Print

[paw broon]

Sorry about that. I started out trying to find pages of Jije's more cartoony work, found myself pressed for time and could only find a link to Jerry Spring.  So here is a link to pages that I have now found, Blondin et Cirage, by Jije.  This was incredibly popular and reprints still sell well.  You might not like it but it'sworth a look.
amicaledesnidsapoussiere.over-blog.com/jij%C3%A9-blondin-et-cirage-d%C3%A9couvrent-les-soucoupes-volantes-dupuis-1956
Please don't feel you need to comment, I'm just sort of tidying up

[josemas]

Over the last couple of years I have moved away from reading comic strips in my daily newspaper to reading them online.  Not only am I getting a bigger selection of strips but they all tend to be bigger and easier to read than the postage stamp size the newspaper now prints them.  The number of strips I follow has slowly grown until now I find myself following a couple dozen.  Here's the group, as it now stands.

Dick Tracy  I like the team of Curtis and Staton on the strip.  Respect for where the strip has been, some fun in jokes and some good new villains in the Gould vein.

Gasoline Alley  Scancarelli definitely leans toward the humor side with his approach to the strip.

Alley Oop  Still Oop after all these years

Rip Haywire  Tongue in cheek adventure/humor strip

Brewster Rockit  Sc-fi humor

Tarzan Daily reprints from the 60s by John Celardo and Sunday reprints from the 90s by Gray Morrow

Annie  Reprints from the Maeder/Kupperberg years

Skippy  Reprints of the Percy Crosby classic from the mid 1920s

Doonesbury  Still making me laugh after all these years

Cul de Sac  Funny family strip

Overboard 

Human Cull

Oyster War  This and the following strip read like single pages from a graphic novel being doled out one or two a week

Santa Vs. Dracula

Origins of the Sunday Comics  Reprints of late 19th/early 20th century Sunday strips with brief commentary. 

http://www.gocomics.com/


Prince Valiant  I very much like the team of Schultz and Yeates on the strip

Flash Gordon  Reprints from Jim Keefe's run on the strip

The Katzenjammer Kids  Drawn by my old Kubert School teacher, Hy Eisman

The Phantom  Doing a fine job continuing the Falk classic

Popeye  New Sunday strips by Hy Eisman and Daily reprints from the Bud Sagendorf era

Mandrake the Magician  Not sure if these Fred Fredericks Daily strips are reprints or if he is still doing new strips

Mutts  A real favorite of mine

Dilbert

http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/comics/


Garth Reprints from its lengthy run (Thanks, Paw)

http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/cartoons/garth/


I also usually check out a couple of editorial cartoons each day at either gocomics.com or cagle.com

Anybody else got some comic strip favorites they follow online?

Best

Joe

[narfstar]

I subscribe to both Gocomics and comickingdom. So much to choose from just had to pare down the ones I got.
KINGDOM
Spiderman
Family Circus
Hagar
Mallard Fillmore
Mandrake (I think they stopped new about a year ago)
Phantom
Flash Gordon
Bizarro
Crock
Dennis the Menace
Grin and Bear it
Lockhorns
Rhymes with Orange
Shoe
Political cartoons

GOCOMICS
Alley Oop
Dick Tracy
Ripleys
Tarzan
Good with Coffee
Barney and Clyde
Flying McCoys
Loose Parts
Real Life Adventures
Off the Mark
Thatababy
Brewster Rockit
Jim's Journal
9 to 5
Adam@Home
Andy Capp
Auntie Acid
BC
Badlands
Onion and Pea

[josemas]

Comics, graphic novels and collections finished this past month-

Again not very many floppies-

Worlds' Finest #19 and Worlds' Finest Annual #1-DC, Earth 2 #19-20 and Earth 2 Annual #1-DC-  These titles have continued to keep my interest longer than I would have suspected.

Daredevil #35-36 and Daredevil: Dark Knights #6-8-Marvel  Wrapping up the current run as well as a mini-series.  DD is the only Marvel title I still but regularly.  I'll stick with it through the coming relaunch since Mark Waid will still be writing it.

