Wednesday, October 05, 2022

Today in Comics History, October 5: Happy birthday, Steve Miller!

Born on this day: guitarist, singer, songwriter, joker, smoker, midnight toker Steve Miller!

But Bully! (you say) Musician Steve Miller has never been in a comic book!

You're wrong, Maurice! Let me now tell you the true story of Steve Miller through...comic books!


Steve Miller grew up a poor white boy in this text story about a mermaid mole. That's a mole that looks like a mermaid, BTW, not a creature that's mole on the top and fish on the bottom.


"The Mermaid Mole" in Adventures into the Unknown #2 (ACG, December 1948), creator uncredited and unknown




Then Steve headed down to, ooh, old El Paso. That's where he ran into a great big hassle, and got himself a job as a frontier-style schoolmarm in the Ollllllllld West.



from "Runaways from Love" in Intimate Love #6 (Pines, March 1950), pencils by John Severin, inks by Will Elder

Oh no! Was Steve Miller, in fact, a yellow-bellied coward of the Olllllllllld West? Was he going to take the money and run?



A conniving woman got her hooks into Steve and took him for all he owned, but her cash weren't nothin' but trash.



from "I Cheated My Heart" in True Life Secrets #19 (Charlton, May 1954), pencils and inks by Art Cappello

Well, Steve's been lookin' real hard, and he's tryin' to find a job, but it just keeps gettin' tougher every day. He finally got into the music agent biz, and soon he'd hear a serenade from the stars.


from "Earth Will Be Lost Tonight!" in Strange Tales #93 (Marvel, February 1962), plot by Stan Lee (?), script by Larry Lieber (?), pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Dick Ayers, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by Joe Letterese

Poor Steve Miller! Little did he know that


Thanks to keepin' on top of every fat cat who walked through his door, Steve signed the melodic singer and he was a massive hit!


Steve found out his star was a real space cowboy! It was drivin' him mad, it was makin' him crazy!


Well, Steve ain't superstitious but he does get suspicious when this joker drops him off a building! Steve can't fly like an eagle, and he keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin', into a big pipe.


What would Steve Miller do in this dark hour? (You know it's drivin' him wild.) The doctor told him "Son, you better stay in bed."


Instead, Steve got himself a band (which he called "Band") and substituted his own LPs in place of the alien's! Customers put that record on their turnable and 'round and 'round and 'round it goes! Where it stops nobody knows!


Luckily, his woman is a friend of his and he knew that it's true that all the things that he do will come back to him in his sweet...biz.


Abracadabra! And because he spoke of the pompatus of love, NO comic book style coming around could ever unthrone Steve Miller from being the King of Comics!

Yes. 'cause he's right here, right here, right here, right here at home.


This has been VH-1's Behind the Music, and I'm Kris Kristofferson. Happy birthday, Steve. I really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree.


1 comment:

Blam said...

Thanks, Bully! Now we know just ‘zactly what the facts is.