Today in Comics History, September 28: Happy birthday, Ed Sullivan!

Born on this day in 1901: reporter, syndicated columnist, radio and TV personality and host Ed Sullivan! (You should mentally sing along to the song as you read that name.)


"Ed Sullivan" from Bye Bye Birdie (Columbia, 1963), song by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams, featuring Paul Lynde
By the man with a really big shew also had some big appearances...well, okay, medium guest-starring roles...would you believe, cameos?...in comic books throughout the years. Look, he's gettin' bounced by a seal!


cover of Miss Melody Lane of Broadway #3 (DC, June 1950), pencils and inks by Bob Oksner
Ed's also in that comic, but guess what?

I DON'T HAVE IT.

Today in Comics History, July 7: Happy birthday, Ringo Starr!

Born on this day in Liverpool, England: Richard Starkey, better known as Ringo Starr: singer, songwriter, actor, and drummer for a little band known as The Beatles.


from Beatles with an A: Birth of a Band (Fanfare, July 2014), script and art by Mauri Kunnas


from The Beatles: Their Story in Pictures (ITV, 1982), script by Angus P. Allan, art by Arthur Ranson (collected from the strip in (Look-In)


from The Beatles one-shot (Dell, September 1964), pencils and inks by Joe Sinnott
I know it's your birthday and you're getting older, Ringo, but that's no reason to be MAD about it!


from "American Confetti" in MAD #166 (April 1974), script by Larry Siegel, pencils and inks by Mort Drucker
Peace and love and happy birthday, Ringo!


from "The Origin of...Stuporman" in Not Brand Echh #7 (Marvel, April 1968), script by Roy Thomas, pencils and inks (and colors?) by Marie Severin, letters by Artie Simek
Oh, and congratulations to you and Sophia Loren on your marriage!


from The Adventures of Bob Hope #103 (DC, February 1967), script by Arnold Drake, pencils by Carmine Infantino, inks by Mike Esposito, letters by Gaspar Saladino

Today in Comics History, May 31: "That's just my luck. I finally get rid of Bing and now I'm stuck with Denise Crosby."

from The Adventures of Bob Hope #103 (DC, February 1967), script by Arnold Drake, pencils by Carmine Infantino, inks by Mike Esposito, letters by Gaspar Saladino

Today in Comics History: January 21, 1982: Just a reminder of your appointment for today, Mr. Hope

from The Adventures of Bob Hope #11 (DC, October 1951), script by Cal Howard, pencils by Owen Fitzgerald

365 Days of Defiance, Day 118: Rap Battle from Hell

It's the Sandman and his cool slouch hat against the hell-demon who stole his hell-met. But they're not gonna arm wrestle or play chess or even Gnip-Gnop (funnest game on Earth!)...they have agreed to a battle of words. First off: "Yo' mama so fat..." Oh wait, it's a little more civilized than that.


Panels from The Sandman (1989 series) #4 (April 1989), script by Neil Gaiman, pencils by Sam Kieth, inks by Mike Dringenberg, colors by Robbie Busch, letters by Todd Klein
The purpose of the game is to name something that can destroy whatever the opponent says. Personally, I'm all for using Megaweapon, but Dream and Dreamon Choronzon are playing on a much more intellectual plane.


C'mon, somebody say "your mom" already!


OOH HE CAN'T TAKE IT THERE!


"Oh dear," says Choronzon, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

So remember: when you need the most powerful weapon of them all against the forces of hell, use HOPE!


Oh, and the other guy, too.

A Month of... Celebrities in Comics, Day 26: Project: U.S.O.

Whoa, Sgt. Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos are at the most star-studded U.S.O. show ever! From my vantage point sitting up in one of those palm trees in the distance, I can spot expy celebrity Dino Manelli in panel one. Dino is a Marvel Universe generic version in both looks and mannerisms of Dean Martin, who had his own comic book over at DC. No wonder Dino had to go under an assumed name at Mighty Marvel!


Panels from Sgt. Fury [and His Howling Commandos] #43 (June 1967), script by Dick Ayers and Gary Friedrich, pencils by Dick Ayers, inks by John Tartaglione, letters by Sam Rosen
But the real celebs step on stage and the show begins in panel two. We've got Western warbler and cowboy star Gene Autry, accompanied by Glenn Miller and his Orchestra! (Only Dick Ayers knows why Glenn himself is holding what looks liek a bugle or trumpet while conducting rather than his usual instrument, the trombone.) Mister USO himself, Bob Hope brings along the laffs, if not his comedy partner Bing Crosby. And if you don't get the "Marjorie Main in a bikini" joke: Ms. Main was prominently known for playing "Ma" in the Ma and Pa Kettle movie series, and she looks like this:


Panel four features crazy comedian (and frequent Hope sidekick) Jerry Collona, accompanied by the glamorous and no doubt wolf-whistled Betty Grable, Dorothy Lamour, and Lana Turner! My little buttons eyes bug out to eight times their size, my heart thumbs through my chest, and steam comes out my ears as I make the AW-OOOOOOO-GAH sound!

