My Favorite Caveman

I started building towards this topic a little over two years ago. Regular readers know the struggle, but we've finally wrangled the beast back around this way...

One of Jack Kirby's many great concepts was the inception of the Inhumans (and similarly the Eternals & Deviants). Highly advanced alien races experimenting on emerging Humanity to see what they can make from the raw clay of Man. (the species, not the sex)

In 1975, over at Gold Key Comics, a new caveman comic crawled up on the shore - Don Glut and Jesse Santos teamed up like peanut butter & chocolate and brought us Tragg and the Sky Gods. Engaging the same basic concepts, they didn't jump ahead thousands of years to see the results. Instead, they told the tale of the new Humans resulting from their experiments, and their interactions with the primitive world of cavemen and dinosaurs. (It's comics, not science)

After two issues, they switched to painted covers. Still Jesse Santos and still looking mighty fine, but i really prefer the psychedelia infused feel of his inks. Here's the other drawn-not-painted cover -

Tragg only had 8 issues, plus a Gold Key Spotlight comic. Some will tell you that there's also that issue of The Occult Files Of Dr. Spektor, but that's a single panel lacking even name designations, so it's a cameo at most. That's not a whole lot of comics, but they were fairly densely packed. The first issue has 25 pages of story - let's ago ahead and dive in rather than have me try to break things down for you...

Let me pause to say how much i enjoy the way Don & Jesse play together. Beyond Tragg, they also teamed for the aforementioned Dr. Spektor, and for Dagar The Invincible, too, along with a smattering of Mystery tales.
I rather thought that we'd have covered some of them by now, but we'll get there.

Meanwhile, let's cover the rest of this series, shall we? 
Here are Jesse's painted covers for the run of Tragg -

...and, what the heck - here's the cover to that issue of The Occult Files Of Dr. Spektor that has the single panel in it. Just because...

I expect we'll be back to check on Tragg and Lorn's progress. But i also expected we'd be here two years ago...

page art by Jesse Santos for Tragg And The Sky Gods #1 (plus covers) (1975)

Instead Of A Real Post...

Sleep has been fragmented, at best, around here lately and i'm stumbling around like i'm driving a rented body. Made the mid-month foraging run extra adventurous today. And has kept the brain aswirl, making this writey stuff extra tricky.

But, i do believe we'll Finally see my favorite caveman comic - a topic we left dangling just over two years ago. I've started prepping pages, and hopefully the mind will join us for more than a minimalist post this weekend. Last chance to place a bet on who our fave caver might be.

Meanwhile, for a bit of imagery in this post...   well, in the back room, at least.
Folks might have noticed it's been a while since i updated the 'crowd scene' title screen for The Third Colony. After all, the population has about doubled since the last time i posted one.

The reason for that is it don't exist no mo'. I finally put together an actual title screen, though the background details are still fluid, you get the basics just fine -
but we can't show it out here in the main room. Step on back past the age check to give it a gander. 

Here's a link to the full post with the image intact.


Obviously (if you went and looked), this is a representational image, nothing that can actually happen in the game since that cluster is the four characters from which the player can choose.

Actually, it's not impossible for that reason - it's impossible because both of the Dovers are in the pic and only one of them is still living at the start of the game. However, it is possible that the three survivors could get together. You see, after the player chooses their PC, the other options switch to NPC status and are still walking around in the world. In fact, the PC can possibly come into competition or conflict with the unchosen player characters as they still work to complete some of the quests in the game.

And some of them involve cavemen, so i guess it's all related, eh?

Assuming, that is, that the ol' peripatetic mind follows the trail...

stuff by -3- (2020)

Secrets Of The T3C Universe

You may have noticed i'm still having troubles herding my wandering mind over towards the blog. I've been gathering yet more material, but the brain just doesn't want to linger on it at the moment.

So, let us let it meander where it's at, deep in Pair'o'Dice9 and The Third Colony. There's been a lot of work going on for the game, expanding the framework, building connecting tissue, converting from This City and the old style graphics...

A lot of really boring things that generally don't lend themselves well to showing here. Along with some terribly rude things, which we'll have to step into the back room to peruse.

But, also a lot of fundamental work, getting things working for the first few days of game time and locking down some decisions to allow things to move forward.

For example, you perhaps recall that Kelly had multiple hair styles in the collection of Training Hero costumes that was seen here previously. After her first physical session at The Registry, Kelly realizes her hair is the wrong length, constantly getting in her eyes when she gets a heavy sweat going. So the player must decide - crop it short or have it grown out for a ponytail?
That was planned from early on, but the styles hadn't been nailed down.

Now they have -

After completing the Trainee period, the player may opt to change styles again, including a return to the original style.

Another example of the type of fundamental work that's been happening is getting some more of the game world data written down into "books" for the player to find and read if they want to understand the world around them.

Here's a sample book that explains one of the major institutions influencing life in the game -

The Lost Saints

It came to pass that a Congregation of the Faithful rose in the Belief that Gods Word encompassed All Of Creation, not merely the sphere upon which they dwelt. With the rise of FTL Colony Ships, a Mission was born. They would have constructed a Lasting Colony Ship - a World Ship in which they could live and travel the stars, both exploring and recording God's Universe, and ensuring the spread of The Word.

