Happy VD! (Not THAT VD (Who Names These Things?))

Valentine's Day - who loves it more and does it better - Deadpool or Spider-Man?

Contemplate your decision, then follow the break to see my vote, if you care.
Either way, we'll be back with more V.D. a few times throughout the day.

Covering Their Behinds

We haven't done covers in a while - possibly not since the King Kirby 100 back in August. We're probably overdue. So here's a big set of two dozen covers.

But let's keep things a little different (odd, even) and avoid the front covers this time. After all, one never knows what might be found lurking out back...

NOTE: This painting and several covers below contain nudity
and has been moved to our back room for adult content.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive
of the original post to view the artwork. 

covers from various issues of Anti-Social, Batman-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Brat Pack, Consumer Comix, Cops 'N Dopers, Crazy, Crazy Man Crazy, Dr. Wirtham's Comix & Stories, Eclipse Magazine, Hot Stuf', Mother's Oats, Plop!, Requiem For Jack Kirby, Strange Days, and Wild Animals (so many years)

NOTE: Apologies for the lack of labels on this post. Blogger limits how many characters may be used in the labels, but cruelly refuses to  tell the user how many characters are currently in use. After multiple edits and omissions failed to meet the limit, "Oh, fuck it!" worked just fine. Thanks, Blogger!

BBBlue Monday

We're taking a look at a little seen side of a popular artist with the initials B. B., hence our stuttering subject line for today's edition of

Our featured artist today is one you might not expect to see here. Brian Bolland is well known for his finely detailed delineations and his realistic style, but you virtually never see real nudity from the man. Very nearly in The Killing Joke, but not to erotic effect. Kinda/sorta in The Doom Patrol in a not-quite-human/stare-back-at-you kind of way. Usually, at most there's an erotic undercurrent, such as in these images...

...and even then, he's hat-tipping to Chaykin that third piece.

But...  Once upon a time, 40 years ago, in a magical place across the sea, there was Little Nympho In Slumberland...

NOTE: This story and the following images contain much nudity
and have been moved to our back room for adult content.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive
of the original post to view the artwork.

This odd bit of Bolland comes to us from the short lived Graphixus magazine -

We've seen a bit or two from Graphixus previously, and we'll certainly return to this self-describedly Odd book in the future.
Okay - They didn't use the word Odd, but, as Garry Leach said -

I'm going to call that close enough in intent.

pages from Graphixus #3 (1978)

Blue Monday Calendar 2018 Week 07

How many have been waiting for the week of Valentine's Day to see what lovely vision Gil Elvgren has painted for the occasion? His Golden Beauty from 1955 is a Visual Delight indeed -

NOTE: This lovely painting by Gil Elvgren contains nudity
and has been moved to our back room for adult content.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive
of the original post to view the artwork. 

 Golden Beauty by Gil Elvgren (1955)

Sunday Morning Funnies - Ladies Leading

The 3rd issue, #6.

For today's Sunday Morning Funnies we'll be jumping back to 1944.

Harvey published a short-lived anthology title, All-New Comics, which ran only a dozen issues. Just to be confusing, #1 was #4 - so only 12, not 15 issues, despite the numbering. As seen on the cover to right, the book featured a variety of standard action/adventure tales, but it also contained some lightly whimsical comedies, too.

As you might note on the cover to #6 there, the Black Cat was a regular star. She's probably one of the best remembered Harvey heroes, but several other ladies had their own features in the book, with their male sidekicks tagging along. Rather unusual for almost 75 years ago, so let's make that our focus today.

So, here's Penny with Ullysses Jr, and Blonde Bomber with Slapso, from issues 6 & 9. Artwork for the Penny comics is by Louis Ferstadt. The other credits are lost to antiquity -

pages from All-New Comics #s 6 & 9 (1944)

Therezit!

This quiz was rather short, having been pulled prematurely from the data dump. I like the concept, so there'll likely be another at a later date.

For today, however, you'd probably like answers, eh?
Well, to avoid spoilers for those reading in reverse chronological order, i'm placing them after the break below.

FF&G - Wherezit 01

Preparations for being able to work again progressing nicely, but slowly enough that it's somehow Friday again! How did this happen? So caught up in hardware/software issues, i don't even need the excuse to wimp out on Friday Night Fights this week. But i can raid one of the data dumps for a quick edition of

We've played Whozit a few times here in the past. This time let's tweak that to focus on a sometimes unsung star of the stories - the cities in which they take place. This will just be a short selection today - Seven Cities for you to name the source. Naming the cities is good, but not necessarily possible in every case. Most are directly adapted from comic books, but not all. However, they fit into the mold and may have since appeared in comic form.

Wherezit?

1______________________

2______________________

3______________________

4______________________

5______________________

6______________________

7______________________

Okay - off to start the final round of data shuffling, and then time to start clearing system space and setting up for work. Cross those extraneous digits and we'll be back in the morning with quiz answers and word clutter on progress here.

Upgrade In Progress

Computer systems here a tied up for another day or so. It takes an insanely long time to mirror a couple of Terabytes to two external drives before the clearing begins. But, if all goes well, i'll be able to upgrade the software and get back into some artwork this weekend.

Meanwhile - a quick promotional blurb:

The latest edition of Jack Kirby Collector (#73) is out!

Oddly enough, 73 is one of my primary use numbers. I have several of them, not just 3. There is 27 (3 to the 3rd power), and then 73 (the balancing percentile to 27). You'll find these numbers embedded throughout my artwork, though often in unseen ways.

But why would one of my primary numbers trigger an "Oddly enough"? This is the first time anything from me appears in the magazine. Remember the King Kirby 100 Challenge crossword puzzle from the KK100 celebration in August? It gets a nice 2 page spread in this issue. And they were even kind enough to observe my personal obsessions and give me the #3 slot in the table of contents. (Thanks, John!)

The issue looks terrific, but i can't really tell you much about it - because i just found it in my mail and i'm savoring it. I haven't seen a new edition of JKC in a few years, and i'm stretching this one out as much as i can. But, to let you know what's in it, here's a primary excerpt from the issue details on the TwoMorrows website:
"In it, we cover Kirby’s best (and worst) short spurts on his wildest concepts: ANIMATION IDEAS, DINGBATS, JUSTICE INC., MANHUNTER, ATLAS, THE PRISONER, and more! There’s also an interview with MIKE ROYER on his work with Jack and elsewhere, a rare Kirby interview, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, panels from the 2017 Kirby Centennial celebration, pencil art galleries, and some one-shot surprises!" 

One surprise for me was that they managed to find a few Valley Girl comic strips i hadn't seen to accompany their piece on Kirby & Zappa, including the full interview with Ahmed from which my KK100 piece on the topic was excerpted. Definitely a cool surprise - but there always is when a new issue is released.


And, of course, here's a link to the book on TwoMorrows.com.

I'll be back soon with more posts after the computers are freed up for use. Hopefully early tomorrow.

cover from Jack Kirby Collector #73 (2018)

Meanwhile, Orbiting Rao...

Krypton is coming to Syfy (not to be in anyway confused or associated with SciFi, of course) and expectations are mixed among those with any intent to view the program. Personally, i just wanted to remind us all what we should be looking forward to seeing...

It should be very entertaining to find out how they handle Vathlo Island, eh?
Of course, there's absolutely no reason for this show to exist if they don't have Kryptonian Thought-Beasts -

Bonus fun - what happened next...

Maps from Superman Annual #1 (1972), ...From Krypton To Earth from Batman Annual 68 (UK)(1968)