Today in Comics History, October 27: Happy birthday, Bernie Wrightson!

Born on this day in 1948: comics artist Bernie Wrightson (sometimes Berni), co-creator of Swamp Thing, artist on (wow!) so many books: Batman, House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Heavy Metal, Frankenstein, Creepy, Eerie, The Punisher, and much more!


from Marvel Age #34 and 106 (Marvel, January 1986 and November 1991); text by Jim Salicrup (#34) and Chris Eliopoulis and Barry Dutter (#106); pencils and inks by Ron Zalme; colors by Andy Yachus (#34) and Renee Witterstaetter (#106)

Today in Comics History, September 22: Happy birthday, E. Nelson Bridwell!

Born on this day in 1931: E. Nelson Bridwell, comics writer and editor (MAD, Super Friends, the Batman comic strip, Action Comics, Adventure Comics, Shazam!, Superman, The Superman Family, World's Finest Comics, The Legion of Super-Heroes and more)! Bridwell co-created some of the greatest B-list characters at DC, including the Inferior Five, The Maniaks, the Secret Six, Angel and the Ape, Fire and Ice, and more! He was an early advocate of continuity between titles, and in his role as assistant editor to Mort Weisinger and Julius Schwartz on the Superman titles, he edited the letters columns and developed the Kryptonese language and characters. So yeah: he's pretty important! Why not read more about him in this post? Sure, we all do!


from the editorial page of Showcase #62 [The Inferior Five] (DC/National, May 1966), text by Jack Miller

Today in Comics History, June 3: Happy Birthday, Allen Ginsberg!

Born on this date in 1925: Beat poet, essayist, and philosopher Allen Ginsberg (Howl, Kaddish, Cosmopolitan Greetings, The Fall of America and more)! He was (and still is) considered, along with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, one of the greatest voices of his generation, and one of the writers who put the renowned and vital City Lights Bookstore at the forefront of fifties' history when they published Howl and defended against obscenity.

You all are, I presume, familiar with getting together a list of famous people born on this day and then go researching their comic book appearances, but becomes suprised and disappointed that there are no appearances in comics of Larry McMurtry or Boots "Yakety Sax" Randolph. But then along comes Allen Ginsberg with a surprisingly large number of comic book guest-starring appearances, even if you don't count Marvel's 1968 Dr. Strange/Allen Ginsberg Team-Up #1-6!


from Meet the Beats (Water Row Press, 1985 series), by Robert Crumb

Today in Comics History, May 20: Happy birthday, Gardner Fox!

Born today in 1911: prolific and important writer Gardner Fox!, co-creator of The Atom, Doctor Fate, the Golden Age Flash, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, the JLA, Zatanna, and Snapper Carr (well, nobody's perfect).


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

Today in Comics History, March 6, 1836, The Alamo: This one actually has a sort of punch line

So there's this guy, see, and he's gonna jump off the ledge of a building...


from "Poor Richard's Maniak!" in Showcase (1956 series) #69 nice (DC/National, July 1967), script by E. Nelson Bridwell, pencils by Mike Sekowsky, inks by Mike Esposito, letters by Ira Schnapp

Today in Comics History, November 15: Happy birthday, William Herschel!

Born on this day in 1738: astronomer, composer, and discovery of Uranus (tee hee hee hee) William Herschel! Yes, he looked up in the sky and saw Uranus! hee hee hee


from Four Color #866 (Dell, December 1957), script by Don R. Christensen, art by Tony Sgroi, colors by Western Publishing Production Shop
So let's wish Herschell a happy birthday and remember he's the one who first looked into Uranus BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA hee hee okay I'm all right now.


from "Planetary Names" in Showcase #19 (DC, March 1959), creators uncredited BWAH-HA-HA and unknown hee hee. It's funny because it's Uranus BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA

Today in Comics History, June 14: Happy birthday, Paul Kupperberg!

Born on this day: comics writer and editor, book author, co-creator of Arion, Dorothy Spinner, Ch'p and more: Paul Kupperberg! His comics credits include Arion, Lord of Atlantis, Checkmate, The Superman Family, DC Comics Presents, the Daring New Adventures of Supergirl, Green Lantern, 2000 AD, Life with Archie, and dozens more, plus superhero, SF, and general prose fiction and non-fiction and comic strips!


from Showcase #95 (DC, October 1977)

Today in Comics History, May 28: Happy birthday, Ian Fleming!

