazy #1-


The first tale in this Crazy features the only "Lace Cadet" i've ever encountered-


19 years later, we get another Crazy #1-


Oddly enough, the indicia in this issue gives copyright notice of reprints from the 1953 series, but the material seems to be all parodies of 1960s Marvel Titles. One might think they were reprinting from Not Brand Echh instead. The lead story from this version of Crazy #1 starred, as all the stories in this issue did, the ignoble Forbush Man!


A year later, they decided that really didn't work out any better than NBE, so they tried once more with the black & white magazine style of the other mental illnesses (Mad, Cracked, Sick, etc.,.)


Wait.... what..? That can't be...
GODHELL!!! That's a Kelly Freas painted cover to kick off the new title! How did this come about? In whose name do we burn offering for this?
Um...       excuse me.
I may have mentioned previously that Frank Kelly Freas, like Jack Kirby, was one of the Masters who inspired me to follow the path of the artist. (Artdo? YiShuJiaDao seems a bit unweildy... (and the combined brushwork on those 4 characters is overly busy and inelegant, too))
Y'know... I think i might be old man rambling again. And, speaking of old people - how many remember one of the first of the big Irwin Allen disaster movies that created the genre - The Poseidon Adventure?
I actually had the movie poster for this up on my wall, along with Planet Of The Apes and others. Back in them old days, you could just go to the theatre and ask the manager for the poster after the movie run was over. They were just going to throw it away, and you might get lobby cards and other promos, too. Develop a relationship with them, and you could even wind up with life-size lobby stand-ups.
I really don't think that happens much now. Not without cash changing hands.
Okay - rambling again...

Here's Len Wein's parody adaptation of the movie, with art by Ross Andru & Vic Martin, from our Crazy #1 number 3:






Bonus Oddity! Here's a satirical(?) view of the future from Harlan Ellison, with illustration from Basil Wolverton! They really weren't skimping on the talent for this first issue, were they?


And, simply because it took me this long to remember where this was and dig it out to prep for the VOO, and - what the heck - because Tony Isabella worked on this issue of Crazy, also, here's my favorite view of Len Wein as editor, from Giant-Size Chiller #3...

 ...and at the end of the book:
Another Oddly Enough remark - this issue reprinted the first story that Marvel published by Len Wein. (The Moving Finger Writes, from Tower Of Shadows #3 (1970))

Well, that was a long post.
And i'm all out of potatoes. Left them all in a barrel in Skyrim and they disappeared on me.

Here's a bear. They don't eat potatoes.


fun with bears by Frank Frazetta

23 September 2017

A Toast To One Man's Memory

Saturday Solutions was rather late after last night's Skyrim session ran right through posting time, followed by crash sleep. So here's an extra post - another tale from our recently departed Len Wein-


A Toast To No Man's Memory by Len Wein and John Severin for Creepy #121 (1980)

Saturday Solutionizing 010

Here are the answers to yesterday's puzzles, according to the book:




As the Mindbender astutely noted yesterday, according to these folks, Aphrodite's power was scoring on the first date?


Okay - how many of you are going to go look for the adventures of "the boy with the most comic books in America"?!


Why not call him Green Lamp then?


Kind of a cheat-y answer, huh?


...and we'll skip right past the arbitrary nature of the different answers to Superman and Captain Marvel, eh?


22 September 2017

Friday Fun & Games 010 - 60s Style

As you may well know, i only vote for Friday Night Fights, so instead around these parts we do


This week's FF&G is excerpted from an odd little book from 1966:


This was indeed an odd collection of trivia questions, ranging from the ridiculously easy to the WTF?
For example, the first question in the book is "What was Superman able to do to tall buildings?"
Others have become quite arcane over the ages - "What was the maiden name of Dick Tracy's wife?"
How many of you knew Dick Tracy had a wife? What was going on with Breathless Mahoney then? (still her best album)
We'll be coming back to play with this book again, so cheaters go find your copies now. For today, here's a few pages from early in the book for you to puzzle over:


As almost always, tune in tomorrow for the answers!

puzzle fun from The Great Comics Game by John Stanley & Mal Whyte (1966)