Flex Mentallo

What he said! Round and round and round we go! My turn soon...

What makes you think he is done there? Keep watching the skies!

WoW!! Scott - those are unreal!

Yeah man. (thumbs u It's easy to see why it's your favorite title. There's just so much great stuff to be found in those books... Eisner's Espionage , Gustavson's The Jester, Jim Mooney's (Jim Mooney?!) Wildfire, Nordling's Lady Luck, and arguably the greatest superhero art ever produced in Fine/Crandall/Fine's The Ray. Cole's early run on Midnight is really interesting. It has to be a transitional work. It looks like he's trying to figure out how to balance the realistic with the cartoony. He hasn't quite divorced himself from the foundation yet (Realism) so the work has an odd feel. But when he comes back to Midnight later in the title he's got it dialed in and he's firing on all cylinders. It's brilliant stuff. You guys are right on the money. Many of these "lesser" titles get overlooked, and happily, that makes them more affordable for us bottom feeding geeks. The interiors on quite a few GA second and third tier titles are simply fantastic. What he said! (thumbs u

Great run of Fight Against Crime. I think they are all well done, all very readable. The notorious teens are great for horror fans, but even earlier, pure crime issues had some great stories. Quite right - and some of them are really tough to find! I guess I prefer the later covers because of the change in artist.

Here is another run that really hit me when I first perused Gerber - Fight Against Crime #12-21 (dont have #12 or #14 right now). I know that scrooge is of the view that the interiors are rather dull, but actually, the art and stories are pretty strong - clearly stealing from EC but with a style of their own - and Story had some pretty slick artists as well!

Michelle Nolan wrote an article about ACG for CBM years ago in which she said that Adventures into the Unknown #70 -#79 had some exceptional material. They are also very tough to track down because of low print runs - but I did eventually find them and they are hugely enjoyable, just as her article had promised. They are generally characterised by a combination of romance, fantasy wish fulfillment, time travel, mythology, spaceships, dinosaurs and alien races. The often poignant stories were almost all written by editor Richard Hughes. They featured Harry Lazarus, Curt Schaffenburger, and of course Ogden Whitney. Here is a selection of the best covers, all from the mid-50s:

I think this is one of the very best Jumbo covers. I was struck by the depth of color on this copy, which I'd not seen before.

I think this is one of the very best Jumbo covers. I was struck by the depth of color on this copy, which I'd not seen before.

Like Billy with the Worlds of Fear, Doc Savage is not a title I've ever considered collecting until I came across this wonderful cover recently on Ebay: Almost, almost pm'd Billy to let him know it ws there as I knew he was collecting them, then thought, what the heck, love the cover, never seen it before, let's take a look inside. And I was pleasantly surprised by what I found, which I thought I'd share: ...with apologies for the camera shake!

It's been on my wants list for just as long and I've never seen one either!

ACGs from the mid-1950s are really tough. You've reminded me that Adv into the Unknown had a great run from 71-80. Forbidden too from the same era. Stories full of charm and Ogden Whitney art as well! Some great covers in there. I'll post some scans tomorrow! (thumbs u

I no longer have any of these but I recall that they had some pretty good splash pages.

I love those! The sophistication of the artwork stands out from the relatively primitive material in most of the other stories (apart from the great Doolin artwork, which was stunning). I dont think I've got that one.

Joe Doolin was the artist of the majority of the covers you posted. Here is a pulp cover by him. Rapid-Fire Detective Stories (April 1933) Intriguing cover with brilliant use of color as a compositional tool (think Matisse) . If not for the sig I would not have recognized his style.

Come to think of it, this is a sweet little run combining great interior artwork with wonderful covers. Williamson and Everett!

I could post those too unless you want to? I find the extraordinary interior artwork by Werner Roth to be the best ever rendering of a jungle girl. And I love these two Russ Heath covers!

Exactly right!

What is your favourite run of covers, stories, or interior artwork? Could be a classic storyline, exceptional art, or an unusually strong sequence of covers - or all three! For me it has to be the covers of Fight Comics #27 to #46, which just beats out Hit #1 -#15, Jumbo #9-#20 and the Planet rivet run. While individual covers may be stronger elsewhere, I find it impossible to think of a more sustained run of quality covers. It's the run that really leapt out at me when I first opened Gerber... Here they are in four sets of five:

Hitchcock used the term to describe the dramatic device used in a given film/scene that provided the focus for all the tension. The key in "Notorious". In "Suspicion" it is a glass of milk Cary Grant carries up the stairs to his wife Joan Fontaine, who is unsure if he is going to kill her or not. Hitchcock has the lighting so that the glass is constantly illuminated as he zooms slowly in on it. Cary Grant has never seemed more sinister!

I have a half-sheet for Rear Window. I never heard of The Window. Maybe I can watch it on Netflix. Rear Window is probably my favourite Hitchcock movie. I've been looking for a nice 1 sheet. I have a nice vertigo 1 sheet framed on my wall. Big fan of Saul Bass. 'notorious' for me. VERTIGO! : (thumbs u (but Notorious is great) I remember as a schoolboy trying to get in to see Psycho but not getting away with it. Had to wait years for that shower scene. But my fave Hitchcock is The 39 Steps with Robert Donat from 1939. The best scene is the long tracking shot from Notorious, which swoops down a ballroom staricase and finishes up in tight focus on a key in Ingrid Bergman's hand. Question. Anybody know what a "maguffin" is?

Great Jungle covers!