Welcome to Super I.T.C.H.’s first Post-Apocalyptic blog! (For those who weren’t paying attention, the world ended yesterday. But don’t worry, if you missed it, you’ll get a second chance when the world ends again next year!)

Those of us not Raptured to safety yesterday, are now to endure Hellish Torment (from Heaven). So, let’s begin our torture, by presenting the 1682 broadsheet comic “A True Narrative of the Horrid Hellish Popish Plot” by Francis Barlow. This was one of numerous Popish Plot broadsheet comics published at the time, part of an anti-Catholic conspiracy to falsely accuse the Catholic Church of plotting to kill the British king. The pictures here were scanned from the book History of the Comic Strip, Volume I: The Early Comic Strip — Narrative Strips and Picture Stories in the European Broadsheet from c1450 to 1825, by David Kunzle. (An outstanding book, and, for our period of Hell on Earth, filled with plenty of horrific imagery from propaganda sheets, depicting the atrocities committed by one’s enemies!)

The Horrid Hellish Popish Plot is particularly appropriate for Day One of an American Protestant Pentecostal Evangelical post-Revelations-based Apocalypse, in that American Pentecostals are typically taught that the Catholic Church is the “Whore of Babylon” in Revelations — representing a church that has betrayed the faithful, selling out its values to the service of the earthly authority of a European Anti-Christ. Has to be. Because the “Whore of Babylon” couldn’t possibly be such American Protestant Evangelical Pentecostal churches themselves, many of which have closely aligned themselves to the service of the earthly American Republican Party, helping it to gain control of the greatest military power on the planet. That interpretation just wouldn’t make sense. Would it?

This work is sometimes cited as an example of the evolution of the word balloon within sequential multi-panel comic strips. Which it is (a step in the evolution). It does not qualify as a “Pre-YK Talkie”, however, because the words being spoken within the banners (rather than balloons) that are emerging from people’s mouths, are actually inconsequential to the telling of the story — they could be eliminated without affecting it. Therefore it does not qualify as a “comic strip” by those who insist comic strips began with Yellow Kid. (It does meet my personal definition of a comic strip — but, my purpose in Pre-YK Talkies is to find instances prior to Yellow Kid, which match the definition of a comic strip held up by those who would deny the legitimacy (and even existence) of such pre-YK strips.)

Click on the pictures above and below, to view larger versions.

Doug Wheeler

PreYKStrips

As an actual child of the 1960′s (which as previously established means I was born in 1959 and was an actual child, in the 60′s) I faced the end of the world what certainly seemed like a half dozen times. I’d wake in the morning and while my Mother was listening for the weather report I’d frequently hear a voice of authority tell me, “Yep, world’s going to end again and it looks like rain”. Now that we have the miracle of the internet I could easily look up every instance of premature Armageddon - can, but won’t. Suffice it to say it was either a lot or it just certainly seemed like a lot to an already apocalyptically minded Catholic boy with a tendency to worry and a large comic book collection.

I didn’t care for it one bit but I at least I got inoculated not indoctrinated; though now that the novelty of being alive has kind of worn off it’s kind of fun to think about (to quote Xander Harris, “I like the quiet”) most likely it’s just not going to happen in our lifetimes. Damn it.

And so in honor of the world not ending again I present select pages from Hal Lindsey’s There’s A New World Coming drawn by Al Hartley. Although he’s probably now best known for his work for the Christian Spire titles Harley did considerable work for Atlas Comics, co-creating Leopard Girl with writer Don Rico for Jungle Action. And before becoming a born again Christian drew The Adventures of Pussycat for Martin Goodman’s men magazines.

Image via Wikipedia

Nowadays artist specialize but back then to work a working comic book artist had to master any number of styles suitable for any number of genres, and Hartley could do it all. He worked for a decade on Patsy Walker, helping to change the title over from teen comedy to teen soap opera. He was even able to product art in a perfectly respectable funny animal style for Spire’s Barney Bear comics.

Image via Wikipedia

This Barney Bear…

…and not the now most forgotten star of a long-running MGM cartoon series.

And he was responsible for getting Archie president John Goldwater to license the Archie characters for the Spire titles. It’s easy to make fun of the Spire comics or treat them as if they were high camp, but that would be a mistake. The Spire comics dealt almost exclusively with God’s love and mercy instead of pain, fear and punishment that the Jack Chick tracts trafficked in.

