[narfstar]

Nice stuff by Turner thanks. Covers look like some of the good American Pulps/scifi mags from the 60-70's. He did a great job of capturing the Thunderbirds look

[Marconero]

Awesome! paw broon I appreciate it, I've been discovering so much good art these days it really makes me wish everyone could experience these great artists.

[paw broon]

Thanks, narfstar and Marconero.  While I have a nice selection of American G.A. comics on my shelves (and a lot more on my hard drive now) I get a bit frustrated at how little is known about the huge comics industries that used to exist in other countries.  Fortunately, with the advent of computers and blogs, enthusiasts can share their knowledge and passion and while GAC is primarily for USA g.a.comics, it can, hopefully, continue to provide a platform to the few of us who also have interests elsewhere.  Perhaps others will become enthused, although the language barrier in other than British titles may be a problem.
As for bizarre comic characters, I mentioned Janus Stark earlier and he must qualify.  Thing is, most of you wont know about him cos he is a British creation, reprinted in France and Germany, at least.  A victorian era escape artist, he has a completely malleable body which can get into and out of the tightest of spots, literally.  But, I notice the header for this topic refers to characters found here, so I hope I'm not going too off subject.

[paw broon]

Just found my link to The Spider page.  Another entry in the Bizarre characters piece?

http://counter-x.net/comics/spider/index.html

How good is this guy?  Has to one of the best done characters in comics.  But I'm biased.

[Marconero]

I hadn't really realized that the books posted here were almost entirely from the States, the British comics industry must have been so different due to lack of resources after the war or other factors (good and bad I'd imagine). I'm curious now, more research for the internetS. 

paw broon, what G.A. comics in other languages do you have? I speak a few other languages, maybe you or someone else can at least steer me in a good direction.  And the link to The Spider page was great!

sorry to go a bit off-topic, on the bizarre G.A. comic character topic: I was checking out the Janus Stark stuff (on the Dan Dare site) and came across the artist Francisco Solano Lopez, who did the first 36 issues. Wow! Thanks for all the knowledge everyone.

[paw broon]

Marconero, bearing in mind that the site is mostly about American G.A comics, it does my heart good to find others who also enjoy different stuff.  So, you'll find a few Janus Stark panels at:-

http://www.itsdeadlicious.com/2008/12/janus-starck-mon-journal.html

Although I have some issues of Smash, most of my small collection of J.S is in French pocket size editions and sorry to disappoint you but although Lopez is very good, he doesn't do all the stories.  Some of the other artists are a bit pedestrian.
If you mean old foreign titles, as opposed to American comics translated, gosh, there's so much, but there are currently good upright format reprints of Kapitein Rob, Eric de Noorman and Piloot Storm available in the Netherlands. There also, at the last count, 4 reprints of the Rikki Visser strip - both text strip and balloon strip - and lots of books on Dik Bos, probably because there could be a film in the offing.  Diabolik still runs today and each month there is a reprint and a 2nd reprint, plus many repackaged editions - in Italian obviously.  In Spain, recently, facsimile and book collection reprints of El Capitan Trueno, El Guerrero del Antifaz (a favourite of mine), El Coyote, Inspector Dan were plentiful.
Problem is how to get them.  I've been using ebay and found lots of good stuff.  (That means obscure superheroes and mystery men to me).  Oh, and there are French and Italian versions of Pratt's Ombre character.  The French version is titled, "Les Jouets du General"  if memory serves - can't reach the album right now.  Old British comics are hard to find at a reasonable price  but have a look at 30th Century Comics in London.  They have a huge stock and are very helpful.  I'll try to find the web address later.

[KnightRandom]

As far as bizarre Golden Age heroes go, another of my favorites would be Kangaroo Man from Choice Comics, an animal trainer with a sentient kangaroo sidekick who could think in complete sentences but who only said "Rsp!  Rsp!"  Is that anything close to teh noise an actual kangaroo makes?  Who knows?  All I know is that there aren't nearly enough comics with kangaroos kicking people in the face.

