The Mysterious Origin Of Super Baby

So - how do you think Super Baby came to be?

If you said he's an alien who rocketed to Earth as an infant or a media whore who broke a nation for personal profit, you're thinking about the wrong Super Baby.

We're talking about the other Prince Of Wails, this kid -

Our confusion over his origins stems from the simple fact that they published more than one!

There's this one...

...and then there's this one...
 

To heap on an extra dollop of odd confusion, the stories were published by different companies. The first origin is from Timely's Comedy Comics and the second from Baily's Cisco Kid. I've got no clue how or why that happened, and there is no record of who created/wrote/drew the strip.

It would be another half dozen years before Superbaby (one word) started appearing in Superboy, and a half dozen more before Super Baby was left on Clark Kent's doorstep.

Super Baby had just a dozen stories before fading into comic limbo.

page art by ??? from Comedy Comics # 13, Krazy Komics #s 8-13, and Cisco Kid #1 (1943, 1944)

Sleeper's Dance I-III

Okay - i changed the background to that painting, but wound up repainting it all because i also changed things up a bit. I wet the paint more and softened up the brush with a cluster so tight it was just this side of painting with q-tips.

And i kind of went into a painting frenzy - finishing all three paintings in quick succession. (As always with fresh works, "finishing" and "finished" are subject to later review and revision after time and sleep).

However, you'll have to step into the back room if you want to see them. While i could get away with posting I & II up front (though perhaps pushing it), III and the assembled triptych would definitely offend the blog authorities. 
Here's a direct link to the post.

stuff by -3- (2020)

Rockin' With Ed

Well, i didn't think we'd be getting back to Ed Wheelan for a bit. And when we did, i thought we'd be going to the Circus. But... nope. When i sat down this morning to do a post, the brain went cave crawling.

So - let's take a gander at Rockhead McWizzard - The Stone Age Genius. You didn't think it was only boy genius/inventors that appealed to me, did you?

Rockhead wasn't around for very long - fewer that a dozen and a half adventures. He premiered in Flash Comics cover dated June 1946, with an almost simultaneous second appearance in Green Lantern's June/July issue. Aside from that GL, he also appeared in one issue of Wonder Woman, one issue of All-Flash Comics, and two issues of All-Star Comics. Beyond that, he had stories in about a dozen issues of Flash, appearing throughout 1946, then irregularly for a few more tales, always three pages short. (It seems wrong to use the word 'long' with only 3 pages)

Here are his first half dozen appearances from Flash Comics -

Rockhead McWizzard, ladies and gentlemen - the inventor of the Hot Bath!

page art by Ed Wheelan from Flash Comics #s 71-76 (1946)

Sleeper's Dance Sleeping

Hmm...

Seems to be getting light out. Didn't notice - i've been up painting all night. More than ready to crash now, and not really certain when i'll wake again.

So, in case i'm not up in time to decide on a topic and prep the pages for a post, here's what i've been working on. I think it's close to finished, but never know what'll run through my head when i view it fresh after sleeping. 

I started out last evening working on the next Alyce painting with her ascent of the glass beanstalk. I made good progress, getting quite close to painting - but then the ol' brain took off on its own again and this popped out.

It's entitled Sleeper's Dance I -

-and yes, the next two are trying to get out of my head now. 
And, Bonus! I can use these to make promotional posters for the Lullaby Festival they hold to keep the Big Guy sleeping in The Third Colony.

Okay. That taken care of, i feel covered and can sleep without concern for when i wake.

I mean, y'know - as long as i do wake.
I guess...

UPDATE: Nope.
Now that i'm awake and look again, i don't like the background at all. This piece started out with a concept of clean, solid colours on stark black. But along the way i decided to contrast the levels by doing fades that were contained with sharp edges. Don't like it today - and the eyes seem wrong. Isn't he supposed to be sleeping?

So, repainting the background before i move on to the next one.

art by -3- (2020)

Random Reads

Today's Saturday?

When did that happen? (Obviously, right after Friday, but...) I thought it was maybe Thursday when i noticed the day, and now i'm feeling all off-kilter.

While i'm sorting the confusion, let's just go random. We've got three stories this morning with only one major connecting thread - they're all from personal favorite artists whose work i enjoy and admire, listed in lazy alphabetic order: Gene Colan, Dick Briefer, and Jack Kirby.
(How is that Alphabetic order? It's Lazy Alphabetic order - they're listed in the order of the titles in which they appeared so that i don't have to rename or re-order the images. Lazy.)

There is one other connection - they're generally a bit different from what you might typically expect to see from the artists.

Okay - i'm off. (as we know)
I'm giving up on knowing when i am and heading off into Alyce's glass wonderland for another painting. Don't need to know time there.

page art by Dick Briefer, Gene Colan, and Jack Kirby from Amazing Detective Cases #9, Crime Does Not Pay #37, and Foxhole #3 (1945, 1951, 1955)