Here’s a confession; if I have a least favorite Golden Age comic book publisher (and I’m not saying I do), it would probably be Fiction House. For probably the reason you’d probably expect; no superheroes. Oh sure I read the chapter devoted to them in Richard A. Lupoff’s All In Color For A Dime, but only half a dozen times as opposed to the dozen times I read everything else in it. I admit I was intrigued by Planet Comics, especially Lupoff’s description of the serial that ran in it, The Lost World featuring Hunt Bowman’s one man war to take back the earth from the alien Voltamen ( green guys who’s inverted speech patterns predated Yoda’s by decades and inexplicably went around wearing Kaiser helmets).

Oh, they had great titles, Fight, Rangers, Wings, Jumbo (I mean, how cool is Jumbo for the title of a comic?) etc., but at the time you literally couldn’t have paid me to read comics about regular old two-fisted adventurers. Where was the fun in that?

Of course in the decades that have past since then my tastes are a little more refined and I’ve managed to work my way through the bulk of Fiction House’s output…and they’re still my least favorite Golden Age comic book publisher.

Oh I can certainly appreciate them and admire the high quality of the artwork in them by people like Mort Meskin, Matt Baker, Nick Cardy, George Evans, Bob Powell and Lily Renee. But unfortunately the stories and characters (even by Golden Age standards) were pretty bland with repetitive outcomes. Of course none of that’s a problem when it’s a genre you like, but when it’s one that you don’t, well, reading comic books almost becomes like work.

And as much as I love me some jungle girls, Sheena always kind of left me cold; I’ve always been more of a Rulah man (those Fox jungle girls were a whole lot sexier and their stories a whole lot weirder; but that’s another story).

But of course it took a while for Fiction House to develop that formula and early issues of their comics actually had some pretty strange content, including what they considered to be superheroes. Which brings up to Super-American, what almost certainly has to have been created to a ruthlessly cynical fusion of Superman and Captain America.

That being said, it’s easy to make fun of stories like these (and lots of people online are doing just that), but I like the art, dig the plot and am left slightly confused by his costume. I mean, what’s the deal with his empty chest insignia? I’d like to think it’s supposed to represent the uncompleted experiment that is America, but what are the odds that’s what his creators had in mind?

So, um, for no other reason than I like it, Super-American.

20th Century Danny Boy has posted the latest chapter of comic book artist Rich Buckler’s ongoing career autobiography and it, like all the earlier chapters, it tells a riveting tale of creativity vs office politics and business. Hopefully, someone will collect all of these at some point.

http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com/2010/09/from-desk-of-rich-buckler-part-vii.html

The legendary Cat Yronwode has completed her long-dormant project, The Lesser Book of the Vishanti, an obsessively detailed look at magical concepts in Marvel’s Dr. Strange and their metaphysical impact and realization in the non-Marvel universe. Bizarre and fascinating stuff!

http://www.luckymojo.com/vishanti.html

That scamp Felix the Cat is on view in a fun fish story over at the Big Blog of Kids Comics which follows a nifty review of Craig’s new book, available now elsewhere on this very page!

http://www.bigblogcomics.com/2010/09/felix-cat-great-comic-book-tails.html

Finally in the news today, have you voted for Oh, Brother! yet? Looks like it’s still running in 4th place in the Pennsylvania poll to replace the soon-to-retire Cathy strip. Remember voting is a constitutional right!

http://blog.pennlive.com/life/2010/09/vote_on_the_comic_strip_that_w.html

I have to admit, I’ve watched the trailer for the new Green Hornet movie a few times. Of course, so have 1,035,813 other people (and counting!). It’s pretty darn cool. See for yourself!

Green Hornet trailer

The Green Hornet was a radio character who appeared in movies, comic books, and later on TV. Inspired by the Batman craze - in the brief mid-Sixties era when super heroes were temporarily “in” - the Green Hornet only lasted one season. It had none of the camp appeal of the Batman show; the series took itself seriously. Perhaps that was its downfall.

But as we can see from the trailer, Seth Rogen doesn’t take the Green Hornet so seriously. And neither did Jimmy Bowen when his orchestra and chorus recorded their version of “The Green Hairnet” circa 1966. Yes, that’s Gary Owens announcing.

Click the link below and enjoy.

Green Hairnet - Jimmy Bowen Orch & Chorus

Sometime in early August, I devoured the entire Oh, Brother! collection to date in about 20 minutes. Then I played all the games. And now I am hooked.