I’m not going to post the entire comic, it’s entirely too long plus it’s readily available for both purchase and free download if anyone has any actual interest in reading it.

Happy End of World!

As predicted by preacher Harold Camping (who, luckier than most of us, is now experiencing his personal Second-End-Of-the-World!) Harold’s world previously ended on his predicted Judgement Date of September 6, 1994. We can only guess that Camping got that date mixed up with the day the world truly ended for his alternative self in one of Earth’s many parallel dimensions — but, he and his followers feel they’re in the right time-space location now, even if others of us have some doubt…

This all is not to be confused with the other End of the World occuring later this year — December 21, 2025 — which happens to be my birthday. I’ll be passing a certain age milestone, so, believe me when I say that day is certain to be apocalyptic!

Anyway, I felt the above image by Richard Felton Outcault, showing Buster Brown, Mary Jane & Tige cavorting in a field with philosopher Elbert Hubbard, to have a sufficiently idyllic & cult-like look to match this wonderful day! A perfect last image to hold on to, as you either rise into the clouds, or, descend into the Hellish Pits of Despair! It was published on the rear cover of the July 1908 (volume 1, number 4) issue of Elbert’s publication The Fra (not for mummies) — A Journal of Affirmation. (Elbert Hubbard, by the way, should not be mistaken for cult-founder, L. Ron Hubbard — though, since no one will be around tomorrow to fact-check, I urge you to go right ahead and conflate the two!)

Forever and (less than) a day,

Doug Wheeler

P.S., I’m sure a few of you pesky fact-checkers, will point out that 2012 is actually not in 2011. C’mon — it’s the End-of-the-World — don’t you have something (or someone) better to be doing in your final remaining hours, other than reading this blog & pointing out my mistakes?

I blame it on the ecstasy of the moment! The top of me is transforming into pure energy, giving me ringing in the ears and making me light-headed. While the bottom of me is being yanked downwards by hands reaching from the grave, like some Johnny Craig Vault of Horror cover. Or maybe it’s just the vodka & tequila mix from last night.

This rubber-band stretching of my ascendant/descendant eternal soul, is proof that the end will come via a Fermilab experiment, creating a “harmless” miniature black hole they’re convinced will either dissipate, or, exit into another dimension (where an alternate, parallel Harold Camping will once again, be proven correct)! I curse my mother for not having the courage to soldier it out and carry me for 21 months instead of 9, so I could truly joke about reaching an apocalyptic milestone on my December 21, 2025 birthday. Though let’s face it, once you’re past a certain age, every birthday is apocalyptic.

Ben Franklin and Napoleon Bonaparte versus the Thing (From Another World) in this fifties DC story with art by Bob Oksner and Bernard Sachs. Wacky enough for ya?

http://atomic-surgery.blogspot.com/2011/05/napoleon-benjamin-franklin-vs-thing.html

We link to Diversions of the Groovy KInd a lot because the Groovy Agent always pulls out fun posts like this collection of late Silver Age Gil Kane covers on Green Lantern.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2011/05/making-splash-gil-kanes-groovy-age.html

Have you got Craig’s recent collection of Bud Sagendorf’s Popeye comic book stories? Bhob Stewart has a copy and offers his review here below. You can order your own elsewhere on this page.

http://potrzebie.blogspot.com/search/label/craig%20yoe

Finally today, if you’re in the New York City area this weekend, drop by the Wizard World/Big Apple Con Spring Edition at the Penn Plaza Pavilion to meet Craig Yoe and pick up all of the Yoe Books you still need!

http://www.wizardworld.com/home-newyork.html

Still feeling the loss of Jeffrey Catherine Jones, here is some of the best coverage.

The best biographical piece is from Tom Spurgeon over at The Comics Reporter.

http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/jeffrey_catherine_jones_1944_2011/

Here’s a relatively rare color comics story from Jeff, originally from a seventies issue of DC’s Witching Hour.

http://fourcolorshadows.blogspot.com/2011/05/fourteen-months-jeffrey-catherine-jones.html

Here’s a nice sampler of some lesser seen works of the person Frazetta called America’s greatest painter.

http://warlockshomebrew.blogspot.com/2011/05/fantasy-artist-jeffrey-catherine-jones.html

Fellow artist Michael Netzer features a lovely portrait of JC as well as a video clip from an upcoming documentary on her.

