Covering Out Of This World

This machine is still limping along without hard drive, running off of USB sticks. But it's actually the least impediment to posting lately. My mind is scuttling away from the outside world, making focusing on the posts more difficult, but fighting my way past that, too.

And then there's Blogger's 'upgrade' and the thoroughly frelled image uploads. That's a killer. It was only on the last attempt before giving up for the day that it finally upped the images for this post.

So, my apologies for the gaps lately - i'm working on it, but others are working against it. Hopefully things will smooth out soon.

Meanwhile, since the brain doesn't want to focus on wordly bits much, lets take a look at some covers. Out Of This World only had 16 issues between 1956 - 1959. That run of fewer than a dozen & a half issues sure produced a number of nice covers, don't you think...?

Of course, it never hurts to have Steve Ditko on your team.

cover art by Bill Molno, Steve Ditko, Maurice Whitman, Pat Masulli, Rocco Mastroserio, Charles Nichola, Vince Alascia, and Dick Giordano from Out Of This World #s 1-16 (1956, 1959)

Busting Out Of This World

With Trump Flu lurking out there, seeing new things can be tricky. Fortunately, there's lots and lots of old things to dig into, eh?

One of the oldest figures in comics was Buster Brown, the 'younger child' of R.F. Outcault, the father of the Yellow Kid. Buster had great longevity. Debuting in 1902, the newspaper strip lasted for 20 years. But, if you know the name Buster Brown (and his dog Tige), it's probably not from the old newspaper comics. Only two years after he premiered, the Brown Shoe Company hooked up with Buster for an association that lasted into the '90s.

In the 1940s & '50s, Buster got into comic books, like pretty much everybody else. They were primarily promotional comics for shoe stores, similar to Bob's Big Boy comics, like those we saw for Li'l Genius not too long ago...

(Contrary to rumours, Buster did not grow up to be Captain Kangaroo)

Unlike Big Boy, Buster Brown enjoyed popular stardom outside of the free comics. And not just in the regular comics from Dell. Buster was the star of a series of live-action film shorts, a Broadway play, a radio series, and a tv series. And, of course, many years of commercials for the shoes.

And it surely didn't hurt his popularity that those comic books could actually be a lot of fun. And a bit delightfully deranged.

From just over 60 years ago, here's Out Of This World -

Alas, both writer and artists are unknown.

page art from Buster Brown in "Out Of This World" (1959)

Show Me, Joe!

Earlier this week we took a gander at Judo Joe, and i said we'd get back to see his 'gimmick' - well, here we are. Joe's gimmick was proclaimed on every cover (all 3 of 'em): A Complete Judo Lesson In Each Issue! -

Inside each issue we got a two-page lesson in self-defense (Only Self-Defense!) -

Of course, while Joe made it a prominent feature, he wasn't the only Judo instructor in the comics...
 

But, really - the Black Hood preferred to teach Karate...
 

I'm pretty sure this all eventually led to How To Defend Yourself The Marvel Way. But i couldn't swear to it...

page art by Paul W. Stoddard, John Rosenberger, and John Giunta for Judo Joe #s 1-3, Adventures Of The Fly #s 25, 27, & 29, and Adventures Of The Jaguar #s 12-14 (1953, 1959, 1963)

Not Quite SMF

Continuing with yesterday's theme - more Sunday Morning Funnies, kinda sort of. It's not Sunday morning any more*, and they're not quite...

Well, see for yourselves -

Wait a minute! This is supposed to be Sunday Morning Funnies. Shouldn't we have some colour?

Hmm...

I think we can do better than that... 

That's better. 
One more time!
 

Are we all feeling funnified now?

page art by Don Orehek, Bill Elder, and ???

for Zany #s 1 & 3, Nuts #4, and Panic #8 (1954, 1955, 1958, 1959)

*(This post was originally scheduled for 12:03pm. I got tired of waiting)