[JH_Grimson]

Dick Giordano is hitting his stride as editor with the Charlton heroes. He is trying to cover all the action genres and integrate them, ala Marvel. It's too bad he didn't have more talent like Ditko. The dialogue is also not good and the first guess I have is that perhaps Charlton was trying to reach a slightly younger reader than DC and Marvel? In any case, as I've said before, you have to transport yourself to a time when both you and the world were younger. Then you can enjoy these stories. Now if only the Smash Hit Records of Today that I sent off for last issue arrive I'll really be happy...

Link to the book: Captain Atom 82

[crashryan]

A couple of years ago I googled those "Smash Hits" records and found a brief history of the company which put them out. To my dismay I can't find it again. I should have bookmarked or downloaded the site! Basically these collections were all produced by the same outfit. They'd press a slew of them, then advertise them in trade magazines, so many bucks per thousand. People would buy a bunch of records and resell them with ads like this one. The records themselves contained super-short instrumental covers of the advertised tunes. That way they could crowd three songs onto one side of a record. If anyone stumbles across that essay please post a link. It was a fascinating story.