Saturday Solutions - Marvel Xword Trip

I usually wind up creating new images for the answers to most puzzles of this nature, but i liked the original enough to just try to clean it up to a usable level. The reason being that nice logo they plopped into the Hulk's space -

This week's puzzle came to us from the very first issue of F.O.O.M., back in 1973.
My apologies for not providing time frame for the puzzle yesterday when you were working on it.

puzzle & answers from FOOM # 1 (1973)

The "Other" Fly Girl

One of our ongoing topics around here is Fly Girls. When we use the term, it's referring to female comic characters who are aviators and, usually, adventurers. Usually, but not always. Previously we've looked at Jet Dream And Her Stunt-Girl Counterspies, Gale Allen And The Girl Squadron, Connie Kurridge, Flyin' Jenny, Canteen Kate, and Sky Girl.

Before we land on any others, let's pause a moment to look at one who wears the name  - Fly Girl.
The Fly was a superhero from Archie comics. One who was clever enough to think, "Hmm... Maybe a female sidekick would be better than a kid in shorts." And, so - Fly Girl.

For a quick look at the character and how she was portrayed, here's a trio of Fly Girl back-up tales from 1962, written by Robert Bernstein with art by John Giunta -

pages by Robert Bernstein and John Giunta for Pep #s 153 & 158 and Laugh # 136 (1962)

FF&G - Spectacular Marvel Xword Trip

As is likely rather obvious to anyone who reads this blog for any length of time, my mind tends to wander where it pleases, often heedless of my attempts to herd it toward my preferences. This week's edition of Friday Fun & Games is a result of that.

I started prepping this puzzle way back in August, during the first week of the King Kirby 100. Then my mind went off and designed that KK100 Crossword Challenge instead and left this sitting in the To-Do pile. Not entirely a bad thing - the puzzle came out well enough that it went off to the Kirby Museum and Kirby Collector magazine, but this old Marvel crossword challenge sat languishing and wasted.

I finally To-Did...

Due to the text size, those pages are double the usual width for easier reading when clicked upon.
And, like the puzzle says, see tomorrow's Saturday Solutions for the answers.

see tomorrow's Saturday Solutions for puzzle source (too)

Meet The Blanks

As we learned in the previous post, Meet The _______ was a strip appearing in Tinkle, the comic from India, which focused on a different creature in each episode. (Usually Fauna, but not always.) Last time i promised a collection of those strips, so let's jump right in.
All these strips were scripted by Ashvin and illustrated by Pradeep Sathe, whose work we saw on a few strips earlier today.

I mentioned plants getting coverage, but not just any plant. Unlike the animals, this one is written by S.M. Almeida, with artwork from J.P. Irani -

page art by Pradeep Sathe and J.P. Irani for Tinkle #s 5, 6, 14, 16, 19, 20, 22, 28, & 50 (1981-1984)

More Twinkles From Tinkle

In many ways, Tinkle, the children's comic from India at which we've been peeking, reminds me of old UK children's comics. The mix of fables and adventures with history and science strips felt quite familiar when first encountering the magazine. Beyond the folk tales mentioned earlier, they also often touched on things close to me in some way, like one of my heroes growing up - Benjamin Franklin...

Have i babbled on about Sun WuKong at all yet? Even those not fans of his tales are likely somewhat familiar with The Monkey King with all the movies that have been made touching upon the legends. (He was even the focus of the movie that brought Jackie Chan and Jet Li together. (And the character played by Jet))
But if you're a fan, before too long you're likely to encounter Hanuman. Hanuman came first, and it is said that Sun WuKong is a later incarnation. So before you go bury yourself in Journey To The West, maybe take a look at the roots of The Monkey King. And here, we have the roots of Hanuman himself, with Ram Waeerkar back once again for the artwork...

As mentioned above, Tinkle included comics featuring history and science - and sometimes both combined...

In the early days, Tinkle had a regular feature i enjoyed called Meet The _______. Each strip focused on a different animal, or sometimes even a plant. They ran from 2-4 pages, and covered a wide variety of creatures, ranging from Chickens and Worms to Pangolins and Tigers.

Here's a sample with Meet The Tiger...

We'll be back this afternoon with more Meet The _______ comics from Tinkle.
See you then.

page art by Pradeep Sathe and Ram Waeekar from Tinkle #s 4, 5, 13, & 14 (1981, 1982)