[boox909]

As far as bizarre Golden Age heroes go, another of my favorites would be Kangaroo Man from Choice Comics, an animal trainer with a sentient kangaroo sidekick who could think in complete sentences but who only said "Rsp!  Rsp!"  Is that anything close to teh noise an actual kangaroo makes?  Who knows?  All I know is that there aren't nearly enough comics with kangaroos kicking people in the face.

I love Kangaroo Man. I keep the two stories I have so far on my desktop for access when I need a few laughs -- his "sentient kangaroo sidekick" is total bad arse in my opinion. 

B.

[Astaldo711]

You can never have too many kangaroos kicking people in the face.

[narfstar]

I think there were only two Kangaroo Man. I scanned but have not had time to read guess I gotta

[carbon_psycho]

Mr Nobody from Doom Patrol. Okay, i know, almost all of Doom patrol is bizarre.

[paw broon]

Marconero and anyone else who can read a bit of Spanish.  I go on about Spanish landscape comics and El Guerrero del Antifaz and if you want to try some, they can be downloaded at:-

http://comicscompartidos.blogspot.com/search/label/El%20Guerrero%20del%20Antifaz?max-results=20

(Takes me a while to find links - and all the other guff on my machine)

Bizarre heroes - what about Fatman, the human flying saucer?
I've downloaded the Kangaroo Man stuff and will read it asap.  You got me intrigued.  Started me thinking about Congorilla.

[comixboonk]

A pretty odd one would be Captain Atlas. Sort of a British knockoff of Sparky Watts.

[paw broon]

Pretty odd, indeed, and very obscure. 
Your avatar is interesting.  British Rail safety ad? That looks like Dynamo's belt, don't you think?
The MF character Captain Marvel qualifies, I think.

[Captain Audio]

Black dwarf and Lars from Mars.

[paw broon]

Nice one, Captain.  How could I have neglected The Black Dwarf?

[roxburylib]

This is who Herbie reminds me of.

[roxburylib]

I would think Dynamite Thor would qualify as a weird character. He's come to the firm belief that there is little in life that cannot be solved without sticks of dynamite. This is from Fox's Weird Comics #6. In the next issue, he flies by tossing sticks of dynamite behind him. Kids, do not try this at home. You most certainly will fly, but not necessarily in one piece. He was probably a blast carving up the Thanksgiving turkey.

Later in this story, he puts out a fire with dynamite (which can work, but not so much in a populated area). He also uses dynamite to knock down a water tower to slow down a villain's car--which probably doesn't sit too well with the local government. He gets around town running on elevated power lines. Again, don't try this at home.

[The Australian Panther]

Thank you for this. That reminds me, somewhere on this site there was a character called 'Grenade'. His Brother was killed by the NAZIs who threw a grenade at him. So, you guessed it, he decided to put on a costume and make a career of throwing grenades at NAZIs. Believe it ..........or don't' 

[roxburylib]

I looked up Grenade and here he is from Flight Comics #5 (Ajax). He's more of a fighter where Dynamite Thor was more comfortable throwing sticks of dynamite all over the place.

The art in that story is on par with amateur fanzines in the 60s. I guess the need for art exceeded the desire that it be good. It looks as if multiple artists worked on the story because the early pages look different from the later ones. Bill Boynansky takes a signed credit for the story/art

[roxburylib]

There's also this failed version of Captain Marvel that borrowed the name of the original and nothing else. Its existence may have prompted Marvel to create a character with that name. It was a weird character that was an android that shouted "Split!" to break apart and "Xam!" to reassemble.

With brilliant dialog like this, how could it fail? "Because of war, our planet will be destroyed

[SuperScrounge]

Its existence may have prompted Marvel to create a character with that name.

Stan actually mentioned the comic as the reason. He felt that if any company should publish a book called Captain Marvel it should be Marvel.

[crashryan]

"Send your head on a tour of our fair city" is pretty good, too.

[andile5425475]

I think the most strange comic character found on this site is Skybandit.

[crashryan]

Interesting name. I searched for Skybandit on site but found only a member's name. What comic did Skybandit appear in?