http://michaelnetzer.com/mnop/?p=2879

Finally, the reliable Mr. Door Tree shows us even more of Catherine’s output, these mostly from the seventies.

http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/2011/05/jeffrey-jones-january-10-1944-may-19.html

Believe it or not there are genres of comics that I’m not immediately attracted to; war, horror and yes, romance. But I’ve been a fan of Matt Baker one of the best comic book artists of the Golden Age for a couple of decades, thanks mostly to Bill Black’s A/C Comics reprints. So I already knew the Matt Baker who drew “the girls”; South Sea Girl, Sky Girl, Tiger Girl and my absolute favorite jungle girl (head and shoulders over Sheena) Rulah, Jungle Goddess. He also drew Canteen Kate, a character who deserves, and will get, a column of her own.

Image via Wikipedia

But I recently discovered his work on romance titles and was absolutely blown away by his work there. Sure, Baker could draw beautiful women; it’s an ability that should be appreciated and admired, but a lot of artists can draw beautiful women. But I was stuck by how in these stories, and especially these covers, he captured simple human scenes; sexy simple human scenes, sure, but the people in them are far more than stock figures in stock romance comic situations. Watch how they dress, move and position themselves; they’re alive, and no matter how stock the situations they carry with them moments of (here’s my ‘I-went-college’ phrase) felt life.

Oh, and did I mention they were sexy? The stories might have been about romance but the covers were about sex. And often enough to shatter some of our preconceptions about how people in the 1950′s acted, the women on these covers knew what they wanted from men and weren’t ashamed to go after it.

These are things of beauty. Somebody really needs to collect this material and until they do, here’s “They Called Me A Wayward Girl” from Diary* Secrets #10.

*I like to say I “use” to have dyslexia when I was a kid but it’s never far from me. As I prepared this piece I repeatedly and relentless kept typing “Dairy Secrets”. Now there’s a comic I’d like to read.

Jeffrey Catherine Jones died today. Often thought of as a comic book artist, in reality it wasn’t very long before he transcended comics to become a brilliant illustrator and painter. Seen here are most (not all) of the comics covers Jones did, most from the early 1970′s.

Pappy shares a delightful (aren’t they all?) adventure of the original Fawcett Captain Marvel, this one by longtime writer Otto Binder and artist Pete Costanza.

http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2011/05/number-949-lets-get-small-when-i-began.html

Longtime readers know I loves me some Howie Post and here we have the dear boy on one of his signature characters. Harvey’s Hot Stuff, the Little Devil!

http://www.bigblogcomics.com/2011/05/howie-posts-hot-stuff.html

Here’s some more of that wacky Steve Ditko from his Charlton days in the seventies, collaborating here, as he often did, with Joe Gill.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2011/05/diggin-ditko-class-reunion-by-gill-and.html

Finally today, here’s a creepy horror tale-or rather an eerie one-drawn by an anonymous artist in the fifties but followed up with an Alex Toth one-pager.

http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2011/05/eerie-glen.html

I’ve stated here before that I have never been a big Alex Nino fan but I have to admit the Groovy Agent’s Nino posts-including this one-are starting to win me over.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2011/05/addicted-to-alex-nino-dream-house-by.html

Future Hagar creator Dik Browne appeared for years in perennial school library favorite magazine, Boy’s Life, with a strip called the Tracy Twins, a handful of which are on display here.

http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2011/05/scouting-for-luck-tuesday-comic-strip.html

Arguably Al Williamson’s adaptation of the Sam Jones Flash Gordon movie is his best work on his beloved character…with the exception of the fact that he had to draw Sam Jones as Flash. Here’s part one.

http://www.cafepress.com/atocom/3751916

Finally, here’s a look at Dan Gormley’s unique version of George Herriman’s Krazy Kat. Find out more about the original in Craig’s upcoming Herriman book.

http://fourcolorshadows.blogspot.com/2011/05/krazy-kat-dan-gormley-1953.html

We’ve been getting into a nice rhythm on Tuesdays. One week it’s a Popeye song, the next an Archie song.

Naturally, we’re glad to plug “Archie: A Celebration of America’s Favorite Teenagers” from our gracious hosts at Yoe Books. It’s available now on Amazon and at better comics shops. (That’s how you can tell the better ones, they carry Yoe Books!)

This week, an interesting take on “Sugar Sugar,” the number 1 song for all of 1969. Sweet!

Click the link below to listen.

Sugar, Sugar - Mary Lou Lord