Today in Comics History, August 17, 1942: Makin' Whoopee

Quietly? He's noisier than Sgt. Fury and the Howling Commandos!


from "Carlson’s Raiders" in It Really Happened #3 (Pines, 1944), creators uncredited and unknown
Sayyyyy, does that "Carlson's Raiders" logo look kinda familiar?

Today in Comics History, July 1: Happy birthday, Dan Aykroyd!

Hey, it's somebody's birthday today, and not just mine: comedian, actor, singer, and Hard Rock Cafe co-founder Dan Aykroyd! He was one of the freshman team of Not Ready for Prime Time Players on Saturday Night Live!



cover of Marvel Team-Up (1972 series) #74 (Marvel, October 1978), pencils and inks by Dave Cockrum, SNL caricature pencils and inks by Marie Severin, letters by Irv Watanabe

Today in Comics History, July 1: Happy birthday, Indiana Jones!

credits page of Indiana Jones and the Tomb of the Gods #1 (Dark Horse, June 2008), pencils by Steve Scott, inks by Nathan Massengill, colors by Michael Atiyeh
Happy 123rd birthday, Indy! I got you a snake.

Today in Comics History, June 6, 1936: Indiana Jones enters Tibet, declares entire country should be in a museum

credits page of Indiana Jones and the Tomb of the Gods #1 (Dark Horse, June 2008), pencils by Steve Scott, inks by Nathan Massengill, colors by Michael Atiyeh

Today in Comics History, May 23, 1936: Welcome to New York, Indiana Jones; hope you survive the experience

credits page of Indiana Jones and the Tomb of the Gods #1 (Dark Horse, June 2008), pencils by Steve Scott, inks by Nathan Massengill, colors by Michael Atiyeh

Today in Comics History, February 25: ♬ Happy birthday, Enrico Caruso! ♬

Born on this day in 1873: the great Italian opera singer Enrico Caruso! Acclaimed at theatres across the world, he's the guy you probably think of in your head when somebody tells the Pagliacci joke. "But Doctor, I'm Enrico Caruso!"

He made Xavier Cugat (who was also a cartoonist, didja know that?) into a big music star, too! (Stay tuned for much more of this comic when we celebrate Cugat on his birthday of...holy cow, January 1?!? I'm getting artists booked into spots on this blog into the upcoming year!)



from "Xavier Cugat: The Rhumba King" in Juke Box Comics #2 (Eastern Color, May 1948), pencils and inks by Phil Berube
A rare Caruso recording serves as an action-packed MacGuffin for Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood!



from The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #6 (Marvel, June 1983), co-plot and script by David Michelinie, co-plot by Archie Goodwin, layouts by Howard Chaykin, finishes by Terry Austin, colors by Bob Sharen, letters by Joe Rosen
Sono un torello impagliato e ti auguro, grande Maestro, il più felice compleanno, signor Enrico Caruso!

365 Days of Star Wars Comics, Day 303: No time for Star Wars, Dr. Jones

Panels from "Into the Great Unknown" in Star Wars Tales #19 (March 2004), script by Haden Blackman, pencils and inks by Sean Murphy, colors by Dan Jackson, letters by Steve Dutro

Bully's Cosplay of the Day: Indiana Jones

Photo once again by pal Heather!

Sooner or later, everything winds up at the Baxter Building

Welcome to the Fantastic Four's storage closet! Right next to the Negative Zone portal entrance, down the hall from Johnny's video game room, just across from The Museum of Doom Artifacts (open Monday-Friday, 10-6; please do not bring any metal into the Museum). It's here where the FF keep their large collection of DVDs (including all those copies of Fantastic Four (1994) that Corman unloaded on Reed), Sue's wedding china (she doesn't dare bring it out when Johnny and Ben are at dinner), stuff for the garage sale (the skis that Ben only used once, Johnny's asbestos sweaters, Norrin Radd's extra surfboard), and hey, what's this?



Huh. Wonder what that is? Well, it says DO NOT OPEN so in the absence of it being locked in a room with Johnny Storm and telling him it's full of Maxim magazines, the world will never know.