And even though that's the end of the show, it's not the end of the real-life cameo appearances in this comic, because Nick and the H.C.s are about to meet the Desert Fox himself, Erwin Rommel! (Disclaimer: Rommel does not actually meet Nick Fury or the Howling Commandos.)


Rommel! I read your comic book, you magnificent guest star!

A Month of... Celebrities in Comics, Day 3: Just us Stars of America

Hey look! Even silver screen tough guy Humphrey Bogart and sultry siren Lauren Bacall (famous Hollywood husband and wife) are impressed by the JSA! Meanwhile, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope (making a second appearance already in this feature) make the woo-woo eyes at Black Canary! Aw, I betcha Dinah would appear on your show, Bob. I'm sure she uses Pepsodent!


Panels from "Evil Star Over Hollywood" in All-Star Comics #44 (December 1948-January 1949), script by John Broome, pencils by Irwin Hasen, inks by Bob Oksner

A Month of... Celebrities in Comics, Day 1: There's Something Fishy About This Movie Studio

Andy Warhol once famously said "Who stole my can of Campbell's Soup?" He also said something or other about fifteen minutes, celebrity, yadda yadda yadda. But what he didn't say is that in the future, every superhero would be a celebrity! And he oughta to have done. Look, for instance, at the fame the Fantastic Four have achieved pretty early on in their careers: so famous that not only do kids play-act at being the FF, but there are licensed masks available in stores for the greatest superhero of them all!


Panels from Fantastic Four (1961 series) #11 (February 1963), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Dick Ayers, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by Artie Simek
Yes, the Fantastic Four are such worldwide celebrities that they get a metric ton of fan mail every day. Actually, most of that is from Nigerian Princes to Johnny. And need we point out that this is the very first time that someone applies to be a member of the FF? That Galactus Trilogy woulda been over in six panels when faced with Willie Lumpkin's harrowing ear-wiggling power!


But superheroes as celebrities is not what we're going to feature this new year, all year! No, it's those occasional cameo stars, those special guest appearances, those "you'll never guess who shows up in this issue!" characters making a trip from the real world to Earth-616 or Earth-1 or whatever four-color paradise they're popping up in! In other words, welcome 2017, a year of 365 Days of Celebrities in Comics!

EDIT on 01/29/17: As you'll see elsewhere in this blog, I've made the mid-January decision to switch this year's feature from Celebrities in Comics to 365 Days of Defiance! Never fear, though: this feature is now A Month of Celebrities in Comics. And there'll be more throughout the year even after January, I promise you! So for please mentally replace all references here to 365 Days of Celebrities in Comics to A Month of Celebrities in Comics! You'll be glad you did!


Panels from Fantastic Four (1961 series) #9 (December 1962), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Dick Ayers, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by Artie Simek
Hooray for Hollywood! Hooray for guest-stars! Like (in panel one, left to right), Amanda Blake and James Arness of TV's longest running oater, Gunsmoke, and that's the infamously recognizable profile of fright-meister Alfred Hitchcock! The guy next to Hitch is hard to ID, but I've read that he might be director André DeToth, who directed the 3-D classic House of Wax (even though he'd lost an eye at an early age!).

The bottom tier of panels: well, just call me Dorothy Lamour if you don't recognize Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, and on the bottom right being startled all the way to the moon by Ben Grimm is The Great One himself, Jackie Gleason!

In this next panel we can see alongside Gleason, by kind permission of DC Comics, Mister Dean Martin! An expy of Dino was very soon to begin appearing in Marvel's Sgt. Fury: Dino Manelli of the Howling Commandos, so you can look on this as a try-out of Jack Kirby drawing the proclaimed King of Cool.


Ladies and gentlemen, and especially gentlemen, prepare for wolf whistles for Miss Ann-Margret! Or, it might be Brigette Bardot! We're not certain and Stan doesn't remember, so an official Bombshell No-Bull Prize goes to the first Conqueror of Time to hop in his Delorean back to 1962 and ask Jack Kirby about it! All I know for sure is, it probably isn't Nicole Kidman.