Aquaman #26-28-DC-  Picked it up on whim during the 52 relaunch and have stuck with it as other titles have been dropped.  I guess they must be doing something right.

Onto the GNs and collections-

Superman Archives Vol 4-DC-  Siegel, Shuster and co guide the man of steel into the early 1940s.  Very different from the Superman I grew up on in the 1960s.

Red Rackham's Treasure by Herge  The sequel to The Secret of the Unicorn.  Fine Tintin adventure.

Saucer Country Vol 2: The Reticulan Candidate by Cornell, Kelly and co.  What seems like a quick wrap up to the storyline of this DC/Vertigo title makes me wonder if sales weren't what they hoped so they decided to end the series sooner than originally planned.

The Complete Peanuts (vol 10): 1967-68 by Charles Schulz   I'm immensely enjoying working my way through these Fantagraphic volumes reprinting the strips' entire run.   Prime period stuff this go round.

Radio Patrol: The D. A. Murder: Dailies !936-37 by Sullivan and Schmidt   A fairly popular King Features trip in its day.  Okay but it's no Dick Tracy.

Invincible Vol 18: The Death of Everyone by Kirkman, Otley and co.  Pretty violent stretch as this title passed its 100 issue mark.  Still keeping my interest.

Black Jack Vol 15 by Osamu Tezuka.  Only one more volume and I'll have this entire (17 volume) series from Vertical under my belt.

Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future: Voyage to Venus Pt 2 by Frank Hampson and co.  The finish of the first storyline.  Having read the second storyline (The Red Moon Mystery) first I guess I'm now about a year and a half into the initial run.  As I was finishing this up it occurred to me that since this was a weekly comic with only two pages a week the original reading experience in the 1950s must have been more akin to reading the classic Sunday strips runs of such strips as Tarzan, Prince Valiant, Flash Gordon and Captain Easy in the 1930s and 40s than it would have been to reading monthly comic books with their self contained stories.

Blackest Night: Rise of the Black Lanterns- by Geoff Johns and many others.  Continuing my journey through the library's Green Lantern titles.  A mixed bag here.

Best

Joe

[josemas]

A lot of overtime at work the last couple of months has me behind in posting (among other things).  Here's my comic reading for March and April.

Floppies-

Justice League Dark #27-29- DC   Dropping this one now.  Just not worth the money anymore.

Earth 2 #21-22-DC-   Interesting developments with the Earth 2 Superman.

Worlds' Finest #20-21 & Batman/Superman #8-9-DC-  Our Earth 2 heroines meet the Earth 1 counterparts of those they were close to on their own earth.

Astro City #7-10- DC/Vertigo   One of my favorite reads.

Forever Evil #5-6, Justice League #27-29 and Justice League of America #11-13  DC's big event moves closer to its conclusion.  Still somewhat interested.

Graphic novels and collections-

The Walking Dead Vol 19: March to War  If you're only familiar with the TV series this is like an alternate earth version with many of the same characters but going off in different story lines.

Green Lantern: Legacy and Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps Still catching up my GL reading via the public library's large collection of the ring slinger's collections.  The later title is the best of the whole Blackest Night collections I've sampled so far.

Crypt of Horror Vol 13-  More 50s precode horror stories.  You'll find most of em here on the CB+ site.

Richard Stark's Parker (Book2): The Outfit, Richard Stark's Parker (Book3): The Score and Richard Stark's Parker (Book4): Slayground.  I'm very much enjoying Darwyn Cooke's adaptations of Donald Westlake's 60s noirish novels.

Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?-  Brian Fries enjoyable look at how we viewed the future from the late 1930s until today.

Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace (Vol 4) !957-58.   I've enjoyed this comic strip since I was a kid for the humor.  But it's only been via examining these Fantagraphics volumes (six so far reprinting the first twelve years of the daily strip) that I've really started to notice just how good a artist Ketcham really was.

