Hepcat

Very, very true! That's what makes the exercise of picking the best covers from the Silver Age even more difficult.

Funny animal comics were of course the first that caught my attention back in 1958-59 and I still love them. I didn't as a young fellow though limit myself to the Disney characters nor do I now. Here in rough order is a baker's dozen of my favourite funny animal characters from comic mags: 1. Uncle Remus' Brer Rabbit 2. Fox and the Crow 3. Rocky and Bullwinkle 4. MGM's Droopy, the Wolf and the Girl(Red) 5. Deputy Dawg 6. Herman and Katnip 7. Goofy 8. Heckle and Jeckle 9. Felix the Cat 10. Beany and Cecil 11. Sylvester 12. Andy Panda 13. Foghorn Leghorn

Yes, but think of poor Lana. Those superhero fellows were such morally upright prigs back in 1962 that a girl couldn't even get them to part with an admiring glance. I mean here she must have been thinking "Look, look! See what you're missing being off superheroing all the time! Geeze, you're all such boring no fun do-gooders. How's a girl ever going to find a husband these days?"

Here are pics from earlier in the week of the gang as currently constituted: Cowboy Scout Lucky

I'm still kicking myself for not having acted quickly fifteen years ago and snapped up a seemingly perfect white, bright copy that Pendragon Comics of Toronto had for sale at the big Toronto comic show. But Superboy was a lower priority for me at the time and....

Excellent overview! Not only that but Wonder Woman writer/editor Robert Kanigher had gotten very sloppy about labelling the tales in which Wonder Woman appeared beside her younger selves as "Impossible Tales". Kanigher himself seemed to be treating Wonder Girl anyway as a distinct character. In fact with Wonder Woman herself seated beside them, Queen Hippolyta tells Wonder Girl that her father was lost at sea in the "Wonder Girl's Mysterious Father" story from the February 1965 issue #152 of Wonder Woman! Wonder Girl's origin wasn't actually addressed until Marv Wolfman took on the assignment when he was scripting The New Teen Titans in the 1980's. Wolfman gave her a great backstory. In Wolfman's origin tale, Wonder Girl's mother was Dorothy Hinckley, a dying unwed teen, who had decided to place Donna up for adoption. Before Donna was actually adopted though, Wonder Woman saved toddler Donna from an apartment fire and then, for whatever reason, turned her over to the Titans who were the predecessors of the Olympian gods. In a subsequent rewrite of her origin, it was Rhea the queen of the Titan gods who saved baby Donna from the fire. Combining the two events would have Rhea planting the thoughts in Diana's head to be there to save Donna from the fire. This would be perfectly consistent with Greek mythology since the gods were always getting mortals to act in their stead and do their bidding. Donna was then raised in the New Cronus home of the Titan gods and imbued with the powers of the Titans. Upon reaching the age of puberty, she was sent to Paradise Island to learn the ways of mortals while receiving the advanced training of an Amazon warrior. Her memories though were first wiped/altered so that she thought of herself as Queen Hippolyta's daughter and Wonder Woman's sister. Given that she had earlier received the powers of the Titans, her powers already rivalled those of her older "sister". Wonder Woman had herself been animated by the Olympian gods from the clay statue of an infant molded by the barren Queen Hippolyta and gifted with the powers of six of their number. But the question of Wonder Girl's father was never addressed in her origin tales. And why was Donna Troy so special that she had not only merited the attention of Rhea but was also clearly under her protection? The only explanation that would make good sense is that one of the Titans must have been her father. After all, the ancient gods frequently dicked about with mortals. Like I say, a great origin! It incorporated the legendary Titans who predated the Olympian gods and therefore very fittingly explained how Wonder Girl got powers rivalling Wonder Woman's own! That's why I've chosen to ignore any subsequent retconning of Wonder Girl's origin tale.

Oh man, that looks delicious! I need a good steak right now. I recall going on a business trip to Chicago with a colleague back in 1979 when I was 27 years old. We sought out the Stockyards Steakhouse(?) or some such restaurant in the meat packing district for some gastronomic excess. We each ordered a fifty, maybe sixty, ounce porterhouse steak with of course whatever sides were offered. I think I finished it. I could certainly eat in my younger days, but I wouldn't even consider a feat like that these days. But since I'm not a drinker, I've avoided all the calories that come from drinking over the years. I also tend to walk if I'm going anywhere within about two miles, even the grocery store which of course involves carrying whatever can be packed into a pair of really sturdy shopping bags back home. Moreover I always climb the stairs instead of taking escalators. Therefore I've never had a problem keeping my weight down even when I'm not frequenting a gym. Those are my two "secrets".