Of course, no celebrity surprise appearance could be quite as shocking and improbable as the revelation that "S-M Studios" (bad name, marketing department) is headed by...Namor, the Sub-Mariner! Shown here, dashing, debonair, and smoking one of those seaweed cigarettes all the kids love so much. Hey, where'd he get that green suit? (rings bells, sounds klaxon for the first appearance of that joke in 2017)


So there you have it: 2017 is the year of 365 Days of Celebrities in Comics! You'lkl be seeing all sorts of guys 'n' gal from the real world crossing over to the land of four color comics in the next 52 weeks, all the way from Frank Sinatra to Lea Thompson! Look for Walter Cronkite and Humphrey Bogart! Popping in along the way will be Courtney Cox and Sarah Silverman! (And I'm hoping Jane Wiedlin will show up somewhere.) To paraphrase Lucy van Pelt, "how can you say someone is great who's never had his picture in comic books?" Stay tuned and find out...it's gonna be a star-studded year! But remember: with fame comes fan mail, and with fan mail comes...well, show us the risks, Ben Grimm:

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 208: Sure, Hope never got an Oscar, but did Sir Laurence Olivier ever have his own comic book?

House ad for The Adventures of Bob Hope #80 (April-May 1963); printed in Sugar & Spike #46 (April-May 1963)
Comic cover art: pencils and inks by Mort Drucker
Ad designed and lettered by Ira Schnapp

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 179: Bob Hope explains global expansion

House ad for the final issue of The Adventures of Bob Hope (#108, December 1967-January 1968); printed in Green Lantern #57 (December 1967)

Comic cover art: pencils and inks by Neal Adams (!!!), letters by Ira Schnapp
"Dig What's Coming" pencilled, inked, and lettered by Henry Boltinoff

After this post, folks, Crosby's gonna sing. Now's the time to go out and get the popcorn.

This morning, comedy writer Jon Hendren posted on Twitter:


To which I immediately thought: Hey, if hooligans hanging out near Bob Hope's Hollywood Walk star need some dressing down, why not just actually get Bob Hope to deal with them?:


DC public service ad, mostly printed in black-and-white on the inside front covers of comics, but this color version is from The Flash #169 (April 1967). Script by Jack Schiff, pencils and inks by Bob Oksner, letters by Ira Schnapp
Pal R. J. White then twittermented, and I turned his verbatim words into a comic (thanks R. J.!)


saw some ruffians hanging out near the bob hope star. wanted to lecture them about jobs and cash but i enjoy not having stab wounds

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 81: Go-Go Checks Week, Day 6

Top: Go-Go Checks house ad, printed in Teen Titans v.1 #4 (July-August 1966)
Bottom: Go-Go Checks house ad for The Adventures of Bob Hope #102 (December 1966-January 1967) and Showcase #65 [The Inferior Five] (November-December 1966), printed in Metamorpho #9 (November-December 1966)

Comic cover art: Bob Hope #102: pencils and inks by Bob Oksner
Showcase #65: pencils and inks by Mike Sekowsky

Ads designed and lettered by Ira Schnapp
Go-Go Checks designed by Irwin Donenfeld and Sol Harrison

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 38: DC House Ads Super-Subscription Week, Day 5

Subscription ad for The Adventures of Bob Hope and other National Comics; printed in Batman #175 (November 1965)
Comic cover art: The Adventures of Bob Hope #96 (December 1965-January 1966),
script by Arnold Drake, pencils and inks by Bob Oksner, letters by Stan Quill
Ad designed and lettered by Ira Schnapp; Super-Hip art by Bob Oksner

I'm off on the Road to Morocco...

...or is that the Road to Singapore? I can never keep those two straight. That's why I rely on Batman and Spider-Man to help me out.


Panels from Batman & Spider-Man one-shot (October 1997), script by J. M. DeMatteis, pencils by Graham Nolan, inks by Karl Kesel, colors by Gloria Vasquez, letters by John Costanza

Anyway, I'll be on the road (not with Mr. Kerouac) for the rest of the week, so no nighttime features on Wednesday through Friday. But: stick around for the usual all-noon-time goodness of Ace the Bat-Hound (all this week!) and your usual late-afternoon dose of The Warriors Three! You can't escape the Warriors Three!

I'll be back this weekend with Stan Lee Saturday, LOL Sunday, Same Cover and Ten of a Kind, ya, you betcha! And in the meantime, since he seems to enjoy Hope and Crosby movies, what do you think Batman's favorite Woody Allen movie is, huh?


Panels from Starman #34 (September 1997), script by James Robinson, pencils by Mark Buckingham, inks by Wade Von Grawbadger, colors by Gregory Wright, letters by Bill Oakley

Aw, man, Batman is a total wet blanket.


Panels from Starman #35 (October 1997), script by James Robinson, pencils by Steve Yeowell, inks by Wade Von Grawbadger, colors by Gregory Wright, letters by Bill Oakley

Oh, that's better. Say, while we're on the subject, Batman...what's your favorite movie about yourself?



