Whilst I was deathly ill a few weeks back, I received several care packages including one featuring the three newest publications from Yoe Books. As ever, by way of full disclosure, what you are about to read are blatant but much deserved plugs, not reviews, because I was privileged to assist with all three of these volumes in various ways. So what exactly are these latest collections from the ever-fevered mind of friend and former muppet Craig Yoe? Well let’s take a look at them, in no particular order.

Our second volume is nothing less than the fascinating history behind the first 3-D comic books in the 1950′s…and I can’t even see 3-D! That’s right. For years I thought it was a practical joke; that there was no such thing as 3-D but that, like the emperor’s new clothes, no one wanted to admit that they couldn’t see it! Then one day, just a few years ago, I DID see it! And I was amazed. It was in the introductory short film made for the 3-D re-release of THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. I watched a candle float by me IN the theater! But…that was it. I didn’t see any 3-D in the film itself, nor any in the dozen or so other films I’ve been forced to pay extra for over the past few years since.

But the thing is…now I know that it’s REAL! It’s not a joke! Craig’s AMAZING 3-D COMICS! offers dozens of stories from the original 3-D craze, most of them actually in restored 3-D…complete with the requisite free glasses (albeit better quality than the original green and red cellophane lens ones).

Not just a regurgitation of previously published materials, Yoe spent much time speaking with the legendary Joe Kubert who, along with his then art partner Norman Maurer (and Norman’s brother) gets credit for developing the process involved and starting the craze itself while at St. John. I know Craig actually talked with him because I transcribed the interviews myself. Joe also wrote an inroduction to the book. For Maurer’s side, Craig assigned me to speak with his widow, Joan, who just happens to be the daughter of Stooge, Moe Howard! As a lifelong Three Stooges fan, that was a treat!

Some may recall the originally announced cover for AMAZING 3-D COMICS! as seen in early ads. That was scrapped when Mr. Kubert became so enthused about the project that he was willing to contribute an all-new cover featuring his classic caveman, TOR, star of one of the earliest 3-D comics. Then, given all the elements, Craig Yoe designed a book cover to die for by doing Kubert’s art as a lenticular panel to simulate actual 3-D! The character from the original

intended cover joined Felix the Cat (star of his own previous Yoe Book) and others on the textured sidebar and a fun shot of Kubert and Yoe in actual 3-Dhighlights the back cover!!

Along with the expected Maurer and Kubert, the other stories and art inside are by such luminaries as Alex Toth, Bob Powell, Howard Nostrand and Jack Kirby. A lot of the stories are stand-alone horror, humor or western tales but familiar characters include The Three Stooges (Shemp version), Cowboy actor Tim Holt, Felix, Tor, Maggie and Jiggs and Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.

So no, I don’t get the full effect but that’s my eyes. It’s not the book’s fault. All of the stories are readable even without the glasses. Well…all accept a couple of trick one pagers where the goal was to cover one side of your glasses to get one side of the story and another to get the other side.

AMAZING 3-D COMICS! is not just a fun book but a detailed look at an important and often neglected piece of comic book history from one of out premier comics historians…and his talented sidekicks. Ahem…

I’m a simple bear; give me exactly what I want and I’ll shut the hell up. Like, for years and years (and years) I’ve used every opportunity presented me to talk about how I wished someone would collect Mandrake the Magician. So, since starting in February Titan Books will be releasing the collected strip starting with Mandrake the Magician: The Sundays: 1935-1937 (Vol. 1) this will most likely be the last time I’ll be doing a post featuring Lee Falk’s legendary magician, begetter of an entire generation of comic book imitators.

But for those of you who have no interest in buying the collection, hopefully this beautifully colored Sunday circus situated sequence will give you some idea of just how charming a strip Mandrake could be. It’s a by the numbers circus story with standard cut-out characters that has echoes of Silent Movies in it’s DNA. In lesser hands this sort of material could be so much ‘meh’ but Lee Falk and Phil Davis do a remarkable job of making it a lot more than that.

REPRINTED FROM BOOKSTEVE’S LIBRARY

Whilst I was deathly ill a few weeks back, I received several care packages including one featuring the three newest publications from Yoe Books. As ever, by way of full disclosure, what you are about to read are blatant but much deserved plugs, not reviews, because I was privileged to assist with all three of these volumes in various ways. So what exactly are these latest collections from the ever-fevered mind of friend and former muppet Craig Yoe? Well let’s take a look at them, in no particular order.

First up is THE CARL BARKS BIG BOOK OF BARNEY BEAR (a title suggested by my lovely wife, btw). I’m going to assume if you’re reading this blog then you’re familiar with Carl Barks. Barks was the former Disney animator who managed to humanize the spastic duck characters of the Disney theatrical cartoons in the pages of various Dell comics from the forties through sixties. His creation, Scrooge McDuck, led WALT DISNEY’S COMICS AND STORIES to be one of the biggest selling comic books of its day with nary a superhero in sight! His stories have been cited as an influence on Indiana Jones and most certainly on whole generations of international comics fans and creators who, for his entire active career, knew him as simply, “The Good Duck Artist.”