With the news of Cathy Guisewite’s retirement, Sunday funny papers across the country will need a replacement. Pennsylvania’s Patriot News is putting the decision in the hands of readers by allowing us to vote on one of five selections. Internet readers are included, so this means you! Why not click on this link and vote for Oh, Brother! It only takes a couple of seconds!

If you’re not sure that Oh, Brother! is your first choice, please read on and enjoy this interview with creators Bob Weber Jr. and Jay Stephens. And remember: if we make the Sunday funnies a happy place for kids, then there will be a future for Sunday funnies.

Oh, Brother! is the best kid’s strip in ages. It’s sweet and charming, offering a daily peek into the funnier side of sibling relationships. Always funny and never mean, it’s one of the smartest strips I’ve seen in a long while. It really works for all ages. Older siblings can relate to Lily, and younger siblings can relate to her little brother Bud. Parents can smile over their own children all over again.

Oh, Brother! is the result of one of the most welcome collaborations since Parker and Hart brought us The Wizard of Id. The talents of Bob Weber Jr. (Slylock Fox and Comics for Kids) and Jay Stephens (Tutenstein and The Secret Saturdays) have combined to create a loving homage to Charles Schulz and all the comics featuring kids that he inspired. There is not one trace of snark or cynicism here. Oh, Brother! is pure.

Not only is it the best kid’s strip I’ve seen in forever, it’s perfect for pocket computers. Kids can use their Nintendos or iPods or PS3s or etc. to read the daily strip, play the games, learn to draw, and interact with other readers by uploading photos of their pets and samples of their art.

Yet even though Oh, Brother! takes optimal advantage of new media resources, it honors old traditions, too. While web comics can be in color seven days a week, the Sunday strip is larger in scope and benefits from landscape orientation. It makes a big splash on the screen. All’s right with the world!

Bob and Jay kindly gave us a few moments of their time, so that you can get to know the creators of this delightful and intelligent new strip.

ITCH: What was your first comic strip/cartoon/comic?

Jay: I have a crappy memory, so I’m not sure if I’m recalling this correctly. Plus all those emotionally scarring Marvel comics I had in the 70′s like Son of Satan, Tomb of Dracula, Ghost Rider, and Morbius, the Living Vampire (care of Spider-Man) are messing with my memories by creating a traumatic mind-block of horror. I know I had, and loved, a bunch of those little Peanuts and Family Circus paperbacks. And I remember being enchanted with the early history of animation that Walt would occasionally cover on The Wonderful World Of Disney. I became obsessed with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Felix the Cat and Betty Boop.

Bob: At age 21 I sold my first gag cartoon to American Machinist magazine ($15). I was also inking and writing gags for my father’s comic strip Moose and Molly.

What are you reading right now?

Jay: The IDW Family Circus collections. Hellboy. And Hayao Miyazaki’s Starting Point 1979-1996. Obviously my growth is stunted.

Bob: I’m reading volume 1 of John Stanley’s Nancy comics, published by Drawn and Quarterly. Before that I read Stanley’s Little Lulu collections by Darkhorse Books. Stanley is ‘the man’ right now.

What is your guilty pleasure? At least, the one that really answers an ITCH!

Jay: I almost hate to admit I heart Harvey Comics. Casper, Hot Stuff, and especially Spooky. The writing is absolutely terrible, but I can’t seem to get enough!

Bob: My guilty pleasure is sitting down for lunch with my wife and watching the daytime soap The Bold and The Beautiful for the last 20 years.

Who was the first cartoonist/animator you met?

Jay: Genius Canadian underground cartoonist Chester Brown, I think. Don’t Google that if you’re under 14! Other indelible impressions were made early on by meeting John Kricfalusi (Ren & Stimpy) and Will Eisner (The Spirit).

Bob: The first cartoonist I remember meeting was um… my father. The second cartoonist I remember meeting was the wonderfully talented Orlando Busino. Living in Connecticut gave me the opportunity to meet some of the greatest cartoonists in the country. Within a few miles there was Stan Drake, Mort Walker, Jerry Dumas, Bill Yates, Dik Browne, Gill Fox, Hal Foster, Tony DiPreta, John Prentice, Dick Cavalli, Jerry Marcus, Dick Wingert, Kurt Swan, Whitney Darrow Jr. and more! Every one of them a gentleman and an inspiration!

Which dead cartoonist/animator would you most like to meet?

Jay: Ub Iwerks. Oh! And Winsor McCay.

Bob: Bob Clampett

What would you say?

Jay: Thank you.

Bob: Thank you!

What has been the highlight of your career to date?

Jay: Tied for biggest highlight is: 1) Seeing the float based on my cartoon character Tutenstein go by in the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and 2) Seeing the Mattel toy line based on my animated series The Secret Saturdays at Toys ‘R Us for the first time.

