Today in Comics History, February 10, 2021: Comic book attempts to reach you concerning your vehicle's extended warranty

from The Nice House on the Lake #12 (DC/Black Label, February 2023), script by James Tynion IV, pencils and inks by Álvaro Martínez Bueno, colors by Jordie Bellaire, letters by AndWorld Design

Today in Comics History, February 10: Happy birthday, Irv Watanabe!

Born on this day in 1919: Hitoshi Irving Watanabe, better known to us as Irv Watanabe, master letterer on so many Marvel Comics during the 1970s that I'd be surprised if there isn't a book he worked on! But he's also been working an an illustrator and letterer since the Golden Age, including much uncredited work for the Charles Biro/Bob Wood Shop!



Biro-Wood Staff Christmas Card, circa 1949, from The Comic Book Makers by Joe Simon and Jim Simon (Vanguard, May 2003), artist uncredited
Happy birthday, Irv!

Today in Comics History, February 10: Happy birthday, Karla Pacheco!

A very happy birthday today to comics-writin' and sea-farin' pal Karla Pacheco, who's written the utterly spideriffic recent seris of Spider-Woman, Bettie Page, that Fantastic Four 2099 one-shot with a heart-breaking twist, and even a story in the so-distinguished-it's-French Métal Hurlant!


from Spider-Woman (2020 series) #1 (Marvel, May 2020), text by Karla Pacheco


"Dynamite Dispatch" in Dynaice Comics cover-dated April 2020
A happy birthday to ya, Karla. Love your writing, love you lots.


from Spider-Woman (2020 series) #4 (Marvel, September 2020), text by Karla Pacheco

Today in Comics History, February 10, 1863: It's a nice day for a tiny wedding

"Courtship in Miniature" from Classics Illustrated #88 (Gilberton, October 1951), creators uncredited and unknown
That's a nice love story, right?


Oh hey, Wikipedia, is that true?


(tugging on my collar, looking away nervously) Yeeeeeesh.

Today in Comics History, February 10: Happy birthday, Laura Dern!

Born on this very happy day, and we're glad the world gave her to us: actress, filmmaker, Academy Award-winner and all-around cool person Laura Dern! She hasn't been in as many movies or TV shows as I'd like (because of cowardly and homophobic backlashes after she appeared as a lesbian in Ellen), but she's done lots we do love: Mask, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Rambling Rose, October Sky, Little Women, I Am Sam, Twin Peaks, Inland Empire, F Is for Family, Big Little Lies, Bastard Out of Carolina, and a little indie film you may have heard of called Jurassic Park:



from "Jurass-Has-Had-It Park" in MAD #323 (December 1993), script by Dick Debartolo, pencils and inks by Mort Drucker
You remember the Second Rule of Comics Oughta Be Fun!, don't you?: You ain't nobody 'til you've been drawn by Mort Drucker!

Today in Comics History, February 10: Happy birthday, Dame Judith Anderson!

Born on this day in 1897 and yet she still appeared in a Star Trek: Dame Judith Anderson!


from Star Trek Movie Special [#1] [Star Trek: The Search for Spock] (DC, September 1984), script by Mike W. Barr, pencils by Ric Estrada, inks by Ricardo Villagran, colors by Michele Wolfman, letters by John Costanza
Happy birthday, Dame Judith!

Today in Comics History February 10: Happy birthday, Larry Adler!

Born on this day in 1914, the great harmonica player Larry Adler!


from "Larry Adler: Know Your Judges" in Juke Box Comics #3 (Eastern Color, July 1948), pencils by Gil Kane, inks by Gil Kane (?) or Frank Giacoia (?)

Happy birthday, Larry!

Today in Comics History, February 10: Happy birthday, Jerry Goldsmith!

Riddle me this, Bully blog buddies! What do all of the following comic books have in common? (cackling laugh, hacking cough, clears my throat, sucks on a lozenge)


Give up? You can't figure it out? No clue that...oh, I gave it away in the title of this post. That these are all films or TV that have been scored by master composer and multi-time Oscar and Emmy winner Jerry Goldsmith, today's birthday boy, born 1929? Oh. Never mind.

Happy birthday, Jerry!

Today in Comics History, February 10, 1942: Roy Thomas plays fast and loose with actual history*

from All-Star Squadron #24 (DC, August 1983), script by Roy Thomas, pencils by Jerry Ordway, inks by Mike Machlan, colors by Gene D'Angelo, letters by David Cody Weiss
*Actually, when isn't it "Roy Thomas Plays Fast and Loose with Actual History Day?"

Today in Comics History, February 10, 1942: Wait, so this scene is earlier than the one shown an issue and a half earlier...?

