Halloween Countdown: Monster Cards, Part 2!

More next time around!

Halloween Countdown: Famous Monsters #118, Part 1!

Time to start another Monster Magazine Review! This time around, it's Famous Monsters #118!



Despite the Cyclops on the cover, the main feature in this issue is on 20,000 Miles to Earth!



On the inside front cover, we have this pair of pre-human females from Skullduggery!



Page 3, the usual bit (and wit) from editor/creature Forry Ackerman, accompanied by a still from The Boy Who Cried Werewolf!



Page 4 brings us to the first page of FANG MAIL, the lettercol for FM! This issue is decidated to Ray Harryhausen, in honor of his then-55th birthday! Featured letters and photos were from Denis Constantineau, Raul Garcia, Jeff Pittarelli, Mike Smithson, Vincent Espitia, James A. Duke, Mike Duffey, Ms. Trudy L. Howe, Dempsey Patton, and Wayne Faucher -- and if any of you happened to come across this post doing a web search for your name, please speak up in the comments!



Page 5 brings us the Table of Contents, telling us that the cover was painted by Harry Roland, as well as telling us what we'll see in this issue in the weeks ahead! But for now, let's go to part one of the 20 Million Miles to Earth filmbook, which was started in issue 117 (which, sadly, I don't own a copy of)!













And that's where we'll leave it off for now, with the conclusion of this article coming next Wednesday! I'll tell you, reading this filmbook reminded me of the later Crestwood House books, except with much more detail (and a somewhat more mature storytelling style, too)!

By the 10's: Marvel Premiere!

In the 1970s, Marvel started producing a lot of "Showcase"-style titles to see what might stick without committing to a series with a character... oddly enough, DC had itself stopped doing this (with the exception of some of their reprint series, such as DC Special).



Here's issue 10, featuring the return of Doctor Strange as the headliner of a book. His own series had been cancelled some time ago, but the popularity of his appearances in The Defenders must've given Marvel reason enough to give him a second chance! Doc, of course, got his own title back after this.



Issue 20's feature, Iron Fist, was also successful enough to spawn his own short-lived series before he was folded into the Power Man title!



Issue 30's feature, the Liberty Legion, was a spin-off of Roy Thomas' Invaders title, and actually crossed over with the Invaders' own book. Unfortunately, sales didn't justify this getting its own title.



Issue 40's The Torpedo pretty much languished after his appearances here until he was brought into Rom, Spaceknight!



Issue 50 featured Alice Cooper, with a cover designed to evoke the 1950s EC titles (wow, that could almost justify this being a Halloween Countdown post!).



Issue 60's Doctor Who story (as well as the other Doctor Who issues) featured reprints from the Marvel UK Doctor Who comic. This was the good Doctor's second comic book company in the US, after Dell's Doctor Who and the Daleks adaptation! I believe Marvel later did a separate Doctor Who comic that didn't last long, but I could be misremembering.

Next: Marvel Two-in-One!

Cool Stuff: Battle Edition!

This edition of cool stuff features items based (however loosely) on Battle of the Planets! I didn't watch this show in its original US form until the past year or so... my first exposure, instead, was to the G-Force edition, as shown on Cartoon Network in its earliest days (you know, when they only showed cartoons?).



This intercom set looks vaguely familiar, and I suspect that the same design was used for other character toys, too!



I don't know if this was an authorized item or bootleg, although I suspect the latter, since there's no "Battle of the Planets" logo anywhere, just the picture of the lead character. It's a nice pair of "laser guns"!



Yes, Battle of the Planets came out after Aladdin changed from their metal Thermos containers to plastic ones!



Just how many of these "pinball games" were made over the years for various characters?

And now, just because it's that place in the alphabet, we go from Battle of the Planets to Battle For The Planet of the Apes!



I dig this French poster... nice use of color!







This still had to be the inspiration for the Caesar model kit, eh?



Next up, Battlestar Galactica!



That's kind of a funky-looking Cylon bubble blower thing, isn't it?

That's all the "battle" stuff for this time around, but since this post isn't quite long enough... here's some Mego bendys!









Next time: Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and maybe more!

Halloween Countdown: Original Horror Comic Art!

As promised, all month long, I'll be featuring comic art pages here from horror and monster comics!



Leading off is page 27 from Four Color Comics 845! That issue featured an adaptation of "The Land Unknown."



Here's page 31!



Next, we have the cover for Adventures Into the Unknown #149, by Kurt Schaffenberger, sans logos! And below, you'll find what I believe is a complete story from Alarming Adventures #3, by Carl Burgos!







This may also be a complete story from Alarming Tales #2, by Jack Kirby!







Fabiac's name was a pun of sorts on Eniac, which was activated in 1947 or so.



Before we get into the last complete story I can show you original art from, here's page 5 from Alarming Tales #3, by Doug Wildey!

And here's the third complete story... from Alarming Tales #3, by Al Schroeder!







And that's it for this time around!