Duffman_Comics

Welcome To The Boards (WTTB) Scrooge is a fabulous title to collect. Great timeless stories.

Always thought this was the swipe inspiration for Adventure 332

Naturally, GCD is no help - though I think this is the copy "on file". Ausreprints is similarly devoid of detail. Gun to head, I'd nominate Paul "Panther" Wheelahan here, though I note with interest that there are a couple of tiny initials on the rock/tree/whatever lower right. S D? Steve Ditko moonlighting in OZ? If only we could ask him.

Wonderful stuff, Andrew. Have you been able to identify any covers that are locally drawn? My drive-by glance didn't pick any out, but close-up may be a different story.

Well, this about as good a segue as any to plug the local "100 page Phantom" comic that's produced quarterly. I got issue #6 Monday, and that's exactly what the "Frew Crew" are doing - reprinting Australian yarns along with new stories, some with the old characters and some with the Phantom et al. Nicely packaged, and the covers of the old books are included in the reprint - in glorious "newsprint" colour: 100 Page Phantom

Well, I just discovered that I have to "re-follow" the "new" Journal thread in order to keep up. It's difficult to find specific Journal threads in the new system. *sigh*

Shooter was "out of the office", Stan wasn't around but I did "howdy" John Romita Sr. and have a chat with Peter Ledger

Thanks a million, Ditch. I visited the Marvel offices in 1980 - May - and I have terrific memories of the visit, but little else. This floor plan (and associated personnel) marries very well with my aged recollections. I vividly recall chatting with a couple of guys who were proofreading comics, obviously prior to printing. My escort volunteered that "this is where the proofreading is done" and one of the lads cheerfully offered "and a whole lot of critiquing". Great memories.

Well, here's another disappointed punter who shares your disdain for the new Journals arrangement. The complete obliteration of the (older) threads' history is just unfathomable. At least when Photobucket decided to "change its model" I could understand that that was all about money. This? Not so much. A fustercluck.

Anyway, here's a comment. I like Bradbury stories (and so did EC, of course) and I also like the detail (risque or otherwise) that pulp covers usually contain. Style point. Is "novelet" an acceptable variant spelling of the more traditional "novelette"?

Well, this is disappointing. The transfer to the new Journals format results in everything but the first post of the old format being abandoned. And one cannot comment "back there". I'll post the last couple of your entries, AJD: One like and one "response", such as it was. Thus heartened, I shall continue. Here are the other couple of pulps I bought. The first is Vol 1 #4, fall of 1940. Like Duffman said, the covers are often fragile because they were made with an overhang. (They are often trimmed because the edges got ragged too.) But with careful handling I've been enjoying reading these. In the VGish grades they are, they're solid enough to read but already dinged enough that I don't worry too much about harming them. This one (Fall 1946) was a must have for me. The Bradbury story The creatures that time forgot is one of my absolute favourites. I first read it in a Scholastic books edition of R is for Rocket sometime in the first half of the 1970s. In that edition it had the much better and appropriate title Frost and fire, being a tale of the lives of the descendants of humans shipwrecked on Mercury and eking out an existence in the hour of twilight between extreme heat and cold. (Synopsis here.) It was nice to be able to read it in its first printing, but I must check the ending in the anthologised version - this one didn't gel with my (probably faulty) memory.

Well, at least you know what the Captain Atom rings look like if you see one. Phantom rings? There have been a lot of them over the years, and the older metal ones still turn up, but THE rarest are the rubber ones - ink them up and put the Phantom's "bad" mark of the skull on all your friends' faces. Even then, there are two rubber models, one that's "normal" and the other that has the skull "on its side" so to speak. They are rare because the rubber perished on so many of them. Hakes auctioned a normal one a while back Linky

RM, have you ever come across an Australian "Captain Atom" premium ring from the forties/fifties? The character was extremely popular here but I have never seen the ring in the flesh, so to speak. Here's a short description (and picture): The article is from Kevin Patrick's Blog

I like pulps, too, but the covers seem to be far more delicate than their comic book brothers and as for the interiors - the pages start at brown, and then get darker. Second "Planet" has a great comic book connection with a Gardner Fox story too. Happy with the response so far? And you are not allowed to give the knee-jerk rejoinder "Yes, but it's only you"

I have seen a lot of second generation GI Joes posted, but does anyone have the originals?

Pretty sure it's blissard (I really just wanted to be part of what promises to be a great thread)

What's amusing about this cover (#6) is the "promise" of a full colour interior, as indicated by the slightly turned cover. Disappointingly, for the young Australian reader, the interior is black and white. What a gyp. It wasn't until issue #91 that the interiors were reprinted in colour, discontinued with issue #102

She may have been crash hot in dog world, but she was small beer when measured against Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo. Skippy had a pouch that held anything she needed, and talk about communication skills . . .

What on earth is Little John wearing on the cover of this - where he's a-fightin' on the "bridge"? A kilt? The colouring is interesting, but these aged faculties are finding it a bit hard to immediately work out what's going on with Prince John on the horse, backwards. Might be easier to distinguish "in the flesh" so to speak.

I, for one, welcome our new, well credentialed, Chinese overlords

No Beer No " " Who are you and what have you done with Catman?

I thought you did - and isn't it sweet, a war time book with one staple, saving valuable resources for the boys at the front.

Have you got a 20, with the War Bonds stamp?

Seems to me there is more missing than just the war bonds ad.

The unvarnished truth is rarely pretty.