That guy. Yeah.

And Barney Bear? Odds are you know him, too, as his fairly lethargic and repetitive MGM cartoons have been staples on television since the Dark Ages, most recently seen on Cartoon Network. Seriously, they aren’t that good. A couple of them featured a character called Benny Burro, though, and that’s where Barks comes in.

In the pages of OUR GANG comics, essentially a showcase for MGM properties including the title series but also TOM & JERRY, Barks took Barney and Benny and turned them into an almost Laurel and Hardy type of comedy team. With someone to talk with, Barney didn’t quite seem so lethargic anymore, just loveably dim-witted!

In THE CARL BARKS BIG BOOK OF BARNEY BEAR, Craig collects all of the Barks stories of the characters. They’re short but they’re a lot of fun and “Unca Carl” (as he would come to be known) manages to work his magic here also, making the characters much more likable and much more sympathetic than they ever were on film.

As always, Yoe reprints every story page directly from the original comics in restored high-definition treatments (from the collection of Bud Plant) giving them a shiny, yet vintage, feel. There’s a nice new cover of our stars as well as an intro from Barks aficionado Jeff Smith (BONE) and some rare illustrations and original art to accompany Craig’s learned, behind the scenes, text piece on the artist and his protagonists.

The hallmark of Yoe Books is, of course, the wonderful design work given each new publication and this particularly attractive volume is no exception. (Ignore that Amazon link cover below as that is not the actual cover.) My favorite part is the way the back cover gag (by Barks) now incorporates the book’s actual barcode!

But fancy bindings don’t make a book worthwhile. Barks’ storytelling was what elevated him to the top of everyone’s list of the great comics artists and a great storyteller can tell a great story no matter how small it may seem. The Barney and Benny stories are not the epic adventures of Scrooge McDuck…but they’re still worth the telling and they make me smile. Let’s put it this way. I didn’t like Barney Bear from the cartoons. Never did. I like Carl Barks’ Barney Bear…and I really like THE CARL BARKS BIG BOOK OF BARNEY BEAR.

Let’s start today with a gruesome double feature by lesser-known artists from a 1979 issue of the almost under the radar black and white horror title Weird.

http://www.bloodypulptales.com/2011/10/stage-of-horror-supernatural.html

Our friend Jacque, now successfully relocated to Denmark, shares photos from her first visit to a Danish comic book shop.

http://sequentialcrush.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-first-visit-to-danish-comic-book.html

As always there’s some choice photoshopping going on at Brave and the Bold-The Lost Issues, including some recent Silver age team-ups between Batman and early Marvel characters.

http://braveandboldlost.blogspot.com/

And now we end today with some much classier horror-Warren Poe adaptations by Wrightson, Sutton, Grandenetti and best of all, Reed Crandall!

http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/2011/10/warren-apaptations-of-poe-stories-reed.html

Golden Age publisher Hillman is known, if it’s known at all, for a single title, Airfighters Comics and its characters Airboy and The Heap who fairly quickly migrated to a title of their own, Airboy Comics. But they also published another superhero title, Clue Comics, which featured such profoundly oddball mystery men as Micro-Face, an ersatz Batman and Robin named Nightmare and Sleepy and leading this bizarre parade their headliner, Boy King. He was, as it says on the tin, a boy king, a prince if you will, of an imaginary European country who wore his medieval royal finery (which included thigh-high boots) to, yes, fight crime. He was aided in his efforts by his friend, a nameless stone giant called only “Giant”. Don’t worry, I’m definitely going to get to him.

But they also published a hodgepodge of other titles in other genres, from the usual hodgepodge of crime, western and romance comics to the exceedingly unusual like Frogman Comics. They only had one teen, if older teen, title, Joe College. Although the back pages of Golden Age anthologies almost inevitably had at least one stalwart student athlete in them there weren’t a whole lot of comic books exclusively about college students. Joe wasn’t particularly unusual or interesting however, but his stories featured some really sharp artwork by Golden Age great Bob Powell.

On the other hand Toss-Out Terry was a fairly unusual Golden Age strip, but then unfortunately about female athletes are just as unusual today (though there is Marvel’s 15-Love which features Millie the Model reimagined as a teen tennis player) . Its lead was Terry a female student athlete with offbeat good looks who as interested in sports as she was in in guys. She may have to take some good-natured kidding from her dad about being a baseball player but otherwise her interest in athletics was treated seriously, especially by her boss. Plus, it had art by Mr. Frankenstein himself,Dick Briefer…

And finally there’s Boola Boola Jones. The Grand (Exalted) Comic Book Database says it was drawn by Frank Frazetta; fellow comic book Steve, Steve Thompson, says maybe not. As previously established I’m no expert at identifying artists, but I can say for certain that it’s very nicely drawn.

