rjpb

Nice colors on all those Jungles! Great covers.

Great Planet! I too would love to see more - an amazing title I'd love to collect, but my pockets are only so deep, and my collecting interests are incredibly unfocused already.

Keep 'em comin'! Love those horror themed Dollman splashes,and that Ellery Queen cover is aces!

I'd love to upgrade this someday, but it's not an easy book to find. Still, I wouldn't mind having a copy with more red in the logo and blood.

Great cover - who did it? The Shield almost looks like he was drawn by Joe Simon.

Here is a copy of the book that Bonds was trying to link to - I know I've posted it before - perhaps not on this thread.

Nice! - One of the great things about seeing these scans is finding detail that one had missed when thumbing through the Gerber - like that guy hanging in the background!

Fantastic splash, Comichut! Manhunt #14 doesn't have a drug cover in the traditional sense of heroin/marijuana stories, but it does have a hypo cover that is a favorite of many.

In response to all those great Astonishing covers posted by precode Kieth, I though I'd post my favorite from the run - #30 with the outstanding Maneely eyeball cover.

Don't remember exactly, but I think it was a bit over hundred bucks...mebbe $130 or something like that. It's a sweet highgrade copy, though. I've been thinking about slabbing it, just 'cause there's none on the census. What was the asking price for the one on ebay? I don't recall exactly - but I'm pretty sure it was over $100 or I would have bid. I don't recall the grade either, but it was neither beat nor pristine ( I realize that leaves alot of room, but my initial reaction was that it was pricey so I moved on without further consideration )

Are you going to watch "Reefer Madness: The Musical" on Showtime? I think it may start this weekend. Should be a hoot. I just found my VHS double-feature of Reefer Madness and Night of the Living Dead (dunno why those two were paired together. I guess it's a cult movie pack). Well I don't have Showtime - but I'm not sure about a musical version of Reefer Madness - what made the original so entertaining was the earnestness of the film.

Love that CRACKDOWN cover - how much was it from Metropolis - I saw a copy on ebay a little while back, but the starting bid seemed kind of high -I can't recall if it sold. I was looking through my collection for a cover to post and realized there are very few drug covers (not counting mentions in a title box), though lots of great interior stories. I collect pre-code marijuana stories, though not drug stories in general, and I'll try and figure out which have some great splash pages to post later. I'm also interested in any info on drug books not listed specifically as having a "marijuana story" in the Overstreet, but that do have gangsters or teenagers and the like smoking the devil weed in the story.

Wow - great cover - this one goes on the want list!

Great cover! You have to love comic book science - the fireball is hot enough to melt a car 20 feet behind those guys, but they're not even getting a tan.

Just now caught up with this thread. A couple of observations - I can't say that the Two-Gun Lil strip looks like Pete Morisi to me - some of the anatomy is too awkward to be his work, and Morisi usually drew women with a lipstick pout. As for the Darpis/Karpis connection look no further than the text box in the splash panel - he is accidently referred to as "Karpis" there. From my experience, the "true" stories in crime comics ranged from abreviated and sometimes sloppily researched histories of real people, to versions of the same with the names changed, to completely fabricated tales of non-existent criminals. The only reason I can think of for the name changes were that editors felt that some names may have been overused.

Why wait! Just go to the DC Indices. I already pointed you to the Plastic Man page. It seems that they start around 30 and do continue for a while. I'd say 53 but after a certain point (before 53) they already incorporate a Reds / Spy component alternating with Horror. #33 with the melting plas is probably the 1st 'horror" cover, though a look through the Gerber does indicate a trend away from the more humorous covers starting with #27. The more interesting as well as a few horror themed covers by Cole continue through #42 - I can't tell if Cole did #43 which also has a horror type cover, but after that the covers appear to be either Crandall with Cuidera inks or just Cuidera. The three I have from that era are the #38 I posted which definetly has a 'horror" story, #37 which despite promising "the Eerie Horror of the Gigantic Ants", doesn't really contain anything resembling a horror story, though it does have a giant ant story., and #42 which does have a tale titled "The Witch of the Wailing Woods" which has some creepy elements, as well as the cover story which is a variation on the old "criminal beats the electric chair only to be electrocuted by something else" storyline so popular in precode crime and horror books. My guess is that the covers to #36 thru #39 are not by Cole. I'm not sure when the last original story by Cole was printed, but issues #56, #61 and the final issue, #64 all have cover stories which are obvious reprints from earlier issues. Also while the titles aren't the same, the covers to #57 & #58 look like they may well recycle stories from #33 and #22 respectively. I used to own a few of the later issues, and they contained stories that were obviously not by Cole, as well as what were probably Cole reprints, IIRC one issue had a reprint of the cover story to #29. These later issues had 3 Plastic Man stories each, so it's possible some of the cover stories were taken from earlier issues. After looking through the Gerber I think I may too be looking to pick up a few more "horror" issues of Plastic man as well as upgrade my #38.

A page from the Monk Mauley cover story - Cole combines humor and horror beautifully in this tale of the dead rising from the grave to enact their revenge - that's Plas at the bottom pretending to be Satan in order to send the corpses back to their graves.

This is the splash to the first story - a great example of Plas taking on Korean bad guys, but still retaining that unmistakable Cole style.

