Sunday Super Funnies Timewarp

Wasn't i here before? I don't think you were with me last time. Now we're late with the Sunday Funnies!
Who can we turn to for help?
How about - a Sunday Superman Selection!

That comes from Wally Wood way back in the days when Mad was a color comic book, before relaunching as a black & white magazine to escape Comic Code tyranny. The cover, by Harvey Kurtzman, from that issue (#4):

Now let's shift to more modern comics, via the web.

Our first is modern in origin, but actually older in design aesthetic. It comes from Kerry Callen, and you can find more of his Super Antics on his blog.

Superman/Batman fun from the Brazilian Dragonarte site:

That last one looks like the URL ends in .bk - it's actually .br (Brazil)

And to make sure i'm not inundated by Batfanatics, here's a counterpoint from Nebezial:

comics from Mad #4 (1953) and attributed websites (see links)

Dark Shadows (Not THAT One)

Back before it was a TV show, Dark Shadows was a comic book. At first glance, they might seem rather similar...

But, damn...    Things got a little different inside...

Still. I would have watched that tv show. Sadly, the GCD has no clue who wrote or drew this tale.

Don't Be A Stumbling Spook from Dark Shadows #2 (1958)

Saturday Solutions 008

Here's the key to yesterday's puzzle:

Puzzle & Solution from Marvel's Fun & Games #10 (1980)

A Web Of Words - Friday Fun & Games 008

It's fairly amazing how pain can distort one's sense of the passage of time. Only late in the evening does it finally occur to me that today is Friday! It's time for

 Fortunately, we have a puzzle on stand-by! It's a simple work fill puzzle-

It's also a good thing we've only got 3 readers, or someone might've gotten upset.

Yeah, like i'm going to tell you where to look for the answers. Come back tomorow

Modern Advertising

Advertising has changed a lot over the years. I'm just not sure if it's getting better or worse. Half of these ads are fake, half are real.
The line seems a bit thin at points...

 Especially with promo lines like We've Got BIG ONES

 

Of course, these people have since re-purposed as online schools to suck up public education funding.

That's a lot closer to the 'real' version of this ad campaign than one might suspect.

One Dollar for a BB Machine Gun? No way that's a real ad, right?

ads from Crazy, Man, Crazy #s 1 & 2, My Greatest Adventure # 13, Fantastic Four #36, and Man Comics #5

One dax, Two dax...

You know who i miss?

Paradax and Zenith pretty much had the 80s superhero scene covered. (But we'll stretch the definition and make room for Tank Girl & Johnny Nemo anyway)

Paradax by Milligan & McCarthy from Strange Days and The Best Of Milligan & McCarthy (pure 1980s)

King Kirby 101

Got knocked down with dental infection and abscessed tooth for the holiday weekend, so wasn't able to prepare this planned final post on Saturday as planned. But, we're here now thanks to the miracle of Clyndamycin Hydrochloride and Hydrocodone.

If you're a Jack Kirby collector, there's a magazine named for you. The most useful reference for the King Kirby 100 comes from the same people. If you're not already familiar with TwoMorrows publishing, you'll definitely want to visit their site. For comics collecting in general, they're great. For Jack Kirby fans, they're uniquely unparalleled. For almost a quarter century, since the year we lost The King, they've published  the Jack Kirby Collector magazine. It's packed with Kirby features, art, interviews, essays, strips, and surprises on a constant basis. Assuming the site layout hasn't changed by the time you're reading this, here's a direct jump to the magazine.
And then there's this beauty:

If you're looking to collect Kirby, this Jack Kirby Checklist not only lists what comics he worked on, but also indicates which covers, stories, features, etc.,. It denotes when Jack is writing, it lists & cross-references reprints and other related appearances. Here - take a look at the basic entry Key:

There are appendixes with listings of other works by and about Kirby in other media. There are historical annotations to individual issues/stories. They even attempt to index all of Jack's unpublished work.
If you're hunting Jack Kirby, this is your treasure map.

If you're a Kirby Fan and not already familiar with it, there's a Jack Kirby Museum. It's a small organization, but quite dedicated to archiving the history of King Kirby, and are a good way to track ongoing events, such as the recent New York show for Jack's birthday. The site also hosts a few Jack Kirby blogs focusing on different aspects of his career and influence. Being a small organization means they are generally in constant need of funding. That means that you can find new and unique Kirby merchandise offered up for your support. So even if you don't want to study Kirby's effect on modern comics, you still might want to direct a little attention their way.

If you're looking to go hunting through old golden age comics to find your own Kirby treasures, there are a couple of digital archives on the web that may be of interest to you. Comic Book Plus and The Digital Comic Museum. Both archive and index public domain comics with free access to any who register. There are also the un-curated wilds of the Internet Archive, which is a general knowledge pool in which the comics are a small splash. On the other hand, they also archive things like old half-dime pre-pulps from the 19th century, so the digging can pay off nicely if you're interests are eclectic enough.

To close things out, and - for those not really aware - give an idea of the impact that The King had upon the comics industry as a whole, let's go back 21 years to 1986. Amazing Heroes magazine was having their 100th issue and decided to dedicate the entire issue to Jack, creating the first King Kirby 100. They asked industry pros for their thoughts on Kirby, and these next 17 pages are only a part of the response:

(For anyone seeking to track information in that last credits box, 22 was the number of the first page in this sequence.)

We may have lost Jack, but he's still with us, shaping influencing and shaping our dreams through his influence on others. And as we move into the future, he'll be waiting for us there, too.

Jack Kirby Tribute pages from Amazing Heroes #100 (1986), Captain America pin-up by Jack Kirby for Marvel Treasury Special #1 (1976)

Tooth Be Told...

Finally have some real pain killers and, perhaps more importantly, antibiotics in system and should be much more functional before too long. Perhaps we'll even have a more substantial post later in the day.
But, for now, still in pain and exhausted from the trek into town, and across, and back again so this is being prepped before the crash.
I need a superhero. But who could a poor dental victim call upon?

Okay - forget the superhero idea. My tooth hurts even more just thinking about chewing.
Here's a couple representative visuals - Toothless and Toothache Nights:

Captain Tootsie by Bill Schreiber from Mystery In Space #1 (1951), Toothless and Toothache Nights by -3-