Oooh, good taste, Batman.

(See ya back this weekend, folks!)

Ads That Are Comics, Day 4: The Pride of Quality That Made RC America's Fifth Best-Selling Carbonated Cola Beverage

Ad in The Adventures of Bob Hope #5 (October-November 1950) for RC Cola. (Beware the haunting RC Cola Theme if you open their website!)

Juke Box Fury

Well, I was talking last night...



...about Sgt. Fury's Lonely Heart's Club Band. But despite the military theme of the Beatles' famous album, I have the feeling that Nick Fury probably wasn't a huge fan of that LP. Yep, even though it sometimes looks as if some of Nick's adventures were inspired by the same illicit substances that gave us "Within You, Without You" and "A Day in the Life"...


Page from Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.* #7 (December 1968), co-plot and dialogue by Archie Goodwin; co-plot, pencils and inks by Frank Springer, letters by Artie Simek

...Yes, it looks as if Nick Fury has ingested a little too much tea in that panel.

Anyway: as psychedelic as Fury's '60s adventures were, he probably wasn't, unlike Ben Grimm, a big fan of the Beatles. (Forget the idea that Ben was at that point a contemporary of Nick.) Besides, the 33 1/3 12-inch LP of Sgt. Pepper probably didn't fit on Nick's 78rpm gramophone.

No, here's some entertainment that's more up Nick Fury's avenue:


Panels from Sgt. Fury [and His Howling Commandos] #43 (June 1967), script by Dick Ayers and Gary Friedrich, pencils by Dick Ayers, inks by John Tartaglione, letters by Sam Rosen

Holy cow! This USO show is full of more talent than the unemployment agency four or five months after the DC Implosion of June 2012! (Mark my words.) Check it out starting in the second panel...there's oatster Gene Autry and professional Clark Kent impersonator Glen Miller (go back by boat, not plane, okay, Glen?). Panel three has good old Bob "How much can I sue Stan Lee for using my likeness" Hope, and there's Hope's frequent second banana Jerry Colonna in the last panel. He's the one with the mustache, and the lovely ladies are Betty Grable, Lana Turner and Dorothy Lamour, which is certainly more A-list star-power in just one page of this comic book than any other Marvel cover-dated June 1967, with the possible exception of Modeling with Millie, which appears to guest-star that ginchy gal Gwen Stacy and another band Nick Fury wouldn't have cared for, the groovy Gears! Is it any coincidence that Modeling with Millie was cancelled with that very same issue?


Modeling with Millie #54 (June 1967), cover art by Ogden Whitney and John Romita Sr.

Yes. Yes, it probably is coincidence.

Interestingly enough, the same month you'd find Fury #43 and Millie #54 on the comic book spinner rack of your local Rexall you'd also be able to pick up, for a slim dime and two copper pennies, this:


The Adventures of Bob Hope #105 (June-July 1967)

Holy cow! You know what this means? With Bob Hope in both a Marvel and a DC comic book at the same time, I have discovered the first DC-Earth/Marvel Universe comic book crossover, nine years before that Superman/Spider-Man thing! Solid comic book archaeological history...that's what this blog is all about.

Also guest-starring in Sgt. Fury #43 is another big-name real-life historical character—the Desert Fox himself, Erwin Rommel!



But let's not count him. Rommel's LP never cracked the Billboard charts and was later found in remainder cut-out bins across Europe. He was, however, the author of a bestselling book. Here's a review of it:



Here's some final proof that Nick Fury has zero tolerance for that newfangled noise the kids today call music, when he attends a concert by psychedelic band Country Joe McDonald and the Fish!



You might argue that Fury objects to this protest song attacking President Johnson, but it's probably more likely Nick's probably just miffed that he doesn't get name-checked like the FF and Doctor Strange. Heck, even that fictional character Superman gets a shout-out. Or maybe Nick just doesn't care for the reference to the Spider-Man reboot "Brand New Day." Lyrics about sending an unpopular President who supported an unpopular war back to Texas to work on his ranch? Yes, that's definitely a trademark of the 1960s and absolutely no other recent decade at all.



So, my point...and I do have one...is that on Nick Fury's military-issued 1943 khaki-green fourteen-pound iPod you'll find Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey, the Andrews Sisters, Johnny Mercer, Spike Jones, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Vera Lynn, and Ella Fitzgerald...but you won't find a single Beatles album. Oddly enough, you will find the complete works of actor and vocalist David Hasselhoff. For some reason, Nick's got a soft spot for the Hoff.



*Sergeant Harlan I. Ellison's Litigious Dispute