Nuts-  I originally read these Gahan Wilson strips when they ran in National Lampoon back in the 1970s.  Rereading them now they seem better than ever at capturing a child's view of the world.

20th Century Boys Vol 21: Arrival of the Space Aliens-  The penultimate volume in Naoki Urasawa's sci-fi epic.

Castle: Richard Castle's Storm Season-  Marvel is doing "adaptations" of the fictional television mystery author's books.  so-so.

Black Jack Vol 16-  I've now finished reading all of Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack collections.  Forunately there are still plenty more of his works to tackle.

Demo-  DC/Vertigo teen angst.  A mixed bag.  Twelve stories by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan.  Some really good.  Others just had me shaking my head.

The Unwritten (Vol 7): The Wound- This Mike Carey, Peter Gross title from DC/Vertigo is a current favorite of mine.  Very clever, imaginative storyline.

Lover's Lane: The Hall-Mills Mystery-  Rick Geary continues to tap into a comic book genre largely dormant since the coming of the comics code in the mid 1950s, the true crime story, via his series of graphic novels about famous crimes and criminals. 

Incidents in the Night Book One-  I understand this David B GN has gathered some awards but it didn't really grab me.

East of West Vol 1-  A lot left unresolved at the end of this Image collection of the first five issues of the title.

The New Deadwardians Vol 1   A very interesting start to this DC/Vertigo title by Dan Abnet and I. N. J. Colbard. 

The Library of American Comics Essentials Vol 3: Polly and Her Pals-  A very nice collection of Cliff Sterrett's stylish humor strip reprinting all dailies from 1933.  I especially loved the Babes in Toyland Christmas segment.

Unico- Osamu Tezuka full color story.  Aimed at younger readers.  If I understand it correctly this American printing was launched via kickstarter.

Before Watchmen: Ozymandias/Crimson Corsair-  These DC prequels have all been pretty good.  This volume (with stories all written by Len Wein) contains the only weak entry so far in the Crimson Corsair story.  Jae Lee, an artist who doesn't usually grab me, does an exceptionally fine job on the Ozymandias story and Steve Rude does his usual good job on the art in the one shot Dollar Bill story that is also included.

Best

Joe

 

[josemas]

Comic reading for May-

Floppies-

Worlds' Finest #22-23-  The girls decide to try to get back to their own earth.
Astro City #11-12-  I missed Brett Anderson's art on issue 12 but the writing remained solid.
Earth 2 #23-
Aquaman #29-30-
Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge & Donald Duck-"A Matter of Some Gravity"  Fantagraphics free comic for this year.  Wonderful Don Rosa storties.
Captain Midnight #6-7-
Harley Quinn #0-  Played heavily for laughs.
Abe Sapian #4-5-  Not much happening here.
Forever Evil #7, Justice League #30 and Justice League of America #14   The latest "big" event comes to a conclusion.  A few loose ends remain.   JLA's final issue.  I've decide to pass on its sequel series, JLU.

Graphic novels and collections-

The Unwritten Vol 8: Orpheus into the Underworld by Carey, Gross and co.  Good stuff.

Green Lantern Corps Vol 2: Alpha War and Green Lantern Corps Vol 3: Will Power   More GL titles from the library.   Still finding the Corp titles among the better of the bunch.

Nijigahara Holograph by Inio Asano

Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps Vol 1   A mixed bag.

To Hell You Ride- by Henriksen, Maddrey and Mandrake.  Nice seeing Tom Mandrake art again in this story about a small western town dealing with a strange plague.

The Adventures of Patsy-Daily Strips- 1937-  Great art by Mel Graff in the Sickles/Caniff school.  Fun 1930s Hollywood backdrop for the storyline too.  Looking forward to reading the 1938 volume.

20th Century Boys Vol 22: The Beginning of Justice and 21st Century Boys Vol 1: Death of the Friend-  21st Century Boys is still the same storyline as 20th Century Boys.  I'm not sure why the title was changed for the last two volumes.  Anyway, only one more volume to go and hopefully all will be revealed.