And so was born the First Church Of Christ Among The Stars.

And it was Good.

For generations they travelled, mapping His Universe and meeting His Peoples. As they were Faithful in both Word and Action, their good works taught the True Nature of their Faith, and they changed many with their passing.

On worlds plagued with sickness, they delivered cures and relief. Where they found Famine, they brought food and gave the knowledge to feed themselves. Lost starcraft were returned to their homes. The terrorized were protected. And always, nothing was asked for in return. They spoke of their beliefs, and in doing that which was right by Others.

Sometimes they exchanged peoples, as some of the Faithful grew to desire walking under the open skies, while some they met wished to come along and learn.

And in the doing, they changed many worlds and brought Millions unto The Word.


But, there came a day when the people realized that none had seen nor head from the First Church Of Christ Among The Stars in a very long time. Searchers and Pilgrims went out in all directions to seek for signs, but nothing was found. No trace of their passage, no word of their deeds, no hint of their presence. The years passed and the search continued, and continues. Many are those who pray for the Lost Saints as they have come to be known.


Yet they are Not lost.

They have a new Church and a new Mission, one pursued with same earnest Devotion. For in their travels, they found the Unthinkable.

There came a mighty particle storm crackling through space, discharging powerful energies in bolts and waves. The Faithful were buffeted and battered as it seemed Reality itself was torn around them. Before they were completely destroyed, the inspired engineers managed to shunt the craft out of phase, allowing the storm's violence to pass by them and through them, leaving the Faithful unscathed.

But while they were out of phase, they saw it - The Horror, lurking in the Shadows of God's Makings.

And when the storms had passed and repairs had been made, when all was Strong and Ready again, they went back. Back to learn, to seek to understand what they had seen and what it meant to the Grand Scheme of things. In time, they came to know C'thul'hu and understand his Slumber. And to comprehend the nature of the Orgone Energies that could keep the Sleeper from waking to disturb God's Universe.

And so they rose in a quiet corner of space, a small mining colony being established conveniently close to weak spaces between Here and There. Upon this world founded by Gamblers and Criminals did they build The First Church Of Christ Vs. C'thul'hu, and here do they labour on to bind the Sleeper and preserve the Works of the Almighty.

And that's why the First Church Of Christ Vs. C'thul'hu holds the Lullaby Festival every month. It also raises the point that science in this world differs from the science we know in some significant ways. Some errors in perception from the past have proven to be true here. So we have Lumeniferous Aether and Orgone Energy playing nice with Bio-Engineering and Quantum Entanglement.

If you're familiar with Reich's theories of Orgone Energy, the 'adult' nature of the game makes much more sense with the knowledge that it's being collected and stored here. Many characters tend to act like they're in a Skinemax movie...

(Nope - not a medical exam. Charting energy pathways)

Yeah, it's a dirty little world.
And even dreams may not provide an escape.

But you'll have to step into the back room at The Other Voice Of ODD! to see what i mean. We already pushed it pretty much to the limit there.
Here's a direct link.

stuff by -3- (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)

Can Little Bobby Draw?

I ran into one of those old debates again - did Bob Kane draw Batman at all?

Kane fought so hard for so long to hide the work of great artists like Dick Sprang and Jerry Robinson, not to mention Batman's Co-Creator Bill Finger. As more and more came to realize that their favorite parts of Batman came from other creators, speculation arose that Bob Kane never actually did any of the work on Batman. With all those Ghosts in the closet, perhaps he never needed to do more than sign a name and collect the checks.

But, let us remember that Bob did do more than just Batman.

For example, Jumbo Comics was running his Peter Pupp back in 1938. Oddly enough, those were reprints. The strip first ran in the UK in Wags the previous year. So here we have international proof that Bob could draw comics. (No, i don't know what was in his closet. Shut up!)

If the pages seem just a bit "off" to you, it may be because they were printed as Colour Comics. Which is to say, they were printed on orange paper, which looks rather garish and diminishes ease of reading. So i leeched that out and 'upgraded' to black & white -

Um...
I don't have issue #4. I can't tell you what happens next.

But i'm fairly sure no bats were involved...

page art by Bob Kane from Jumbo Comics #s 1-3 (1938)

Ad-Ventures, Not ADventures

As you may know, we occasionally run ADventures - comic strips made as advertisements like Volto, "Pepsi" the Pepsi-Cola Cop, and "RC" and Quickie.

A little over 80 years back, Rafael Astarita decided to reverse the formula and make comics with pre-existing advertising figures. He called these Ad-Ventures, and they ran in Star Comics for a bit starting in 1937. It didn't last too long - only 8 episodes total. We've got 7 of them here today...

Before we continue, let's answer the most obvious WTF? that may be on the minds of some readers...

...the Gold Dust Twins sold laundry detergent. Search hard, and you might find some images with one of them scrubbed so clean he turned white. 

Now you know, and we continue...

Oops.
I'm missing issue #8 - so we must skip one.
On to the final strip from Star Comics #9 -

 Of course, these days he'd be sued out of business over Intellectual Property rights.

page art by Rafael Astarita from Star Comics #s 2-7 & 9 (1937, 1938)