Here's a great book on that very subject: It's well worth getting a copy! Kellogg's, General Mills, Post, Nabisco, Quaker and the other breakfast cereal companies were almost as given to such puffery. The April 1971 issue of National Lampoon contained a great parody of those "Free Inside" cereal premium offers that were once so common. First the box: Then what was actually inside the box: The irony though is that whoever bought those cereals and actually kept the prizes, and especially the boxes(!), has the last laugh now. And that's true as well for nicely preserved specimens of the stuff/junk sold through those comic magazine ads.

Nice cards! Great artwork indeed! Red Rose was the Brooke Bond subsidiary in Canada when Red Rose issued seventeen sets of little tea cards from 1959 to 1974. No sets devoted specifically to airplanes, but a couple of the sets included cards featuring airplanes: http://www.teacard.com/rr/issues.html Unlike the Australian and U.K. Brooke Bond tea cards though, the Canadian ones had rounded corners:

Hmmmmm. I don't know about those two. Why weren't they turning their X-ray vision on Lana instead of each other?

Oh man, Linus is really looking wild cool!

You mean they didn't look like the ones in the ad?

Very cool! That's The WOMAN's favourite comic of all time! She's a huge fan of Flower.

Visitors are always welcome in this thread! We've managed to introduce a new ten year old male cat, Lucky, into our household: We were keeping Lucky on separate levels of the house from our other two cats for about two months. Our big twelve year old male Cowboy was fairly calm about Lucky's presence from the start. Our little two year old female Scout was really hostile to Lucky initially but they're friends now. Cowboy though has remained generally indifferent to Lucky.

But even the non-racy ads were great and a key part of the comic reading experience! I mean what baby-boomer doesn't have fond memories of the ads for everything from Civil War and Roman soldiers to Tootsie Roll Pops, Aurora model kits, skull rings, X-Ray specs and Sea-Monkeys? I still do.

I agree. I like the thread format. That after all is why I'm posting here. I'll just quit posting in this thread if the powers that be change the format on me. Or else I'll request that my thread be moved back to Comics General where I started it.

Do you collect any of the aircraft card sets? The Topps Wings set from 1952 is a really nice one of 200 2-5/8” x 3-3/4" cards: I like the 1957 Topps Planes set of 120 standard sized cards even better. It was issued with both blue backs and red backs. Blue backed cards are about twice as common. Here are scans of some of mine: And here's the one cent wrapper in which these cards were sold:

You bet he does! He might very well be the greatest comic creator of them all. And I'd be glad to get his signature on one of my hardcover books covering the history of comics on an appropriate page. But I certainly wouldn't want his signature on one of my comics.

That's precisely how I felt when I first saw this ad in Adventures of the Fly 13 heralding the introduction of the exciting Jaguar character a year earlier in 1961: The cover of Adventures of the Jaguar 1 too was striking and didn't disappoint when it hit the newsstands a month later: As a cover I think it's much preferable to that of Amazing Fantasy 15 but it's still nowhere close to being among my favourites.

You seem to have converted the attic area of an older house into a comic room. Is that correct? If so, is heat not a problem in your comic room? How do you keep it air-conditioned?

Spider-Man always looked awkward and unnatural in that pose to me. And the cover colours are just too grey and not very vibrant overall. Oh well. Different strokes for different folks. I'm still working on my own list.

Only the eight that hit the newsstands in the first ten days of October 1961 have those characteristics. See the October 1961 Newsstand in Mike's Amazing World of DC Comics: http://www.mikesamazingworld.com/features/newsstand.php?type=calendar&month=10&year=1961&publisher=dc&sort=date&checklist=null

All true. The price increases for Amazing Fantasy 15 have fueled further demand as speculators/investors have extrapolated the past increases on into the future. But here's another truth: "The market can stay irrational longer than any of us can stay solvent."

So does the cover of Adventure Comics 353 or the splash page of the Legion of Super-Heroes story look familiar to you?

Here are some great ads for the real thing: Black Cat 15 Felix the Cat 10 Daffy Duck 24 DC Fall 1962 DC Summer 1967 DC May 1968