from Nancy (United Feature Syndicate, March 18, 1958), by Ernie Bushmiller
A special tip 'of the three rocks to Johnny Callicutt for bringing this strip to my attention. Johnny runs the absolutely essential and unofficial Nancy Comics by Ernie Bushmiller feeds on Twitter and Bluesky! Thanks, Johnny!
Born on this very day right here in 1837: Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th President of the United States, who is known today pretty much only for that: his non-consecutive Presidency — what we would call a "reboot" in modern parliance. Given a guess, most people on the street would know that and perhaps also suggest that Grover Cleveland was some sort of anthropomorphic animal, perhaps a giant groundhog.
But didja know Grover Cleveland was oftensometimes well, okay infrequently featured in comic books? I suppose you have come to suspect that seeing as I'm devoting a post to him in my blog. Darn my highly predictable ways!
First off, Grover liked boats. The sailing Grover! Captain Grover! Commodore Grover, it is. (There: you now know twice as much about Grover Cleveland as the average American. That's a Real Fact.)
from "Gifts to the President" in Real Fact Comics #17 (DC, November 1948), credtors unknown
Born today in 1935: comics illustrator Frank McLaughlin, artist on the comic strip Gil Thorp (and assistant on Brenda Starr, Nancy, and The Heart of Juliet Jones). He's also drawn extensively for DC (Batman, The Flash, Justice League of America, more), Marvel (Captain America, The Defenders, and others) and Charlton, where he was art director, co-created Judomaster, and worked on Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt, Son of Vulcan, among others!
advertisement in The Charlton Arrow (2014 series) #2 (Comicfix, 2014) (Click picture to giant-octopus-strangling-Ted-Kord-size)
As might be expected by creator of a character like Judomaster, Frank was also a martial arts enthusiast and expert, and wrote and drew beautiful and detailed instructional pages for books like Marvel's Deadly Hands of Kung Fu b/w magazine:
from "Kihon Kumite" in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #9 (Marvel, February 1975), written and drawn by Frank McLaughlin (Click picture to bigass-roundhouse-kick-size)
Born on this day: Bill Reinhold, comic book penciller and inker! He's worked on The Badger, The Punisher, Earth X, Batman, Silver Surfer, Magnus Robot Fighter, Van Helsing vs. Jack the Ripper, and co-created the series Spyke for Epic Comics.
from Marvel Age #99 (Marvel, April 1991), text by Chris Eliopoulis and Barry Dutter, art by Ron Zalme, colors by Renee Witterstaetter; and Marvel Age #111 (Marvel, April 1992), text by Mike Lackey, art Darren Auck
from Batman: Dark Victory #7 (DC, June 2000), script by Jeph Loeb, pencils and inks by Tim Sale, colors by Gregory Wright, color separations by Heroic Age, letters by Richard Starkings (Click top panel to Big Blue-size)
from Batman: Orphans #1 (DC, February 2011), script by Eddie Berganza, pencils by Carlo Barberi, inks by Juan Vlasco, colors by Chuck Pires and Michael J. DiMotta, letters by John Workman
from Captain America & the Invaders: Bahamas Triangle one-shot (Marvel, September 2019), script by Roy Thomas, pencils and inks by Jerry Ordway, colors by Jay David Ramos, letters by Joe Caramagna
Today's Today in Comics History comics history today (well, you know what I mean) doesn't begin on March 18th, but it winds up there eventually and momentarily. Confused? then you ought to have guessed it's another time-travelling with the original DeLorean DMC-12 — accept no ready player substitutes — in yet another alternate universal twist on Back to the Future, Part II! The one with two Marties.
All-around no-good-nik Biff Tannen is poised to take over the world...well, at least, become President of the United States, and you can't even conceive how wrong time would be if we elected to that prestigious office an orange-haired butthead. It's sometime in mid-1986, and Biff has captured Marty and Doc Brown and Doc's in-between-the-realities time machine. Biff orders Doc to set the TM™ for June 1, 1996 (and now you know which panel you can expect to see in this feature two-and-a-half months from now) so he can clean up in the stock market. Doc fiddles with the knobs and Biff steps into the time machine, which looks like a refrigerator. After all, if you're gonna build a time machine, why not make it cool?
from Back to the Future: Biff to the Future #6 (IDW, July 2017), story and script by Bob Gale and Derek Fridolfs, pencils by Alan Robinson, inks by Alan Robinson and Jaime Castro, colors by Maria Santaolalla, letter by Shawn Lee
Say, do you know what happened in Hill Valley, California, on March 18, 1884? me, I woulda guessed it was the date of Z.Z. Top's first single hitting the charts:
But no, it's not, and Doctor Emmett Brown knows exactly what happens at noon on March 18, 1884, as he very cleverly noted in the Biff Tannen Museum only (flips through pages in confusion) one issue before!
from Back to the Future: Biff to the Future #5 (IDW, June 2017), story and script by Bob Gale and Derek Fridolfs, pencils by Alan Robinson, inks by Alan Robinson and Jaime Castro, colors by Maria Santaolalla, letter by Shawn Lee
So it's clear that Doc's actually sent Biff back in time to 3/18/(18)84 and not back to the future of 6/1/(19)96. Placing Biff squarely in the middle of...
from Back to the Future: Biff to the Future #6
So, four minutes later, when Doc's microwave pizza is done the automatic retreval system on the time machine brings Biff Tannen back (as we say) to the future...
Time travel, ladies and gentlemen. It's confusing, but it usually works out in the end. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go watch President Clinton give her weekly press conference. Join me, won't you?
from The Draft one-shot (Marvel/New Universe, July 1988), script by Mark Gruenwald and Fabian Nicieza; pencils by Herb Trimpe; inks by Kyle Baker, Mike Gustovich, Klaus Janson, Lee Weeks, and Keith Williams; colors by Michael Higgins; letters by Jim Novak
Today's Today in Comics History comics history today (well, you know what I mean) doesn't begin on March 18th, but it winds up there eventually and momentarily. Confused? then you ought to have guessed it's another time-travelling with the original DeLorean DMC-12 — accept no ready player substitutes — in yet another alternate universal twist on Back to the Future, Part II! The one with two Marties.
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