Apropos of absolutely nothing at all, I'm betting one of those DVDs is Raiders of the Lost Ark. After all, we do know that Ben Grimm absolutely loves that film!



You remember Raiders, doncha? The movie that ended with the Ark of the Covenant, holy relic of the ancient world-slash-Nazi face-melter, is discovered by the hero played by Harrison Ford? (No, no, not Rick Deckard or Preisdent James Marshall.)



...which gets put in a box and sealed up snugger than Ben Grimm in a SmartCar...



...locked up with a bolt that would keep even the Hulk out (admittedly, he always has trouble remembering combinations)...



And then, it gets labelled with spray paint, just like they always did in those days prior to the Brother P-Touch Labeller (or even one of those label makers where you spin the wheel and push the button and the tape comes out and it never looks as good as it does in the commercial and you can't get the back off and then it gets sticky and gets all over your fur...look, it's just difficult with hooves, that's all!



And then, it's loaded up onto a cart and pushed into a storage facility...what do you think, is this guy going "wheeeeeee" all the way down the aisle? I bet he is.



...and it disappears into a vast warehouse where, using principles Edgar Allan Poe used to keep his letters safe from the prying eyes of Mrs. Poe...



...ever, ever again.



Now wait one cotton-pickin' minute! How the Sam Scratch did Reed get his rubbery little paws on it after that???

For the answer to that, we must flash forward from 1936 to 1957, where hooligans in their hot rods disturb ant hills, refrigerators are built atomic-tough to survive the nuclear holocaust, and Doctor Henry Jones and his Russian pals arrive at Area 51, a rent-a-storage garage outside Roswell, New Mexico, where the government keeps its stuff. You have to remember to pay the bill on that every month or they sell your stuff off at auction, y'know! I've lost more action figure collections that way.



Remember this when you put your stuff into storage: always label the boxes. It's helpful to remember which box belongs in the living room and which one is for the kitchen. They'll never find that can opener in this place!



Say, some of those boxes look kinda familiar, don't they?



Yep, somewhere in there has got to be that crate they packed up two decades ago and left to be lost forever, but what are the chances anybody's gonna find it? It's buried deep inside the warehouse, and no simple chance exploration is going to reveal it. That's just beyond the realms of probability! And pretty unlikely, too.



D'oh!



So, there you go. Reed Richards probably picked up the Ark of the Covenant on one of his exploratory missions to Area 51, or possibly got give it by Nick Fury so he could test its mystic and other-worldly possibilities. Or maybe Ben accidentally bought it on eBay. All we need to do is prove conclusively that Reed Richards met Indiana Jones at one point, right?



There ya go! Easy peasy; Q.E.D.

Speaking of God-given mystical objects...



...you know which one I mean...the collector's cup where you pay for the drink but you get to keep the glass? Yeah, this thing:



Now, seeing as that archeological tomb-raider tumbler wound up in the hands of Doctor Jones, wouldn't it make sense that eventually Doctor Richards might get his hands on it?



Say. Do you think...



...could it be...???



...Nawwwwwww.

Ben Grimm Totally Rocks! #17

You can bet yer bottom dollar that when the Thing relaxes on a bright sunny May weekend like this one, he doesn't just hang around the house...er, Baxter Building, all day. Nope! Mister Grimm is out and about, heading over to the AMC Empire 25, ready to grab a large-sized bucket of popcorn (he's the only person in the Marvel Universe who can eat a whole large popcorn) and settle down in his seat for the Saturday matinee showing of one of his favorite movie series.

Why, whatever could be premiering this weekend that Ben Grimm might be a fan of?


Panels from Fantastic Four #241 (April 1982), script and art by John Byrne, colors by Glynis Wein, lettering by Jim Novak

Yep, that's right: when there's a new Indiana Jones movie at the cineplex, there's no time for love, Mister Grimm! But yes, he will bring Alicia and whisper what's going on in her ear. Because he's that kinda guy: a man who loves his Harrison Ford action-adventure movies so much he's willing to wait 19 years for the next installment to come out. And that's another reason why Ben Grimm totally rocks.