Showing posts with label Dick Giordano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dick Giordano. Show all posts

17 August 2020

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)

15 January 2020

In The Company Of Ditko

I noted last that i had been getting sidetracked a bit by the folks with whom Steve Ditko was co-working back in the period i was mining (the mid-50s). A good way to lead into that might be through a few of the stories drawn by others for which Ditko drew the covers.

For example, here's Steve Ditko's cover for This Magazine Is Haunted #16 -



...and for the story, we've got Shelly Moldoff...



On Space Adventures #11, we get a Ditko cover...


...for a story drawn by Joe Shuster and Dick Giordano!


And on rare occasion, we get it the other way around. On Daring Love #1 we get a cover from Bernard Bailey...


...for a tale drawn by Ditko...


Appropriate to the types of tales we've been looking at, it's time for an odd Twist Ending!

That's not Joe Shuster at all.
<Dramatic Fanfare>

According to One Who Generally Knows (Martin O'Hearn), that's actually Bill Molno ghosting for Joe. Here is Martin's article Joe Shuster's Charlton Ghost on his site, Who Created The Comic Books?.

Damn. Even when we get credits, we still don't know who did it.

page art by Steve Ditko, Sheldon Moldoff, and Bill Molno for Daring Love #1, Space Adventures #11, and This Magazine Is Haunted #16 (1953, 1954)

19 June 2018

Sue & Sally - Honorary Fly Girls

Today we look at a forgotten nomination for Fly Girl status - Sue And Sally Smith - Flying Nurses:


The Smith sisters, Sue and Sally, were billed as Flying Nurses and, indeed, they did a lot of flying...









A lot of flying, especially given they only had seven issues. (And we're not showing all of their flights here). The girls were both adventurers, no denying that. Let's take a look at the cover featured tale from their first issue - #48. (Yeah...  comics) ...


 You might note that Sue and Sally come with a mighty fine pedigree - stories were usually pencilled by Joe Sinnott, often with Vince Colletta's inks, and covers were by Dick Giordano. This was back in late '62 and early '63 - just shortly before Joe was to begin his legendary run with Jack Kirby on Fantastic Four.

Now, while the sisters were not pilots, they did fly into danger and were willing to leave the plane to do it...


...but it's their adventure in #52 that offers the most convincing argument...


When the pilot's out, they land the plane together.
Yep. I'm calling it in their favour - Sue & Sally may not technically be Fly Girls, but we're giving the Flying Nurses HFG* status. They earned it.

Here's a couple more covers - one for the first story above, and the one that goes with the parachuting splash -




story pages by Joe Sinnott and Vince Colletta from Sue And Sally Smith, Flying Nurses #s 48 & 52. (1962, 1963)