26 July 2018

Post #666 - Disney Princess & Prince Edition

Welcome to the 13th hour (locally) as we celebrate the 666th post with a quick look at Disney's under-celebrated Princess & Prince. Brother and sister - the children of Satan, the King of Hell - Damien Helstrom and Santana - Prince & Princess of Hell. When Disney bought Marvel, they ascended to Disney Princess & Prince status (just like Thor and Loki).

Though the Son Of Satan was teased the month before, both really first appeared in July of 1973 (Sell dates, not cover dates), Satana in Vampire Tales #2 and Damien in Ghost Rider #2. Damien also got his first cover that month, taking over Ghost Rider's old slot in Marvel Spotlight -


Satana didn't get her own first cover until over a year later, but finally she got a painted cover for one of Marvel's b&w newsstand magazines - Haunt Of Horror #5, where she had been appearing since, once again, issue #2.



Not that the Son Of Satan didn't get some nice covers of his own along the way...

 







...but though far fewer, Satana did covers better, either with old masters like Gil Kane (as above)...


...or with those painted covers...


Of course, like most brothers and sisters, they didn't always get along...



Both of them were known to get together with the other heroes in the Marvel universe, too...





More recently, the Marvel universe has gone 'dark' and they have seen a resurgence in the 90s and this century. So the Disney Princess & Prince are still active players, even Avengers(!), ready for their toy line. Not surprisingly, we're not going there. We're just looking at some older appearances here.

Also not surprisingly, there was fun imagery in the Son Of Satan's comics at times...








...and long before Spider-Man, Damien did...


Personally, i was always more fond of Satana's appearances in the old b&w mags...








Here's the original model sheet from Esteban Maroto that accompanied the article on her creation appearing in Vampire Tales #3 - Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Satana* (*But were too awestruck to ask)...


Let's close out for today with Satana's original short introduction from Vampire Tales #2 -


art by various for the titles shown (what?! it's the devil's post. Did you expect actual credits?)

25 July 2018

Frazetta On The Spots

Well, Huzzah!
All of the hardware eventually arrived and building is complete - the new desktop system is finally fully functional. At least on the hardware. The poor beast doesn't even have Photoshop installed yet. But - Progress!

Meanwhile, back at Frazetta's Funny Animals...  commenter Top Cat James kindly pointed out that IDW released a collection back in 2012 entitled Frazetta - Funny Stuff. You don't have to go hunting for ancient issues of Barnyard, Coo Coo Comics, Goofy Comics, etc.,.  You can read more on the book at IDW's website. (Don't worry - there's never any kickback links or that sort of thing on this site. I don't even have a means of accepting payments)

Apparently the book does include some of his spot illos for the text pages in those comics as well. How much it has, i've no clue. Frazetta did a lot of them - i can account for a hundred or so. Here's a couple dozen so you can get a look at his beautiful work on those. (see - I remembered!)

























It makes one actually want to read some of those old required text pages, doesn't it?

art by Fritz/Frank Frazetta for Barnyard Comics #s 14-45, Coo Coo Comics #s 37-46, and Goofy Comics #s 26 & 27 (1948, 1949)