If I'm a Stay at Home Mom, Why am I Always in the Car?- by Jerry Scott and Rick Kirkman   Volume 11 of the Baby Blues comic strip collections.   I've never followed the strip on any regular basis and have been meaning to sample one of these collections for some time.  Fun family strip.  Looking forward to reading more collections.

Sin Tutulo by Cameron Stewart-   Good art, strange story.

Best

Joe

[narfstar]

I have been reading Andrew Klaven books. I read his Homelanders series of 4 books, my favorite IF WE SURVIVE, Crazy Dangerous, and very predictable Nightmare City. Just finished Bad Times by Chuck Dixon. I am  now reading a "Invisible Chilrdren/Blood Diamond" type of book Blood Ransom.

[paw broon]

As with Joe, very few floppies, well, new ones at any rate.
I sent away for a book from Bear Alley - The Man Who Searched For Fear.  This features art by Bill Lacey, one of my favourites. Apart from the title, there are 2 other stories, Agent of The Queen and an adaptation of Great Expectations.  It's a good read, seriously well illustrated.  Have a look here:-
http://bearalleybooks.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-man-who-searched-for-fear.html
After years of telling myself manga was a load of old cobblers I succumbed to a couple of them and am now catching up on Full Metal Alchemist and D-Gray Man.
Also, I just started Book 5 of The Sixth Gun.  What a great series.

[josemas]

Thanks for the recommendations, Paw.  I've already put in reservations for volumes of Full Metal Alchemist and The Sixth Gun at my local library.

Best

Joe

[paw broon]

As if you need reminding, I'm a fan of Bandette and there are 7 issues available from Comixology.  Much cheaper now so no excuse for not getting into a highly entertaining, good fun series.
And Archie Afterlife is very worthwhile.  Even if you are not an Archie fan, this should tickle your fancy with exciting art from Francesco Francavilla.

[narfstar]

I am a big Bandette fan also. Paw I think you were a Love and Capes fan also IIRC. Comixology has a series for all Love and Capes fan called OUR SUPER MOM. At Cloud9comics.com you an pick up a good superhero series called Dynagirl. These are the comics that so many miss who stick mainly to the big 2. I just found that Cloud9 is only ipad/iphone but soon on droid. I discovered it when I got my ipad. I never heard mention of it anywhere but their facebook page has 30K members. So there are people who know about them. They have some exclusives so others might want to check them out.

[josemas]

Comics, graphic novels and collections read this past month-

Floppies-

Earth 2 #24-DC-

JSA Liberty Files: The Whistling Skull #1-6-DC-  Very little JSA in this odd little mini-series set during WWII.

World's Finest #24-DC-

Infinity Man and the Forever People #1-DC-  Promising start to this revival. 

Astro City #13-DC/Vertigo-

plus some vintage silver age comics picked up out of the bargain boxes at my LCS.

The Adventures of Jerry Lewis #105-DC-(1968)  Jerry meets Superman and Lex Luthor.  Nice looking at some Bob Oksner art again.

Superman #171-DC-(1964)  Cover story has Supes finding himself without powers on a planet with primitive humanoids when its sun suddenly turns red.  Some really goofy Weisinger science in this tale.

Blackhawk #133-DC-(1959)  The first Lady Blackhawk story!  Hubba, hubba!

Plus read online at CB+

Kona #1 (Four Color #1256) and #2-Dell- (1962)-  Wild storyline of family getting stranded on island with prehistoric beats and primitive people.  Possibly the most violent four color comics of the 1960s.  Certainly much more so than the DC, Marvel and other comics I read back then.

Collections and graphic novels-

Good Dog by Graham Chaffee  Interesting story from Fantagraphics told from a dog's point of view.

21st Century Boys Vol 2: 20th Century Boy-  Urasawa's 24 volume sci-fi adventure winds up with most plot lines resolved.  What a wild ride.

FullMetal Alchemist Vol 1 & 2-  by Hiromu Arakawa  Got on to this series via suggestion from Paw.  More coming soon.