Bob: There have been three highlights in my career. 1) My first magazine sale. 2) The successful syndication of my Slylock Fox and Comics for Kids comic. 3) The launch of Oh, Brother!

Please tell us a little about your latest project.

Jay: Oh, Brother! is a dream come true for me. I’ve wanted to do an old-school daily strip forever! Three of my own pitches were rejected over the years, so I’m glad Bob could make my dream a reality by writing such instantly classic material. We both have older daughters and younger sons and can readily identify with the characters and situations. And we are both passionate about the history of comics and the need for more great all-ages comics in the current scene.

Bob: I am having a blast writing Oh, Brother! and my co-creator Jay Stephens impresses me every day with his beautiful and funny art!

Which old-time cartoon character do you most identify with?

Jay: Happy Hooligan. Or Sleepy from the Seven Dwarfs.

Bob: Mr. Peabody’s boy Sherman, from Jay Ward’s Peabody’s Improbable History segments on Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Jay: The power to shift around my base elements a la Metamorpho. Nerd alert!!!

Bob: Flying would be awesome, x-ray vision could be interesting … but I’d settle for being the greatest guitar player in the universe.

Beth here: Sometimes I think if I could have any superpower, it would be the ability to survive without food, water, and shelter, so that I could spend my life doing nothing but reading comics from creators like Bob and Jay! I know they’re not dead, but thanks, guys! Thank you!

For our final week (this year) of comics created by college students — in salute to those headed Back-to-School (and those happy they are) — we present a second 1850-published sequential comic book, College Scenes, by Harvard University student Nathan Hayward.

Like the William Peters’ circa 1850 Yale comic Ichabod Academicus, Hayward broke College Scenes into four chapters, one each for Freshman through Senior years. Below is Hayward’s Freshman Year. The art and story-telling in Scenes is cruder than Academicus, but Hayward manages to scores points as well, most notably with his more frightening depiction of hazing, for which Hayward’s art style is more appropriate. Beneath, left and right, are the front & back covers of College Scenes.

Click on any picture, to open an enlarged version.

Like Ichabod Academicus, Chapter Two (Sophomore Year) of College Scenes, will appear next year at this time! This concludes our Back-to-School college comics for 2010. Click Here to find prior postings of college student comic books.

Next Monday — something new!

Doug Wheeler

CollegeComics

EC vets Wally Wood, Al Williamson and George Evans are spotlighted here in some “true ghost stories” from the very first issue of Gold Key’s long-runnning Ripley’s Believe It Or Not title.

http://www.goldkeystories.com/2010/09/ripleys-believe-it-or-not-no-1-june.html

Rip Jagger gives us all a big head this morning with more than forty close-up headshot comic book covers on exhibit from half a dozen or more different companies over several decades.

http://ripjaggerdojo.blogspot.com/2010/09/headshots.html

Over at Sequential Crush we see a series of seven romance comic one-pagers from Charlton and DC comics and showcasing art by Charles Nicholas, Mike Sekowsky and…Henry Boltinoff???

http://sequentialcrush.blogspot.com/2010/09/collection-of-one-pagers.html

Finally today, way down in the Comic Book Catacombs, we find a 1946 tale from Exciting Comics that features the oft-revived superhero, the Black Terror in his prime.

http://comicbookcatacombs.blogspot.com/2010/09/black-terror-in-mystery-of-vanishing.html

From a 1971 issue of Esquire, here’s the Hulk’s Uncle, Happy Herbie Trimpe, illustrating Superwoman, a three page parody of women’s lib in general and its most recognizable spokesperson, Gloria Steinem, in particular.

http://themagicwhistle.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-insurance-c.html

The Bantam Buckaroo here, from 1951, is drawn by young Leonard Starr. Starr would soon create On Stage, the slickly drawn semi-soap strip starring Mary Perkins (and currently being given the hardcover reprint treatment).

http://fourcolorshadows.blogspot.com/2010/09/bantam-buckaroo-leonard-starr-1951.html

Silver Age Comics revisits a 1968 issue of Teen Titans that epitomizes Bob Haney’s tendency to try to approximate what he thought was hip amongst the younger folk of the day.

http://sacomics.blogspot.com/2010/09/teen-titans-15.html

Billed as being from the creator of Doc Savage (although he really wasn’t), the pulp hero known as the Avenger never caught on in comics in spite of a number of tries. He did reasonably well in a 1970′s paperback revival, though, and here are a whole bunch of covers to prove it.

http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/2010/09/peter-caras-and-george-gross-avenger.html