Wait, if the sabotage of the Normandie took place around 3 PM, as All-Star Squadron #24 tells us, why is issue #26 set before that one?


from All-Star Squadron #26 (DC, October 1983), script by Roy Thomas, pencils by Jerry Ordway, inks by Mike Machlan, colors by Gene D'Angelo, letters by David Cody Weiss
Also potentially occuring during that backward time period: the entirety of All-Star Squadron #25!


cover of All-Star Squadron #25 (DC, September 1983), pencils and inks by Jerry Ordway, letters by Gaspar Saladino
Also, during that time, you could apparently win some peanut butter!


advertisement from All-Star Squadron #25
Yes, Superman Peanut Butter! One of the fifty things that made DC Comics great! Not included: Jack Kirby, Dick Giordano, Sergio Aragonés, Bob Haney, Dick Sprang, José Luis García-López, Joe Orlando, Marshall Rogers, Archie Goodwin...etc., etc., etc. Peanut butter über them!


from Fifty Who Made DC Great one-shot (DC, 1985)

Today in Comics History, February 10: Happy birthday, Vigilante!

Born on this day in the DC Universe: Vigilante! Naw, not the guy on the Peacemaker show...the original Vigilante, Greg Sanders (later "under the name of Saunders"), the Singing Cowboy Crimefighter, Rogue with a Rope, Fighting Hero of the West!


from DC Super Calendar 1976 (DC, December 1975), letters by Ben Oda
Vigilante! Created in the pages of Action Comics by Mort Weisinger and Mort Meskin, he rode out of the west to sing and rope criminals, and he's all out of songs! But wait, he does have some rope and he's gonna lasso himself up some crime! Yee-haw!




from "[The Origin of the Vigilante]" in Action Comics (1938 series) #42 (DC, November 1941), script by Mort Weisinger, pencils and inks by Mort Meskin
"Next month: A thrilling Vigilante adventure!" And DC were better than their word. Vigilante appeared in the next issue of Action Comics and for the following 155 issues. Give or take a racist sidekick (ugh) or two, that's a lotta cow-punchin' adventures. (Dear Mr. Saunders: please do not punch cows. Love, Bully.) And he was a founding member of the Seven...or Eight, if you count Stripesy...or nine, if your count Wing...okay, okay, the Nine Soldiers of Victory!


from "Beware! The Black Star Shines!, Chapter 1" in Leading Comics #2 (DC/World's Best Comics, Spring 1942), script by Mort Weisinger, pencils and inks by Mort Meskin
Vigilante even holds the record as EDIT: one of the first DC heroes ever on film in a 1947 Columbia serial, played by Ralph Byrd (Dick Tracy). Start wondering now: "Gosh, how is he ever gonna get outta that cliffhanger?!?" Thanks to eagle-eyed commenter jmurphy for reminding my little stuffed brain that I'd forgotten the first DC serial was the 1943 Batman!


But you (and I!) probably know Vigilante better from his exceptional song-story "Grey and Blue: The Ballad of Batman" from the much-loved and -missed ('specially by me!) animated series Batman: The Brave and the Bold!:


So happy birthday, Vigilante, and keep on dispensing both justice and trhose easy-listening cowboy hit songs of the Golden Age!

Today in Comics History, February 10: The Uncanny X-Ray

from Doomsday Clock #4 (DC, May 2018), script by Geoff Johns, pencils and inks by Gary Frank, colors by Brad Anderson, letters by Rob Leigh


cover of Doomsday Clock #5 (DC, July 2018), pencils and inks by Gary Frank, colors by Brad Anderson

366 Days with J. Jonah Jameson, Day 41 and Today in Comics History, February 10, 1975: See, we told you earlier that February 10 was an exciting day

from "Who Is the White Tiger?" in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu (1974 magazine series) #22 (Marvel, March 1976), script by Bill Mantlo, breakdowns by Keith Giffen, finishes by Rico Rival, letters by Karen Mantlo

Today in Comics History, February 10, 1975: Newspaper promises exciting day, fair weather, mysterious front-page-sized ghost of White Tiger

from "Who Is the White Tiger?" in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu (1974 magazine series) #22 (Marvel, March 1976), script by Bill Mantlo, breakdowns by Keith Giffen, finishes by Rico Rival, letters by Karen Mantlo
Say, are you wondering what that text below the "Rooftop Battle with Prowler" headline is all about? I couldn't locate a record of the (likely New York City) newspaper it's taken from, but you may note it mentions John O'Donohue (albeit misspelled as "O'DonAhue"), a cop moonlighting as a boxer. Sound familiar? Yep: that's the same guy who played Sgt. Eddie Gibson on NYPD Blue, so hopefully that helps you complete your "Six Degrees of Spider-Man" link to Jimmy Smits. Want to read more? (Sure, we all do!) Here's a couple articles (1, 2) on John O'Donohue. Who says this isn't the Pugalistic Period of Bully Probing...um, Research?