Happy birthday today (born in 1908) to one of the great writers in literature, Ian Fleming, author of that classic of dangerous men and fast cars, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!

Oh, and he also wrote some books about some spy or somebody.


"The Man Behind the Typewriter" in Showcase #43 [Doctor No] (DC, March 1963), writer uncredited and unknown
Happy birthday, Ian!

Today in Comics History, May 4: Happy birthday, Audrey Hepburn!

Born on this day in 1929: Audrey Hepburn, actor (Sabrina, Funny Face, The Nun's Story, Breakfast at Tiffany's, my Fair Lady, Wait Until Dark, Robin and Marian and more) and international humanitarian worker. Also a big crush of this here little stuffed bull.


from "Charades" in MAD #88 (July 1964), script by Larry Siegel, pencils and inks by Mort Drucker



from "007" in MAD #94 (April 1965), script by Frank Jacobs, pencils and inks by Mort Drucker



from "Crazy Fists" in MAD #96 (July 1965), script by Dick DeBartolo, pencils and inks by Mort Drucker
Yes, Audrey Hepburn! Ask for her by name. She was an icon then and she's an icon now. Right, Twiggy?


from Showcase #71 [The Maniaks] (DC, November 1967), script by E. Nelson Bridwell, pencils by Mike Sekowsky, inks by Mike Esposito, letters by Ira Schnapp
So, comic book world, how do you feel about Audrey Hepburn?


from "I Love Girls" in Schizo #1 (Fantagraphics, October 1995), by Ivan Brunetti
In conclusion, here's my musical salute to Audrey Hepburn's classic opening scene in Breakfast at Tiffany's, set at one of my favorite Manhattan comic book shops:


Breakfast at Forbidden Planet (2007), directed by and starring Bully
(May take a few seconds to load and start)

Happy birthday, Audrey! XO

Today in Comics History, March 30: Happy birthday, Tex Blaisdell!

Born today in the year 1920: Philip "Tex" Blaisdell, comics artist and editor. He was penciller and/or inker on such strips as The Spirit, Prince Valiant, Pope, and Little Orphan Annie, and on comic books like Superman, Batman, the Flash, World's Finest Comics, Green Lantern, Adam Strange, Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact, Military Comics, 4Most and lots more!


from DC Comics cover-dated January 1978
We're live ringside at the boxing bout between Superman and Muhammad Ali for the title of Champion of the Universe, and Tex Blaisdell is there in the stands! Can you spot him? (Hint: he does not have as good a seat as Batman.)

cover of All-New Collectors' Edition #C-56 (DC, March 1978), layout by Joe Kubert, pencils by Neal Adams, inks by Neal Adams (?) and/or Cory Adams (?), logo design by John Workman
(Click top picture to GOAT-size)
The winner of that match now goes on to face Ben Grimm over in Marvel Two-in-One Annual #7.

So you found him pretty fast, huh? Well, here's a clue for you all: he's on this house (of mystery) wall! Can you find him now? (Really, there's no prize or anything, I just thought you'd find it fun.)

from "Do You Dare Enter The House of Mystery?" in House of Mystery #226 (DC, August 1974), script by Paul Levitz, pencils and inks by Sergio Aragonés
(Click picture to Abel-size)
Finally, here's a thinly disguised Tex as "Tex Bumblewell" at Sam Simian's comic publisher in an Angel and the Ape tale!


from Showcase #77 (DC, September 1968), scripter ID uncertain (see here), pencils by Bob Oksner, inks by Tex Blaisdell, letters by Ray Holloway ?
Happy birthday, Tex!

Today in Comics History, January 3: My hunger burns a bullet hole, a spectre of my mortal soul (Happy birthday, Jim Corrigan!)

According to the DC Super Calendar 1976, Jim Corrigan, the Golden and Silver Age host of the wrath of God himself, The Spectre, was born today!


from DC Super Calendar 1976 (DC, 1975, letters by Ben Oda)

A Month of... Celebrities in Comics, Day 9: Comics are full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and they're all over much too quickly.