Here’s the poster for the first ever exhibition of the work of Wallace Wood, widely considered one of the most important and best comic book artists of all time. Inn recent years, Wood’s troubled life and 1981 suicide have perhaps eclipsed the brilliance of his science fiction, humor and superhero art. From the looks of it, this exhibit should change that. Opening next week in Spain and running into November, hopefully all of Woody’s US fans will get a chance to see it eventually.

http://ferrandelgado.blogspot.com/2010/09/el-dia-16-arranca-la-exposicion.html

American readers may be hesitant to tackle the work of Arab cartoonists because of the language barrier. Not many of us know Arabic, in spite of the seven-year occupation of Iraq that only just officially ended. I will say, in a kind of faint defense, that Arabic is an extremely sophisticated language that is exceptionally difficult to learn — I’ve tried and failed three times! (All the more reason to take that extra step to show your respect and concern for our Iraq War veterans.)

But fear not, gentle reader, because Lebanese cartoonist Hassan Bleibel possesses advanced mastery of the power of image. His wordless pictures speak volumes. When necessary, he uses a brief phrase or two to underscore the meaning of his cutting visual comments on current events. And when he does, he meets his international readers all the way, by writing in English.

In Bleibel’s single-panel interpretations of the world’s daily events, we hear cries of wounded compassion, pointed lacerations of global cynicism, and the kind of cold horror that comes from realizing that in the political conflicts that define our lives, no one has our backs. No one, perhaps, except the cartoonist. I’m especially grateful for Bleibel, working with dauntless energy in the boisterous and tenuous democratic experiment that is Lebanon.

Bleibel is the regular cartoonist for the Lebanese paper Al-Mustaqbal. He has also been published in a number of other Lebanese papers and in international publications like Al-Ahram (Egypt), The Washington Post, The New York Times, Le Monde, The Los Angeles Times, and various other American and European papers. He has been published online at Courrier International.com, Al-Jazeerah.net, Cartunesebonecos.com, Al-Arabiya.net and others, and he’s a regular contributor to Daryl Cagle’s Political Cartoonists Index. Bleibel also maintains a highly entertaining website of his own.

We are so honored that he made time for an interview with ITCH. The time difference made it much simpler to conduct the interview by email, and email was an amazing way to be introduced to Bleibel’s phenomenal personality. He quite literally answered in glorious technicolor, which unfortunately will not reproduce here. But you can enjoy the exclamation points! You can enjoy the sunny personality that shines forth.

ITCH: What was your first comic strip/cartoon/comic?

My grandmother’s face!!

What are you reading right now?

A political book about the history of democracy in Europe.

What is your guilty pleasure? At least, the one that really answers an ITCH!

Criticizing harshly the defects of others!!!

Who was the first cartoonist/animator you met?

Bahjat Osman (Egyptian).

Which dead cartoonist/animator would you most like to meet?

NAJI EL-ALI (Palestinian).

What would you say?

Invention is the greatest pleasure in the universe!!! Ask GOD.

What has been the highlight of your career to date?

When LE MONDE published my cartoons for the first time.

Please tell us a little about your latest project.

To win the Arab cartoonist award!!!

Which old-time cartoon character do you most identify with?

TOM!!!

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

I would fly!!!!

Hassan Bleibel’s expansive, generous, and totally ebullient love for humanity and for his craft should work as a catalyst for American readers. Let’s take full advantage of our right to speak freely. Got something to say? Say it loud!

And as always, thank you Hassan. Thank you so much!

Now universally recognized as one of the great caricaturists of the 20th century, one forgets just how much product that Mort Drucker has turned out over five plus decades. It’s all good. Here’s Mad‘s Easy Rider spoof.

http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2010/09/sleazy-riders-by-larry-siegel-and-mort.html

Terry Beatty shows us some of little-remembered artist Jimmy Thompson’s Heavens to Betsy (as well as a little of his Robotman) over at Scary Terry’s Blog.

http://terrybeatty.blogspot.com/2010/09/forgotten-cartoonists-jimmy-thompson.html

Here’s a cover gallery for the first nine issues of National Lampoon, the once influential magazine showcase for some amazing comics parodies as well as some amazing comics by the likes of Vaughn Bode, Shary Fleniken, Ralph Reese, Gahan Wilson and Jeff Jones.

http://thewarriorscomicbookden.blogspot.com/2010/08/national-lampoon-1-9-1970.html

Finally today, here’s a complete story from the great Lou Fine’s late fifties-early sixties newspaper strip Adam Ames, a soap opera strip with a mystery bent and some of the most realistic strip art of its day.

http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2010/09/is-there-anything-finer-thursday-story.html