From Meef Comix #2 (May 1973), here’s “A Zen Fable” by the inimitable Fred Schrier, whose work in underground comics is ripe for rediscovery:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
Category: Here, Read
Look Here, Read: An original MISS PEACH Sunday strip by Mell
In our collection of original comic-strip art, my wife and I already have several Miss Peach dailies by Mell Lazarus (see here, here, and here), but my personal grail has long been a Sunday strip from the 1960s, when Mell’s drawings of his cartoon kids were at their most expressive and his wit was always razor sharp. Well, my quest is finally complete! Because yesterday I won an ebay auction for a big, beautiful original Miss Peach Sunday strip dated 12-2-1962 with a great gag featuring Francine and Arthur. (And at a good price, which is important, because our budget for original art is currently stretched to the max!) I don’t have the artwork in hand yet, but here’s the image from the ebay auction, and though it looks pieced together from smaller scans, it is probably as good as or better than anything I could possibly produce with our little scanner/printer:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
The strip is a whopping 24 inches wide by 18 1/2 inches high, and it comes with a tissue paper overlay roughly festooned with Mell’s crayon colour notes, intended as a guide for the printer:
And you know what? At this moment I feel like I never need to buy another Miss Peach original. I have what I wanted. I’m happy. And I’m done.
Unless…
Look Here, Read: “They Didn’t Believe Him,” with art by Steve Ditko
From Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #3 (April 1957), here’s “They Didn’t Believe Him,” with art by Steve Ditko — as if you couldn’t tell at a glance!
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
You’ve gotta love the leer of the mermaid in the second panel of the second page. When she tells the young dreamer to be among the reeds in the morning, you know he’s gonna be there, and when says she’ll come again, you definitely believe her!
Look Here, Read: “Prince Charming and a Very Patient Young Lady” by Nicole Claveloux
From Heavy Metal volume VI, number 1 (April 1982), here’s “Prince Charming and a Very Patient Young Lady” by the great Nicole Claveloux:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
Look Here, Read: “The Yippies at the Exchange” by Epistolier and M. Trublin
From Anarchy #2 (1979), here’s “The Yippies at the Exchange,” with script by Epistolier and art by M. Trublin:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
Look Here, Read: “Cottage of Love,” with art by Harry Lucey
From Darling Love #8 (Summer 1951), here’s “Cottage of Love,” with art by the incomparable Archie artist and 2012 Eisner Hall of Fame inductee, Harry Lucey, and script by the great unknown, and since the cover of Darling Love #8 is also by Lucey, I’ve included it as well, though it’s obviously just a recoloured version of the opening panel of the story:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
Look Here, Read: “The Man Who Painted on Air,” with art by Steve Ditko
From Unusual Tales #7 (May 1957), here’s “The Man Who Painted on Air,” cover and story, with art by Steve Ditko and script by the great unknown:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
Registered users can download Unusual Tales #7, in its entirety, via The Digital Comics Museum; the story posted above is a version of the DCM scan that has been run through GIMP to adjust the colour levels. The cover scan, which is from an online auction, has also been run through GIMP.
A nicely cleaned up (and slightly more muted) version of “The Man Who Painted on Air” is included in Unexplored Worlds: The Steve Ditko Archives, Vol. 2 (Fantagraphics, 2012).
For those who don’t aleady know, The Steve Ditko Archives, edited by Blake Bell, is a project to reprint all of the pre-Comics Code stories with art by Steve Ditko that have fallen into the public domain.
Unfortunately, the first volume in the series, Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1, is currently marked “sold out” in the publisher’s online catalogue.
The most recent volume, Mysterious Traveller: The Steve Ditko Archives, Vol. 3, was published earlier this spring.
Heads Up: WEIRD HORRORS & DARING ADVENTURES: THE JOE KUBERT ARCHIVES VOL. 1
Coming in Fall 2012 from Fantagraphics:
Book description and details:
Joe Kubert is one of the greatest American comic-book cartoonists of all time; his Sgt. Rock of Easy Company, Enemy Ace, and Tarzan comics, all done for DC Comics during the 1960s and 1970s, are already the subject of archival editions. In the 1940s, young Kubert developed his design sense and realistic art style by freelancing for a variety of comic-book publishers in a glorious variety of non-superhero genres: horror, crime, science fiction, western, romance, humor, and more. For the first time, 33 of the best of these stories have been collected in one full-color volume, Weird Horrors and Daring Adventures: The Joe Kubert Archives Vol. 1 with a special emphasis on horror and crime … more violent and sexy (by contemporary standards) than much of his later, Code-constrained work.
Hardcover: 240 pages
ISBN-10: 1606995812
ISBN-13: 978-1606995815
BONUS “LOOK HERE, READ” CONTENT:
From Eerie #3 (Oct.-Nov. 1951), here’s an example of the sort of story (now in the public domain) that you’re likely to find in the new collection:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
BONUS “CONNECTIONS” CONTENT:
Displayed in order of publication, the following images are by Max Elkan, Joe Kubert, Gil Kane; if anyone can find a picture of a Gil Kane haymaker published before the Max Elkan haymaker of 1949, you are welcome to share your discovery in the comments section of this post:
One aficionado of the Gil Kane haymaker, Dr. K, has identified what he believes to be the earliest example of a “Gil Kane punch”; the image, from a story published in 1955, is posted on his blog.
Look Here, Read: Four “Black & White” comics…
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
Look Here, Read: “The Frog Prince” by Richard Corben
From Mendocino County Comix #1 (1982), here’s a brief, cautionary version of “The Frog Prince” by Richard Corben:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
Ragged Claws Network 