Showcase! The classic DC comic that began as a "you requested it" anthology with firefighters (#1) and frogmen (#3) until it hit on its successful formula with The Flash in #4, kicking off the entire Silver Age of Comics. From that point on Showcase was the four-color tryout home of characters and features to see if they could support their own books. Before they had regular comic books of their own, Lois Lane, Challengers of the Unknown, Green Lantern, Rip Hunter, Sea Devils, Atom, Metal Men, the Spectre, the Creeper, Anthro, Angel and the Ape, Bat Lash, and the Hawk and the Dove all had feature premieres in Showcase!

And then there were the other kind of Showcase features...the fugitive kind, who never developed into a series, altho' in some cases they're still a minor part of the DC Universe, trotted out every now an then for a Crisis or two. Top Gun! No, not Tom Cruise, but a western. Firehair, another western, was a white man raised by the Indians saga (by Joe Kubert). Nightmaster, who never got his own series but at least has popped up in Shadowpact. in recent years. Private eye Jonny Double! ("Born to Trouble!") And even Ian Fleming's James Bond's Doctor No's movie's adaptation reprinted from a UK issue of Classics Illustrated.

But then there were characters pretty much lost to history, doomed forever to The Land of Cancelled Heroes. For example, pretty much nobody remembers The Maniaks, a three-issue Showcase tryout right at the tail end of the hip, gear, and fab "Go-Go Checks" era of DC. This comedy feature starred a teen rock band which we'd now consider reminiscent of The Archies, but they premiered nearly a year before Arch, Jug, Ronnie, Bet and Reg got together with two guitars, a drum kit, and a tambourine. By Showcase #71, the Maniaks's third and final try-out issue, the Powers That Be The Distinguished Competition put in a special guest star, presumably to goose sales, much in the way beloved Maltese children's character Goosio would do. DC took a daring and offbeat approach and brought in what could probably be truthfully described as the most unexpected guest star of them all. Yes, it's everybody's favorite 1970s comedy nebbish, 1980s not-as-funny-as-he-used-to-be, and 1990s accused sex predator, Woody Allen! By kind permission of the City of New York, I guess.


Cover of Showcase (1956 series) #71 [The Maniaks] (November-December 1967), pencils by Mike Sekowsky, inks by Mike Esposito, letters by Ira Schnapp
Hey, hey, we're the Maniaks! Four crazy kids with exactly one defining characteristic each,, at least one of them kinda offensive for a female protagonist of a comic book. And then there's Woody Allen, fresh off his career-defining writing debut What's New, Pussycat and writer/director of What's New, Tiger Lily?, without which we probably wouldn't have Mystery Science Theater 3000. Also, for some reason, there's an expy (or "generic celebrity") of 1960s super-slim British supermodel Twiggy (here called "Twiggly"), so we won't be counting her. Also appearing: ladders, and the Maniaks's gimmick of singing their songs to the tune of another, so we can imagine what the melody would be. And they're all here on a stage that's tilted about thirty-five degrees up!


Splash page from Showcase (156 series) #71 [The Maniaks] (November-December 1967), script by E. Nelson Bridwell, pencils by Mike Sekowsky, inks by Mike Esposito
Woody has come to the kids with his new play, a can't-miss sure-hit never-fail musical set during the Civil War and threatening to do for Robert E. Lee what The Producers did for Adolph Hitler. Again, don't forget that the band's female singer Silver Shannon is only interested in money, because it only tells us twice on this page. Sheesh, lady, go hang out with The Green Team, why doncha!


Here's some other characters introduced and quickly forgotten until they have to appear as stock background characters in the musical. "Rock Hutsut" is not even a proper expy of Rock Hudson, but at least "Twiggly" looks like Twiggy. Is that visual foreshortening, is is Twiggly only twelve inches tall? Well, she's only twelve inches wide, at least.


I can't imagine that at the time, a Venn diagram of DC Comics readers and those who had seen Woody's 1960s nightclub stand-up routines would include many more people than E. Nelson Bridwell. Thanks to retrospective, of course, and my much-played copy of the re-release of his routines on LP in 1978, when I first read Showcase #71 as a back issue I immediately recognized the comic's flashback...


...was a repurposed routine from Woody's stand-up act.


Man, I sure hope Nelson Bridwell gave a small portion of his salary to Woody Allen for this page of plot, sadly the only genuinely humorous part of the comic.