S.O.S. Meteors-  More vintage (1950s) Blake and Mortimer from Edgar Jacobs.  I still need to check out some of the more recent tomes by others to see how they compare.

March Book 1 by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell  Projected to be the first volume of civil rights pioneer Lewis's graphic novel memoir of his early days in the movement.  Well illustrated by Powell, who's storytelling approach reminds me of Will Eisner's later graphic novel work.

Phoenix Vol 2: Yamato/Space by Osamu Tezuka   Like the BlackJack volumes these Phoenix books can be read in any order.  Elements of history, science fiction and fantasy in the various stories.

Baby Blues: This is Going to be Tougher than We Thought  (Vol 1) by Jerry Scott and Rick Kirkman.   Enjoyed the Baby Blues collection that I read last month enough to track down the first collection which details the birth and early weeks of Zoe and her parents.

Also added Nancy by Guy Gilchrist and The Martian Confederacy by Paige Braddock and Jason McNamara to my online comic strip reading.

Best

Joe

PS Thanks for the additional suggestions Narf and Paw.  Looking into them.

[josemas]

Comics, graphic novels and collections read this past month-

Floppies-

Earth 2 #25-DC-
World's Finest #25-DC- The ladies make it back to earth 2 and I suspect there will be crossovers coming up as the battle against Darkseid progresses.
Aquaman #32-DC-
Justice League #31-DC-  Some interesting things going on with Lex Luthor
Infinity Man and the Forever People #2-DC-
Secret Origins #1-4-DC-  I'm a sucker for an origin tale.  DC gives you three 12 page origins in each issue  of this title.

Some silver age goodies from the bargain box at my LCS-

World's Finest #114-(1960)-DC-  Dick Sprang on Superman, Batman and Robin, Jim Mooney on Tommy Tomorrow and Lee Elias on Green Arrow!  Who could ask for more.
Our Fighting Forces #96-(1965)-DC-features the Fighting Devil Dog- Lt. Rock (Sgt. Rock's Marine brother).  A short-lived character that I don't remember at all as drawn by Irv Novick (channeling a lil bit of Joe Kubert).
Kona #3-(1962)-Dell- Following up on the first two issues that I read online last month here at CB+ I found the next issue and got to stick my nose into that old newsprint before getting to the Sam Glanzman illustrated craziness that is this issue.  Kona, finally, does seem to be becoming the central character in his namesake comic as he comes up against the wildest sort of animal amalgamations this side of the Island of Dr. Moreau.  One wonders if if things will get wackier yet.

Graphic novels and collections-

Lio's Astonishing Tales by Mark Tatulli   Humor in the vein of Charles Addams and Gahan Wilson in this comic strip collection.

Fullmetal Alchemist Vol 3 & 4 by Hiromu Arakawa   The brothers continue their quest after the Philosopher's Stone.

Bandette Vol 1: Presto! by Paul Tobin & Colleen Coover   Delightful!

Classic Bible Stories by Frank Hampson, Giorgio Bellavitis and co.  Beautifully illustrated vintage serials based on the New Testement from the pages of Eagle.  Hampson's last work in comics.

Sweet Tooth Vol 5: Wild Game by Jeff Lemire.  A satisfying end to Lemire's tale.

Goddamn This War! by Jacques Tardi  Tardis unflinching look at the war in the trences seemed appropriate reading on this 100th anniversary of the beginning of WWI.

Vietnamerica: A Family's Journey bt G. B. tran  Good autobiographical memoir by the author looks at his family's life in Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s and their flight to America.

The Sixth Gun: Sons of the Gun by Cullen Dunn and Brian Hurtt  I gather that this is a prequel to the regular series. I plan on checking out more.

Young Lovecraft Vol 1 & 2  I gather that this is a webcomic being collected here in print.   Like Lio, this also has some of that weird oddball humor one finds in Addams and Wilson.

