Groovy Groupings

I recently made note of a couple of variations on a theme from DC back in the Groovy Age - the classic 'a boy, his bike, and his guitar' scene -

The theme was a popular one of the era, so it's not surprising to see it crop up repeatedly. Sometimes, however, it was more of a group scene...

Gold Key was looking to tap into the generation gap zeitgeist with light comedy and 'far out' perspectives, such as Lump's own little reality here -

How do Modniks fit into society?
Like so...

Find your own moral in that tale.

Of course, instead of linking the Modniks to the boy-bike-guitar theme, it would probably be more accurate to compare them to another DC title from the same year (1967) as the Modniks, the Maniaks...

...right no down to adventures on the pier.

But, this is The Voice Of ODD!, after all, so we're not going to look at the Maniaks right now. Instead, we're going to the text feature from that issue of Showcase, explaining the existence of the the group...

Yeah, it was weird times in the Groovy Age...

pages from The Modniks #1 and Showcase #68 (1967)

Another notable figure to come out of the SFCA (Science Fiction and Comics Association, publisher of Rocket's Blast Comic Collector) was Don Newton.

If his name is not familiar to you, that's because Don got his big break in comics back in 1975, and he's another of those artists we lost too young, only nine years later. Before we touch on his professional career, let's look at some of his work in early 70s comic fandom from the above mentioned RBCC and Ronn Foss's Golden Age zine.

I think these are two of the earliest illustrations we have here today, from the first year he started to submit to the fanzine -

 

If Newton's artwork looks remarkably polished for his first months of submitting artwork, that's because Don is another who proves the foolishness of the notion that "those who can't, teach - those who can, do" notion. By this time he had been teaching art at Arizona State for a decade and a half. When his love of comics was re-ignited, he went and did.

Here's he recreation of a scene from Master Comics #27

Personally, i like Don's version better than the original. Most of you are probably too young to make the comparison, so here's some reference for you:

Let's take a gander at some of his zine covers, shall we?

It's not hard to see how it didn't take too long for Don to find professional work once he decided he was ready. He wasn't just doing covers and illustrations, he was also working on his story telling skills with his The Savage Earth series in RBCC:

Hopefully, i'll run some of this later. But currently i haven't been able to dig out two consecutive chapters from my scattered collection. (A similar hunt has been underway for sequential chapters of the series by John Adkins Richardson, our previous teacher. Having a bit more luck with the hunt for Maxor Of Cirod)

I skipped a few significant covers along the way. Here are the first two -

You may recall that one of Don's first submissions featured the classic Captain Marvel. He obviously had great love for the character, and for RBCC Special #8 he also provided this 2 page retelling of the World's Mightiest Mortal's origin story:

...as well as this lovely shot of Dr. Sivana...

The Captain Marvel portrait appearing above the covers was used to announce that Don Newton would be working on DC's new Captain Marvel revival with Cap's original creator, C.C. Beck. That's a helluva good way to get your career going, wouldn't you think?

Here's another cover we skipped:

I always loved the concept of The Phantom as a multi-generational superhero maintaining the illusion of an Immortal. So it came as a rather rude surprise to me when Groovy enlightened me, via a 10 year old post, of his Charlton issues of The Phantom that i somehow missed completely. Right from the first issues we get his cover paintings...

...and Don drawing the lead feature...

By the time he left, barely over a half dozen issues later, he had taken over completely -

There's a great cover for that issue shown on Groovy's post linked above.

I may have missed Don Newton's short tenure on The Phantom, but others did not. We'll let Don tell it from this profile featured in World's Finest Comics #272 -

all art except Master Comics #27 by Don Newton for Golden Age, RBCC, and The Phantom (1968-1972)

Captain Marvel Jr art by Mac Raboy for Master Comics #27 (1942)

The Empire Strikes Ken

The last issue i ever saw of Rocket's Blast Comic Collector was #152. That issue didn't come out until 1982. By that time conventions were commonplace and the dealer's room aspect of the zine had faded away, no longer serving a vital need. Now there were more articles and artwork, and it was the first "New Look" issue with all of the content now typeset, leaving behind the old unpolished zine feel.

I like to think that the RBCC continued for a good while after that time but, as i said, i never saw more issues. I'm not sure if i saw any further issues of James Van Hise's other zine, Enterprise Incidents either. Around that time life was pretty strange with young children and multiple jobs and job changes - it was still a few years before artist became my full-time occupation. (I think i was working as an electronics tech about that time, but i've mentioned how tenuous my relationship with time is previously) So conventions tapered off around then, and i lost my window on that world.

Anyway...  What we're doing here today is a little mini-comic that appeared within the aforementioned issue - The Empire Strikes Mitch. Mitch being artist Ken Mitchroney, a semi-regular contributor in those days to both magazines, who decided to have fun with a bunch of Star Wars cartoons.

If you're wondering why you haven't seen more of Ken's work - you probably have.
His designs, storyboards, and animations can be seen in many places over the last few decades in places like Tiny Toon Adventures, Mosters, Inc., Toy Story 2, Shrek 2, The Lego Movie...  lots of places. And, last i knew, he was a supervising director for Cartoon Network.

So, he's a little busy for the comics these days.

pages by Ken Mitchroney for RBCC #152 (1982)