Hey look, another generic celeb, this time one of Allen's admitteed comic infuences, Groucho Marx! There's lots of Marx expys in comics (most notably a running gag character in The Defenders and the lovingly-detailed Count Julius in Dave Sims's Cerebus, before he went completely off the rails (Dave, not Groucho Marx).


Oh Silver: big box offices, is that all you can think of? And here, for no added expense, is a panel I'll feature later this year on October 21 in "Today in Comics History!" It's the comic book that keeps on giving!


The second part of the comic is the musical itself, populated with songs sung to the tune of another. This was a frequent MAD magazine trick (I hold MAD #203's "The MAD Star Wars Musical" in great esteem), but the Maniaks treatment of the same tricky trope talls falls flat because the lyrics just aren't that funny. You can accuse Woody Allen of a lot, but being just not that funny in the late '60s isn't one of them.


There's nothing like a good tune. And that was nothing like a good tune! And here's two more!


Is the play a hit success? A failure? Will it do boffo at the box or mediocre in the mezzanine? Ehhh, the story tells us right out, that doesn't matter. And we won't find out! Instead it wraps up with the kids kickin' out fourth-wall and telling the readers to BUY MORE DC COMICS and write in with their opinions of The Maniaks. Did you dig it, hep cat, or is it the squarest thing since your Dad brought you home a Burl Ives album?


We never saw any of the letters pro- or con-Maniaks (Showcase of that era seldom printed letter columns), but I'm pretty sure the fan reaction to and sell-through of Showcase numbers 68, 69, and 71 was not so much manikial but more meh. The Maniaks didn't get their own comic book and didn't even show up during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Woody Allen also didn't get his own comic book...but he did star in a comic strip, Inside Woody Allen, syndicated from 1976 to 1984. The strip's recently been reprinted in a nice big volume Since Inside Woody Allen was distributed by King Features Syndicate, he must be in the Flash Gordon/Mandrake the Magician/The Phantom Extended Universe, and I expect Woody to make an appearance any day now in an issue of Dynamite Comics's King, teaming up with Dagwood Bumstead, Mark Trail, and terminal bring-down Funky Winkerbean.

But the Maniaks (established as existing in the DC Universe through a crossover character with The Inferior Five) were not completely forgotten...at least not by Kurt Busiek, who never forgets anything about comic books. Silver Shannon, cash-obsessed lead singer of the Maniaks, pops up in The Power Company as the secretary of team owner Josiah Power.


Panels from The Power Company #3 (June 2002), script by Kurt Busiek, pencils by Tom Grummett, inks by Prentis Rollins and Christian Alamy, colors by Alex Sinclair, letters by Comicraft
Note the poster for that Broadway show hung behind Silver's desk, and the photo of the other three Maniaks behind her (why wasn't she in that picture?). Also, and you can't say this often in comics: Silver has aged. This can only be explained by John Byrne's suggestion (about Timely's Blonde Phantom) that in comics you only age when you're not appearing in comics.

He rounded out her character, but Kurt Busiek didn't forget Silver's gold-digging propensities.


Panels from The Power Company #4 (July 2002), script by Kurt Busiek, pencils by Tom Grummett, inks by Prentis Rollins, colors by Alex Sinclair, letters by Comicraft
Busiek even let Silver save the day at the end of the series, a cancelled-too-soon #18.

In the end, we know what happened to Woody Allen, and enjoying his work can what we call these days "problematic" at best. But what of the Maniaks? Do they have any legacy in the DCU? Does anybody remember them? Well...yeah.


Panel from The Power of Shazam! #48 (March 2010), script by Eric Wallace, pencils by Don Kramer, inks by Michael Babinski, colors by Jonathan D. Smith, letters by Rob Leigh
The World's Greatest Band. Huh. They made it after all.

Today in Comics History, April 17, 1953: Aquaman successfully lobbies to name a new planet

from "Planetary Names" in Showcase #19 (DC, March 1959), creators unknown

Bear Attack! Month 2014, Day 29: Bearcause you demanded it

Showcase! The exciting 1950s DC comic which features the stories you demanded!


"The Story Behind Showcase" from Showcase #1 (March-April 1956), script by Jack Schiff, pencils and inks by Win Mortimer
OKAY THEN SO WHICH ONE OF YOU DEMANDED THIS?!?




Panels from "Runaway Bear" in Showcase #2 (May-June 1956), pencils and inks by Russ Heath