Tropic of the Sea by Sattoshi Kon   Nicely illustsrted tale with bits of fantasy.  I gather Kon works primarily in the animation field.

Phoenix (Vol1): Dawn by Osamu Tezuka

Humongous Zits by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman  I enjoyed Jerry Scott's Baby Blues so decided to check out his other strip.  This one deals with a family and their fifteen year old teenager.

Online-

The Complete Moth Archives (Fox)  A collection available here at CB+.  I appreciate these collections that people put together for DCM and CB+ especially when they add an introduction giving some background info.  This collection features a short-lived superhero charcter from comic's Golden Age. 

Also added the following comic strips to my regular group-
Jerry Scott's Baby Blues and Zits
Mark Tatulli's Lio and Heart of the City.  Also working my way through earlier online strips of Heart of the City since there only seems to be one collection of the strip out there. This month read July 1999 -February 2000.

Best

Joe

[josemas]

Comic reading for August-

Floppies-

Aquaman #33 and Aquaman Annual #2-DC-   They begin winding up some storylines in anticpation of the changes coming up from the big Future's End series going on.

Justice League #32-DC

Daredevil #36-Marvel-  (listed as #1.50 on the cover)-  50th anniversary special.  Good job overall.

Daredevil #0.1-Marvel-   I gather that this originally appeared as a web comic and this is the print edition collecting the whole storyline.

KIck-Ass 3 #1-8-Marvel-Icon   Millar winds it all up here.

Earth 2 #26- DC-

Worlds' Finest#26-DC-

Infinity Man and the Forever People #3-DC- Seems like they can get a regular artist here.

Abe Sapian #6-7- Dark Horse-  Okay two-parter.   Wish they would get more along with the ultimate storyline though.

Life with Archie #36-37-Archie-  The life and death of Archie.  Pretty well handled.

DC Retroactive- JLA- The 90's #1-DC- Had this one laying around unread.  Does a good job of revisiting the JLA from it's "humorous" period.  Also contains a vintage reprint from that era.

Some oldies from the bargain boxes at my local comic shop-

Star Spangled War Stories #120- (DC)- (1965)   The first war comics I remember reading.  Loved the concept of the soldiers fighting dinosaurs as a lil kid.  Not particularly impressed with Kanigher's heavy-handed writing on this reread.  Still like the Andru-Esposito art though.

Real Screen Comics #59-DC- (1953)-  As a kid in the 1960s I never had a clue that DC's Fox and Crow comics were based on a theatrical animated cartoon series that had run from 1941-1950.  I didn't learn that fact until I was in my teens and well after DC had dropped the title (after a lengthy run from 1945-1968).   Finally saw some of the animated shorts just a few years ago.  Revisiting the comics is always fun.

Tales of the Unexpected #75-DC- (1965)-   Picked up a small pile of these DC sci-fi titles (mostly Schiff edited titles).  Nothing special on the stories.  Best art-wise was Bob brown's Space Ranger ( a character I barely remember) story with George Ruossos' story being the weakest (although still better than what he would be doing in a few years).  The Howard Sherman takes the middle spot. IMHO.


Graphic Novels and Collections-

Young Lovecraft Vol 3-Kettle Drummer Books- by Jose Oliver and Bartolo Torres    More of the same offbeat humor as in the previous volumes.

Fullmetal Alchmist Vol 5-Vol 9- Viz- by Hiromu Arakawa   Plowing right through these as we learn more about the boy's history.

The Adventures of Patsy-Daily Strips-1939- by Mel Graff-   Still some great looking art from Graff (in the Sickles/Caniff vein).  Would love to see more volumes of these.

Online-

John Stanley's The Hair-Raising Adventures of Peterkin Pottle.  Great collection of the complete run of this Walter Mitty-esque character from 1949 Dell comics.  Fine introduction too.  Thanks to all who put this one together.  Check it out here at CB+.

Added the strip Kid Beowulf to my growing list of current online comic strips I follow.

