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Muffaroo, I wonder if the sheet music artist might have been the same Iorio. The "Who's Who" says the comic artist's first name is Medio and that he/she drew a handful of comics between 1954 and 1958. I haven't been able to find any other info.

Link to the comment: Masked Ranger 3

Brenda Starr appeared in our local papers when I was a kid. Though I read it from time to time (I'll read almost anything) it held no interest to me. I wanted Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. So when I sat down to read these books I had no preset notions.

I should clarify that. I mean I had no preset notions about the characters and stories. I have carried an impression of Dale Messick's artwork with me all these years. That gave me my first surprise while reading these three comics. In the two strip-reprint books Messick's art doesn't remotely resemble my mental picture. I remember her art being much more exaggerated, like that in the Dell comic. Brenda's overdone eyelashes and weird nose, for example, or all the background stars and accent lines. But then the strips in the first two books are from the late 1940s-early 1950s and my memories date from the early-to-middle 1960s. Messick's style might have changed considerably by then.

#6 (Superior Publications)

Talk about coming in halfway through the second act! The first story desperately needs extra captions to explain references to earlier events. I had to dig up other issues to sort out the Larry-Tom relationship. I never did find an explanation for the Vera de Verve business.

The two remaining stories come straight from Cringe City. Yes, this was a different time, standards change, and all that. Even so, Messick lays the fat jokes on so thick it's painful. At least these stories make more sense than the first one.

Dale Messick's artwork is a step or two above competent though not very exciting. In the first story the characters overact. Pesky the office boy is the worst offender, striking melodramatic poses and pulling goofy faces. That said, I applaud Messick's trying to put some life into her figures rather than just having them stand around like many comic artists did.

The lettering on the Brenda stories is pretty bad. It looks as though the editor dumped the original strip's lettering and had someone re-letter every panel. I found a couple of Brenda Starr originals from this period. They'd been lettered with a Leroy lettering tool. Did the editor think it'd be too difficult to cut and paste the original text? Maybe the original strips were very copy-heavy, and once the panels were cropped to fit the comic book page there wasn't room for all the text. An aggressive trimming of the dialogue might have made so many changes the editor had no choice but to re-letter everything. At any rate the letterer is no great shakes, plus he misspells "your" as "you're."

Wrapping up this issue of lighthearted comedy and romance we have...a blood and thunder western???

Hei ystävät!

Olen uusi täällä! Minulla on valtavasti sarjakuvia digimuodossa. Olen kuitenkin huono selvittämään sitä, ovatko ne julkaisu kelpoisia. Ajattelin että olisi hyvä, jos löytyisi tieto huonokuntoisista tiedostoista. Lähettäisin mielelläni paremman version, huonokuntoisten tilalle.

On page 26, lying is spelled "lieing." I saw the same error (and some others) in one of the Woodbridge stories later in the run, which I've been reading back to front for no reason. The drawings of the dog remind me of early Kane.

Link to the comment: Masked Ranger 2

Coincidentally, I was looking at a piece of sheet music with a cover design used for a series of Russian piano pieces, and really enjoying the mosaic look the artist had given it, and the neat and satisfying way it was carried out. I spotted a name in the tiles (some of which were drawn as being cracked, a nice touch): IORIO.

There's nothing there to remind me of Iorio's art (with Sal Trapani, I presume) in this issue, except for the name. I'd never run into "Iorio" before, and now twice in a week.

Link to the comment: Masked Ranger 3

Ching Quai is not the hero's name, it's just the translation of green turtle into Mandarin (it could also be Qing Quai).

Link to the comment: Blazing Comics 1

THE NEW AVENGERS:  The Last of The Cybernauts…?
Killer Robots  (part 3)   (7 of 10)

A double-agent nearly killed in a car explosion and horribly-disfigured (shades of "Dr. Phibes") wants revenge on Steed, Purdey & Gambit. So he kidnaps an assistant of Dr. Armstrong's, who created "The Cybernauts", and then another scientist to "take the designs further", and has himself turned into a human robot (effectively, a DOCTOR WHO-style "Cyberman").

Robert Lang (THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD, THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, MISS MARPLE: Murder At The Vicarage) is "Felix Kane", who blames the heroes for what he basically brought upon himself.

Oscar Quitlak (THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN) is "Malov", the butler who claims he's "only in it for the money", but seems all too eager and happy to be involved in kidnapping, murder, and worse.

Robert Gillespie (FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED) is "Frank Goff", Armstrong's "engineer" (off-camera, we never saw him in the 2 previous Cybernaut stories) who is sidelined at gunpoint after being released from prison, but then despite promises of money, is murdered anyway once his usefulness ends.  (You CAN'T trust crazy people.)

David Horovitch (5 MISS MARPLES from the 1980s!) is "Tom Fitzroy", a "ministry type" who fails to realize how dangerous it is to ever sneak up on John Steed.

Davina Taylor (cameos in THE WRONG ARM OF THE LAW and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS) and Sally Bazely (I, CLAUDIUS) are 2 of Steed's very-beautiful lady-friends.

Gwen Taylor (the Nazi girl in ALL YOU NEED IS CASH) is "Doctor Marlow", who Steed shoves into a storage cabinet, to save her life.

Sidney Hayers (who directed NIGHT OF THE EAGLE, 8 episodes of THE AVENGERS, 4 of THE NEW AVENGERS, and 4 of SPACE PRECINCT) does a stellar job on this one.

I've always liked this episode, not the least for how Mike & Purdey are getting along so well.  But I did find her INCESSANT one-upmanship a bit tiring this time around.  Her always "having" to be better and smarter at everything all the time in some stories was nearly her downfall. That said, it was amusing how she "returned the favor" from "The Eagle's Nest" by breaking into Mike's apartment and knocking HIM out of bed.  Fair's fair.
   (4-1-2025)

Hi!
I'm new here! Great page. Big thanks to the admins. I'm a comic freak. I've owned almost all the comic books published in Finland, but unfortunately, I've foolishly sold them. I have a huge amount of digital comics. I'm ready to upload them, for the joy of all the group members. The only problem is that I don't know which ones are suitable for publication.

My favorite comic book artist Mike Grell started off as her assistant in the late '60s and/or early '70s, and by that point she was only drawing the characters' faces and he drew everything else. He's often joked that when he writes his autobiography he'll call it "Doing Brenda's Body". 

Dale's Lambiek entry & her Wikipedia entry.

I knew I could count on you for some tasty tidbits, SuperScrounge, and you didn't disappoint. That would be some autobiography! I wasn't familiar with Mike Grell, so I just looked him up. He certainly worked on a variety of books. I wonder how many of his female characters had Brenda's body? 

Cheers

QQ

My favorite comic book artist Mike Grell started off as her assistant in the late '60s and/or early '70s, and by that point she was only drawing the characters' faces and he drew everything else. He's often joked that when he writes his autobiography he'll call it "Doing Brenda's Body". 

Dale's Lambiek entry & her Wikipedia entry.