The Outliers of the Golden Age (A Listers Not Welcome!) 0

[Flex Mentallo]

2 minutes ago, goldust40 said:

The endless void is pretty fab, it has to be said.

It reaches new heights of wuthering!

[porcupine48]

3 minutes ago, goldust40 said:

The endless void is pretty fab, it has to be said.

stop gothin around you guys!

[goldust40]

2 minutes ago, porcupine48 said:

5 minutes ago, goldust40 said:

The endless void is pretty fab, it has to be said.

stop gothin around you guys!

I'm an old goth at heart...must be why I like PCH so much...

[Flex Mentallo]

Dark matters matter

[porcupine48]

4 minutes ago, goldust40 said:

I'm an old goth at heart...must be why I like PCH so much...

I was so confused in the very early nineties when my uncle called me a new romantic...!

 

[N e r V]

 

If this story from Novelty's Target Comics #10 (1940) looks a little odd, there's a good reason for it.
Archival Press released a SpaceHawk trade paperback in 1978.
Though the book itself featured b/w line art interiors and a color cover, Archival made a deal with Marvel to provide Epic Illustrated a SpaceHawk story in color to accompany an article by Ron Goulart about Basil Wolverton.
Unfortunately, Epic only gave them 8 pages, so the 10-page story had to be edited to fit the page count.
BTW, the hand-coloring, which was photographically-color separated (they didn't have scanners then), was done by Rick Veitch.
It has a wonderful "organic" feel computer coloring just can't match. Atomic Kommie comics (2014).

 

[Mmehdy]

amazing how great it is now, but think back, it really must of blown peoples minds back then,  thanks again for you great story posting

[Jayman]

One of my favorite Wolverton stories. Hope no one minds me posting...

[Jayman]

[N e r V]

Yeah, that’s a good one too. Made for a great title in the Bronze Age for Marvel as well.

Really Wolverton is worthy of his own thread. Alas, I said I had another eye in mind outside of Wolverton’s creepy story about them so...

[N e r V]

Although not a big fan of many Centaur books the Keen Detective Funnies series  I always found pretty interesting. The Eye being at least part of that reason. Just as weird a concept as the previous Wolverton work was with his art. The story below is from Keen Detective Funnies #20. But first an introduction to....

 

 

 

(From the defunct
http://www.wellnessadvisor.com/hoohah/vol1_no6/eye.htm) : 
Early in 1939 Centaur Publications began a new series titled “The Eye Sees” in their comic book Keen Detective Funnies. Nicely drawn (and written ?) by Frank Thomas, it scrutinized one of the strangest heroes to appear in comics and certainly was an odd cover feature – real eye candy.

The hero was a disembodied super-powered organ complete with lashes. It spoke and showed no mercy to crime—it was a real eyesore. The Eye would spot fleeing criminals and pursue and destroy them with powerful discharges, and I don’t mean that early morning eyelid crust.

Keen Detective Funnies began with issue No.8 in July 1938. After an inauspicious beginning as an anthology comic typical of its day, Keen Detective became the home of the Masked Marvel. I’ve noticed that people use “Masked Marvel” to describe generic heroes and wrestlers. The Eye Sees finally appeared in vol. 2 No.2 in 1939. (Centaur, like Novelty press, updated the volume number of its publications annually renumbering starting with issue No.1 each year.) 

Thereafter the ocular feature appeared in every issue of Keen Detective, with the two exceptions of vol. 2 Nos.3 and 5, until the title folded in September of 1940 with its 24th issue. Centaur also ogled The Eye for the short-lived Detective Eye comic book (No.1 November and No.2 December 1940). I have not perused copies of Detective Eye comics for myself, but my usually reliable sources (who have) tell me that they contain reprint material from Keen Detective.

These strange Eye stories often began with an introductory speech such as “THE EYE ! That haunting spectre of man’s inner conscience ! Whose presence strikes terror into the hearts of evil men and smashes their deeds !! Time or distance mean nothing to The Eye ! He appears wherever men do wrong whether it be in the Sandy Wastes of the Sahara, or the crowded streets of an American metropolis !!!” (This paragraph needs more exclamation points !!!!!) 

The visual character had a pretty set modus operandi. The Eye would appear before people as a weird apparition and instruct them to do its bidding. It was a chatty orb, and liked to give speeches about how crime doesn’t pay and no one escapes justice and how it needs a Visine bottle the size of a Volkswagon Beetle.

To enforce its edicts The Eye could emit a disintegrating ray from his iris (he was no flower child). The Eye could also levitate objects and often hypnotized its victims bending them to its will. There was not much of a detective style “who-done-it” approach to the stories—just pure eye muscle. Usually the crime and perpetrator was revealed to the readers by page one.

The fun was in “seeing” how The Eye would deal with the evil. Just like most of Centaur’s other features, there was absolutely no character development in The Eye Sees stories, only action.

 

 

 

[goldust40]

This is rapidly becoming one of my favorite threads.

[Point Five]

On 3/1/2018 at 7:52 PM, adamstrange said:

This edition contains all the Space Hawk, oversize and in color faithful to the original printings.  It's stunning though appears to be out of print.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Spacehawk-Wolverton-Basil-first-2012/dp/B00CAYK270/ref=sr_1_52?ie=UTF8&qid=1519951813&sr=8-52&keywords=basil+wolvert

Welp, I'm a happy geek. I knew there were various out-of-print reprints but I thought they were all black-and-white and much older. Just bit the bullet and bought this on ebay. Thank you!

 

[N e r V]

Forgot to post the cover to the above story since it is a eye opening one...

 

[N e r V]

Outside of what few Centaur collectors that exist I don’t see the artist Frank Thomas getting as much respect in the comic book collecting world  as he probably should. The work below shows some of his skill with other features.

 

If  you want to learn a bit more about him and his work try Alter Ego #151.

Edited March 3, 2018 by N e r V

[N e r V]

...

 

Edited March 3, 2018 by N e r V

[N e r V]

 

So let’s try another story of his/her/it? This is the first appearance of the eye from Keen Detective Funnies Volume 2 Number 4 (whole number 16), published in 1939.

 

[adamstrange]

4 hours ago, Point Five said:

Welp, I'm a happy geek. I knew there were various out-of-print reprints but I thought they were all black-and-white and much older. Just bit the bullet and bought this on ebay. Thank you!

 

Thank the guys that did the painstaking work to put it together.  It is one of the best reprint books I've seen.

[adamstrange]

This is a great thread.

I don't think the animator Frank Thomas had anything to do with comicbooks for Centaur.  He seems to have had a very full career with Disney interrupted only when in the Air Force in WWII.

Here's the Lambiek entry on the similarly named comicbook artist Frank Thomas:

https://www.lambiek.net/artists/t/thomas_frank.htm

[Mmehdy]

8 hours ago, goldust40 said:

This is rapidly becoming one of my favorite threads.

I will second that...GREAT STUFFFF