Also reading more older runs of some strips including-

Dick Tracy (Apr 2001-Feb 2002)

Heart of the City   (Feb-Oct 2000)

Gasoline Alley   (Apr-July 2001)

Brewster Rockit (From the beginning-July-Sept 2004)

Rip Haywire    (From the beginning-Jan-May 2009)

Alley Oop (August-October 1996)

Best

Joe

[paw broon]

Death note.  Now up to Black Edition #4.  Highly entertaining.
A French G.N. art by Jacques Tardi - La D

[profh0011]

CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED-- "Journey To The Center of the Earth"
I have a strong feeling this is the version I read in high school that was reprinted in a hardbound English reading book.

Dell-- MYSTERIOUS ISLAND
The comics adaptation of the movie. Nowhere near as good as, but that's par for the course.

Boys' Life-- OLD TIMER TALES OF KIT CARSON
So far, the dullest series I've read in this magazine, but, I've been wanting to go thru it for over a year, and I finally got a chance starting last night.   Anyone know anything about Stanley Pashko (writer) & Lee Ames (artist) ?

[crashryan]

Don't know about Pashko, but Ames was a prolific artist/illustrator who passed away a couple of years ago. He's best known for his "Draw 50..." books but he was a better artist than those volumes suggest. Here's a link to his brief Wikipedia entry, which includes a list of book credits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_J._Ames

[crashryan]

Right, Paw, when the Giolitti studio started drawing the Star Trek comics no one in Italy had seen the show. Apparently the studio had been sent a few stills and nothing more, so they got everything wrong: exhaust blasts from the Enterprise, backpacks and/or spacesuits on the landing team, etc. I've read that when a new writer took over who was a fan of the show (I think it was John Warner but I honestly don't remember), he sent Giolitti a pile of reference with notes about how the Trek universe worked, after which the art fell more in line with the show.

[paw broon]

Excellent crash, that explains a lot.  I looked up Sr. Giolitti and found the website dedicated to him:-
http://www.albertogiolitti.com/
Not only all you want to know about the man and his career but the chance to read some of his work.  Now I know what he drew - and wrote, and it seems he wrote the first few issues of Turok but didn't draw them.
Varied work indeed as he worked for the Catholic church backed comic, Il Vittorioso and also drew neri - Italian horror porn titles.  What an interesting man. And what a studio, Alessandrini, Felmang, Belardinelli among piles more, worked there.
I see also that he or his studio, did work for Fleetway, IPC but no mention of which strips .  Unless anyone knows, I'll post a question on http://comicsuk.co.uk/forum/index.php
There's always someone there who can shed light on these things.

[crashryan]

Thanks, Paw, for reminding me of the Giolitti website. I stumbled across it some years ago and enjoyed Angelo Todaro's background information about Giolitti, but he didn't have all those complete issue scans up. What a treat! I haven't seen some of these comics in years. Somehow during my collecting days I missed that issue of "Cisco Kid"--nice work. And it's funny to discover that Giolitti himself guest-starred as John Steele, Freedom Agent.

You might be interested in this post from my (now-dormant) blog, which features an interview with the daughter of legendary Italian comics artist Franco Caprioli in which she describes the early days of the Giolitti studio:

http://smurfswacker.blogspot.com/2010/03/alberto-giolitti-artist.html

[josemas]

Comics and collections read this past month-

All Star Western #34-DC-   Final issue.  I dropped it awhile back but returned to enjoy the Darwyn Cooke art on the finale.
Aquaman #34-DC-   Wrapping some story-lines up in a few DC titles before this big Future's End thing gets going.
Justice League #33-DC-
Secret Origins #5-DC-
Captain Midnight #8-11- Dark Horse-  Still keeping my interest.
Daredevil #1-5- Marvel-  DD moves to the west coast and Samnee returns to the art making the jump in price somewhat bearable.

Earth 2: Future's End #1-DC-
Worlds' Finest : Future's End #1-DC-  The latest big deal begins.  Will wait to reserve judgement.  Nothing special yet.