Here is my favorite Quality superhero/horror hybrid issues Plastic Man #38 from 1952, the floating corpse was recycled for the cover of Web of Evil #15 a couple years later. While Cole didn't do the cover he did do a couple of interior stories and they too show Atom Age influences. This copy is worse shape than I remember with spine splits top and bottom, but you get the idea.

Perhaps I'm being too literal, but Dark Age conjurs up images of pre-code crime and horror to the exclusion of much else. This is why I prefer Atom Age to Atomic Age - the latter once again seems descriptively limited, where as the the late forties and the entire decade of the fifties has ben refered to as the "Atom Age" outside the realm of comic books. I would argue that much as the term Golden Age is used in the loosest sense to describe super-hero comics published up to the arrival of the comics code, that the Atom Age could be expanded in the its most liberal definition to include all pre-hero sci-fi and fantasy titles, and perhaps other non-super genres up through the end of the dime era. Sure the rise in cover price from 10 to 12¢ is somewhat arbitrary in relation to content, but it does allow for a clean visual break. The other advantage to this expansion, is that while scores of titles transitioned easily into the post-code era, most of them were long defunct (especially Atlas titles) well before the rise in cover price to 12¢. I realize it is probably too late to convince many of this arguement, as the term Atom Age has pretty well become identified with pre-code comics, but allowing for overlaps into both the Golden and Silver Ages, gives the Atom Age room to include nearly all comics not easily defined in terms of precious metals. Sure, fandom got along for nearly 40 years without even bothering to find a catch-all name for the era the fell inbetween the Golden and Silver ages, and as Adamstrange implies, it is still hardly necessary, but if collectors are anything, they are prone to organization, and seem driven to catalog comics in broader terms than title, publisher, or genre.

It many respects, you are right, it shouldn't, but for organizational purposes, whether it's surfing ebay, searching through dealer stock, or merely sorting my own collection, I am grateful for the various "ages", no matter how imprecise.

I recall back in the mid-nineties that Dark Age, Atom Age and Atomic Age were all being used to describe the late forties to mid-fifties era of horror, crime, sci-fi, war and various esoteric comics. It looks looks Atom Age had won out by 1998. Whatever the genisis of the term, it was a long overdue recognition that there was a period between the Golden & Silver Ages when other genres eclipsed the costumed hero books. I've stated before my belief that the various comic ages really overlap rather than suddenly change on a given date, and sometimes the transition for titles that bridge the ages can be difficult to assess. Is the end of the Atom Age for Atlas horror/fantasy titles marked by the arrival of the comics code, or is it when they changed to Kirby dominated "monster" books? Yellow Claw - Atom age or Silver Age book (issue #1 would have been on the stands concurrent with Showcase #4)? What is the first Atom Age Batman or Superman book? Should Superhero comics even be called Atom Age? Do all comics dated 9/56 suddenly switch from Atom Age to SA titles just because Showcase #4 is released with that cover date? Even if they are Romance, Dells or Westerns? Isn't the arrival of the comics code a more defining moment for non-superhero books than the appearance of Showcase #4? Do Superhero books published during WW2 suddenly become Atom Age titles with a 1946 cover date, even if they only continued for a few more issues? Both Fawcett and Quality "superhero" books took on an Atom Age feel towards the end with an emphasis on "horror" and anti-communist themes, but this was in the early 50s, not 1946, so would this be a better place to make the change for these titles? There seems to be little consensus as to where the Silver/Bronze age split should come, with an increasing acceptance that it may be different dates for diffferent titles, let alone companies, and this is an era where across the board cover price hikes would make it possible to take the easy way out. The Gold/Atom age split has no such luxury, and while the arrival of the code makes for an easy Atom/Silver visual marker, it includes a years worth of comics that pre-date Showcase #4. Any opinions on when the Golden Age and Atom Age really come to an end?

Keeping with Silver's military romance theme - Wartime Romance's #17 - with another nice Baker cover.

Silver - cool run you got there, the #37 is the keeper of the bunch, that's for sure. . I'll take the lazy route and repost a couple of romance books I already have scanned. I don't know where Adam finds the time to scan and post so many incredible books, but I'm glad he keeps them coming. Teen-age Temptations #8 - classic Baker cover and a marijuana story - what more could you ask for.

One of the things I find odd about Overstreet's Plasticman listings is that after all these years, with both Plas and Jack Cole considered greats of the GA, no one has (to my knowledge) bothered to figure out what Plasticman stories are reprinted in what issues. Thumbing through the Gerber it is pretty clear where cover stories began to get recycled, but are they all-reprint issues? Even Overstreet's listing of #26 as possibly being the last non-reprint is confusing, as it is clear from having read a few of the later issues that new stories continued to appear into the 50s, including many by Cole. Do they mean it might be the last issue with no reprints? I've kept a few of the Atom Age Plas' that I used to have because of the horror covers and the bizarre hybrid Cole stories where Plas battles commies in Korea or vampires and witches. Cool Stuff - stylistically closer to his Web of Evil work than the 40s Plasticman stories. I suppose if the Archive editions continue to remain popular all may be revealed, but at one a year, I'll be too old to care by then.