Jungle Comics, as the name implies, was generally devoted to a collection of Tarzan imitators, but one strip stood out: Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle. Arriving before Wonder Woman, she may be the comics’ first female superhero. Never given…
Once a certain guy from Krypton made it obvious how much money there was in superhero comics, the race was on to duplicate his success at other publishers. The challenge, though, was how to make a hero “super” without copying…
Fifty years ago this month, I was reading a tabloid-sized comic collection called “Christmas With the Super-Heroes” (aka Limited Collector’s Edition C-34) and in the years since I’ve trotted it out almost as often as I’ve watched Rudolph The Red-Nosed…
Fifty years ago this month, Superman #284 appeared on newsstands, and young me was happy to get it. In something of a homecoming for the Man of Steel, the story sees Clark Kent reuniting with two cherished childhood friends to…
Ten years ago I did a series of posts here looking back at the year 1974, and now that that year is officially a half century in the past, I find myself thinking about it again. In particular, I was…
The lead feature in Fox Feature Syndicate’s Weird Comics #5 (Aug. 1940) takes us back to the days of ancient Rome, when men and swords were made of sterner stuff. Here we meet one Caius Martius, the “terror of Roman…
Crime-fighting attire is all about style. You wouldn’t dress in your finest raiments for Derby Day or the Easter parade without including awesome headgear, so neither should you don a brightly-colored spandex super-suit while neglecting a senses-shattering chapeau. The only…
Jasper Rasper is a mean man! So begins Action Comics #105 (Feb. 1947), and rather accurately, too, since we first glimpse the wealthy sourpuss in the act of firing his long-term, loyal employee “Cartwright” despite the man’s advanced years and…
This week I learned of the passing of Mike Voiles, creator and caretaker of “Mike’s Amazing World of Comics,” an accurately named online resource that catalogs the output of the major American comic book publishers from 1933(!) to today. Along…
In Man of War Comics #2, Cal Dalton finds himself in a tough spot. He has a burning desire to bring criminals to justice, but he’s stuck in a boring, dead-end government job as…umm…the Police Commissioner. Obviously that’s not going…