Some oldies from the bargain boxes at my local comic shop-

Combat #5-Dell (1962)-  Always like this war title as a kid.  If I'm not mistaken Sam Glanzman handled the art chores throughout its entire run and I always liked him as a war comics artist.  The stories often featured stories of actual war events such as the Bataan Death March or JFK and PT109.

Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies #138-Dell (1953)-  I got into comics at a very early age.  By age three (1961) I had become fascinated by the animated cartoons I saw on TV so my Grandma begin occasionally picking up the Dell and Harvey comics for me that featured those characters.  Four color print versions of the Warners, Hanna-Barbera and Harvey-Toons characters I watched in action on our black and white TV.  I couldn't read but I would page through the pages by the hour trying to dope out the stories.  A year later I would discover Superman via reruns of the 1950s Adventures of Superman TV show and that would lead me to his comics and superheroes in general and that would become my favorite genre.  I've still kept a soft spot though for those humor books that lead me to comics in the first place and like to sample them now and again.

World's Finest #131-DC- (1963)-  Dick Sprang nearing the end of his run (even with some fairly lackluster inking here) on Superman and Batman, Ramona Fradon on Aquaman and Lee Elias on Green Arrow making this a pleasant little book to look at overall.

Graphic Novels and Collections-

Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars: The Jesse Marsh Years- Dark Horse-  Collects the three issues that Dell put out in the early 1950s.  My view of Marsh's work has changed over the years.  I was fine with it as kid, couldn't stand it bu the time I was in my teens but have come to appreciate aspects of it since (although I still find much of his figure work to be on rhe clunky side).

Fables Vol 11: War and Pieces by Willingham, Buckingham and Co.-  DC/Vertigo-  Continues to be an excellent read.

Triton of the Sea Vol 1 by Osamu Tezuka- Digital Manga-   Another epic storyline from the manga master.

Climate Changed: A Personal Journey Through the Science by Phillipe Squarzoni- Abrams-   Scarier than all of our precode horror comics.

Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future-Marooned on Mercury- by Frank Hampson and co.- Titan-  Hampson was ill during much of the production of this storyline and the story and art was mostly handled by his assistants which may account for why I felt that this strech was a come down from what had preceded it.

FullMetal Alchemist Vol 10 by Hiromu Arakawa-Viz-

East of West Vil 2: We Are All One by Hickman and Co.-Image-   Getting more interesting.

Online and downloads-

My usual bunch of current comic strips plus the following earlier runs

Dick Tracy-  February 2002-July 2003

Gasoline Allley-   July-December 2001

Alley Oop - October 1996-March 1997

Rip Haywire -   May-November 2009

Brewster Rockit-   September 2004-February 2005

Heart of the City-  October 2000-July 2001

Plus form here at Comic Book Plus

Oaky Doaks Dailies 1935   I first really became aware of the Oaky Doaks character/strip when I was a student at the Kubert School decades ago because one of my fellow students thought I looked like Oaky and would refer to me as Oaky.   
Never read the strip until nowthough. 
It's an enjoyable light humor/adventures strip set in medieval times.  The strip mran from 1935-1961.  We have the dailies from the beginning in 1935 through 1939 here at Comic Book Plus.

Best

Joe

[profh0011]

Josemas:
"bigger and easier to read than the postage stamp size the newspaper now prints them"

No kidding.  Ever since the early 80s, I've put the blame for the steady decline on newspapers on THEIR EDITORS, who cared more about advertising space than THE REASON PEOPLE BOUGHT the papers for in the first place.  Slow-motion self-destruction.

[profh0011]

Someone at one of my Facebook groups posted an entire Skywald POE adaptation from the early 70s.  That did it.  I've started on a POE blog project.  The earliest POE comics adaptation I've found was-- sure enough-- a Gilberton CLASSIC COMICS issue (#21 to be exact), in 1944.  But the next one, it turns out, can be found on THIS very website... and it's from Charlton!!

I'll keep you posted...

[narfstar]

In Yellowjacket 

[profh0011]