Today in Comics History, February 10: Well, she's no Lori Lemaris...

Today in comics history, on February 10 of the sixteenth year after a Kryptonite rocket crashed and ruined about four hundred linear yards of prime Kansas farmland as sure as if the earth had been burned and salted, a parable, or fable, or perhaps Suparable, is about to take place in the very classrooms of Smallville High, home of the undefeated football team the Fighting Luthors. While Young Joker chortles in the foreground (seriously, purple and green?), Young Crystal of the Inhumans lets a worried teen Clark Kent in on a practical joke they're about to play on one of their teachers.


from "The Old Maid of Smallville!" in Superboy (1949 series) #83 (September 1960), script by Jerry Siegel, pencils and inks by Al Plastino
Why, those little rapscallions...making fun of their elders. As Clark says, "don't make fun at someone who isn't beautiful, because Superboy will crush you into tiny cubes." Or something like that. Anyway, we've all known kids like this, who give the word bully a bad name, and they're about to learn a lesson. A...Super-Lesson.


So what is Clark about to do? Take these two punks around the world to show that the myriad views and perceptions of human beauty? Take them forward to the 30th Century and show them that in the world of the Legion of Super-Heroes, no one judges another by their physical looks anymore (which explains how Chuck Taine got married to two hotties at once)? Take them to an abandoned cave outside Smallville and seal them inside a cave until they have to resort to cannibalism? Lead them down Crime Alley ten minutes before Zorro gets out? No, actually...none of these. Superboy chooses to make his teacher more conventionally "beautiful" rather than teach his classmates to have more acceptance and less cruelty to those not like them. Nice going, Clarkie. You should be ashamed of yourself. And for that time you set Lex's hair on fire. His beautiful, luxurious head of Luthor hair! No wonder your real parents sent you away, you Kryptonian jerk.

Anyway: Superboy's first step in turning a "dud" into a dream is to force her into an unwanted wet-tee-shirt contest.


Didn't Ma Kent warn Superboy against reading the clothing tags on women's' outfits? It's only polite, and more to the point, it's the sort of thing you don't do in Kansas. I think it's actually on their state flag.


So her clothes shrink and as everyone knows today, smaller clothing = more attractive. If you read the minutes of the Justice League of America members' meetings (held 22,300 miles above the earth), you can actually see Hawkman having a problem trying to put down on paper the actual sound of Wonder Woman punching Superman when she found out about this story.

Then, it's time to muss up her hair! Because, of course, there are no more hairpins left in Smallville so this dramatic change could never be reversed. This is probably the reason why Jonathan Kent eventually gave up farming and opened a general store in town: the county-wide demand for hairpins, not to mention the Kryptonite-spawned monsters that periodically tore up his land and ate his cows. With relish.


Superboy then finds it necessary to go to the moon—bwah-ha-ha-ha—to get crystal to make—heh ehh haw haw haw!—contact lenses in her exact prescription BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!


Then he breaks her glasses. Well that certainly is dedication to truth, justice, the American Way and vandalism, Kal. Why don't you just fly back in time and prevent her parents from having such an "ugly" child? I mean, nothing went the least bit wrong when you tried to prevent the birth of Hitler, right? Remember that? (see SUPERMAN AND THE HIDEOUS NAZI-EARTH FUTURE HISTORY GONE WRONG #1-12.)


Thus Superboy invents the contact lens, conveniently forgetting they were first invented by Leonardo da Vinci and made practical by scientists in 1801 and 1887. I bet he had this sort of discussion with Lois all the time when they were married. "Look, Clark, Perry gave us this beautiful Waring blender for our wedding. Say, did you know bandleader Fred Waring invented this?" "No, Lois, I did." Looks like the only things Superboy actually invented were hair loss and being a butthead.


"Oh, Superboy, I can get those repaired at Clem Hayseed's Opticians in Smallville..." "Nope! I've burned them away into dust! Done the same thing with your old-fashioned support undergarments, too!"


Then, something happens with a robot or an alien or somebody; I dunno, at this point I'm just waiting for the end where Pa Kent paddles Clark with an iron bar for being such a super-jerk. Needless to say, an electrocution death is waiting for someone. Later, the young son of this robot or alien will take a solemn vow to fight crime after a giant pocket calculator crashes through his window. "That's it," he vows grimly. "I shall become...a Brainiac!"


Later, Superboy sets up his teacher on a blind date with Saxton Hale, manliest man of all time...who is, for some reason, cosplaying as...well, Jimmy Olsen, I guess. Look, I didn't write the thing, I just read it, okay?


So, let's all celebrate February 10, the day that Superboy was a complete jerk. Well, February 10th: one of the three-hundred sixty-five days of the year he was, at least.