Today in Comics History, January 9: Hideous tropical shirt results in man's death, even in black-and-white

cover of Extra! (1955 series) #1 (EC, March 1955), pencils and inks by Johnny Craig

Today in Comics History, January 9: Happy birthday, Richard Nixon!

Born on this date in 1913: Richard M. Nixon, America's only hounded out of office president! There's an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could get his picture in so many 1970s comic books!" Yes, there's a lot of Tricky Dick pop-ups (ew) within the pages of comics, but I'm gonna just shoot you this here cameo from the broccoli-stained pages of Hulk...


from Incredible Hulk (1968 series) #152 (Marvel, June 1972), script by Gary Friedrich and Steve Englehart, pencils by Dick Ayers, art corrections to faces by Herb Trimpe, inks by Frank Giacoia, colors by Mimi Gold (?), letters by Artie Simek
...which shows you that ol' Dick Nixon was just too busy having the US Military hunt down old Jade Jaws to ever commit any conspiracies or screw up Vietnam or run over folk singer Joni Mitchell in his limosine.

Want more? Sure, Sally Strothers, Strother Martin, and Martin and Lewis...we all do! So if you click on over to 13th Dimension, the blog that's a pedagogue, you'll check out thirteen more Nixon appearances in comic books, ranging from a Star Trek spin-off to ruling the earth as a disembodied head. (Four thousand more years!) Also, there's Duck Nixon. All over at the totaly excellent 13th Dimension, which you can find lots of nifty screenshots and if you're not careful, you may just learn something. Did I mention it's written by my pal John DiBello? I helped out with the jokes, though. It's the ONLY website on the World Wide Internet with so much Nixon content! (Aside from some files of the FBI and CIA.)


Tricky birthday, Happy Dick! I mean...strike that; reverse it.

Today in Comics History, January 9: Keep clones away with new improved Clone-B-Gone™, now in an aerosol spray!

from Spectacular Spider-Man (1976 series) #149 (Marvel, April 1989), script by Gerry Conway, pencils and inks by Sal Buscema, colors by Bob Sharen, letters by Rick Parker

Today in Comics History, January 9, 984: Back in the days when they didn't know how to spell "January"

Remember this text story from a couple days ago? Well, get used to it, because it has "Today" dates in it for throughout the year! Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!



text story "The Thread" in Journey into Unknown Worlds (1950 series) #13 (Marvel/Atlas, October 1952), author uncredited (Stan Lee?)
Fair warning: you'll be seein' this thing again!

Today in Comics History, January 9, 1910: P-p-pick up a Penguin

from Legends of the Dark Knight (2021 digital series) #8 (DC, May 2021), script by Stephanie Phillips, pencils and inks by Max Dunbar, colors by Tamra Bonvillain, letters by Troy Peteri

Today in Comics History, January 9: Happy birthday, Chic Young!

Born on this day in 1901: yet another cool guy in comics named Chic (and not to be confused with that stony Marvel inker who had his birthday a few days past), the cartoonist who created Blondie: Chic Young! (Short for, if you'll believe Wikipedia, and why not) "Chicken!"

Here's a couple comics text pages that, if probably not by Chic Young, are at least kinda about him!


text page from Blondie Comics Monthly #17 (Harvey, April 1950)


text page from Blondie Comics Monthly #22 (Harvcey, September 1950)
Happy birthday, Chic Young, and thanks for all the giant sandwiches, naps on the couch, running into the mailman, sneaking in late past Mr. Dithers, and trying to get one up on Herb Woodley fun that we've all loved since (looks it up) whoa, 1930?!

Today in Comics History, January 9, 1988: Pittsburgh got destroyed, but that's no excuse to leave your Christmas tree up this late

from D.P. 7 #21 (Marvel/New Universe, July 1988), script by Mark Gruenwald, pencils by Paul Ryan, inks by Danny Bulanadi, colors by Paul Becton, letters by Janice Chiang