Silver Age Comics scrutinizes an early Roy Thomas comics story from an issue of Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos with art from that series regular artist, Dick Ayers.

http://sacomics.blogspot.com/2011/10/sgt-fury-31.html

We love Doctor Drew around here, him and his secret files, and here is another episode of that short-lived but deeply Eisner-inspired strip by Jerry Grandenetti.

http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2011/10/philosophers-stone-dr-drew.html

Steve Skeates and Jaime Brocal provide an above-average Warren comic strip from the seventies with The Mummy Walks.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2011/10/black-and-white-wednesday-death-of.html

Finally today, here’s some speculation about the revelation-in Greg Theakston’s new Kirby bio-that Jack Kirby used ghost artists toward the end of his life.

http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com/2011/10/original-art-stories-mystery-of-jack.html

If you’ve been following along at home (and if not, why not?) you remember that last Tuesday I shared a song about Popeye, one of the most sung-about cartoon characters I know. Of course, the honor of being the comic character with the most songs belongs to Batman. Hands down, the winner when it comes to the thrilling combination of records and comic books in which we wallow every Tuesday.

Why Batman? Is it because he’s one of the first superheroes, along with his buddy Superman, dating back to the 1930’s? Is it because he’s still around today, appearing in movies, cartoons and comic books more than 70 years later? Nah! It’s because of the Batman TV series of 1966 and the infectious theme song from said show. It’s tough to beat that catchy rhythm and the simple chorus of “nana-nana-nana-nana-nana-nana-nana-nana-Batman!”

We’ve presented many versions of the Batman theme over the years, but conspicuous in its absence is the “official” rendition by the composer himself, Mister Neal Hefti. So here it is! Sing along if you have a mind to.

Click the Bat-link to listen:

Batman Theme - Neil Hefti

We find the seventh appearance of Professor Tigwissel — comic artist Livingston Hopkins‘ re-occurring sequential cartoon strip character — not in Tigwissel’s usual home (New York’s Daily Graphic). Rather, this week’s Tigwissel — titled Professor Tigwissel’s Trip Up the Nile — appeared on the rear page of the December 11th, 1875 issue of Frank Leslie’s Boys’ and Girls’ Weekly.

(Click on the above comic page to see a larger version! The panels above are read top-to-bottom, then left-to-right.)

What I should have actually said, is that the above Professor Tigwissel strip, is the seventh appearance of Tigwissel “known to me”. The fact is, all of the Tigwissel appearances I am listing, come from my own research of the Daily Graphic. While I have searched through other American periodicals that Livingston Hopkins is known to have worked for, my research in those is far from complete. The above comic page, is the only Tigwissel I have found outside the Daily Graphic. But I can not state definitively, that it is the only one which was published. The fact that many of the strips published on the rear page of Frank Leslie’s Boys’ and Girls’ Weekly, had first appeared elsewhere, further raises the possibility that this — what I am labelling the seventh Tigwissel — might in truth have appeared elsewhere, earlier. And, if so, might be earlier than “seventh”.

To view previous entries in this series, click here on Tigwissel Tuesdays.

Doug Wheeler

ProfTigwissel FLBGWeekly

Not that any of you need to know what goes into writing these things but in spite of the fact I that have over sixteen thousand comics in my external hard drive there are still weeks when I absolutely have no idea which comics I’m going to write about. Part of the problem is that in spite of all evidence to the contrary (i.e. the recent multiple entries devoted to British robots and comedy teens) I really do try not to repeat myself too often. Because my favorite kind of comics are generally (a) good and (b) unexpected, (c) strange comes in as a very strong third. And the stranger the better, so I’m always on the lookout for something I (and hopefully) you have never even heard of, let alone seen before.

For instance Famous Features Stories #1 this apparent (the Grand Comic Book Database has no information about this title, I’m guessing because it doesn’t consider it to be a “comic book”) one-shot from 1938 which only looks like just another collection of comic strips. It’s actually a 66 page collection of prose stories featuring the comic strip characters Don Winslow of the Navy, Dan Dunn, King of the Royal Mounted, Smilin’ Jack, Buck Jones (who of course was also a movie cowboy), G-Man, Tarzan of the Apes, Tailspin Tommy, Dick Tracy, Terry & The Pirates and Little Orphan Annie. The cover also promises us Smokey Stover but no such story appears for which we should probably all be grateful. Because even given my tremendous imagination I can’t begin to imagine what a Smokey Stover prose story would be like.

Besides it’s format perhaps the most interesting thing about this comic is, as far as I know, it’s the closest Dick Tracy ever got to Dan Dunn, professional Dick Tracy impersonator. Dan Dunn is an all put forgotten strip today and for very good reason; it was an altogether amateurish imitator of the actual article, looking for all the world like it was scribbled during Junior High study hall. But it kind of looked like Dick Tracy, if you squinted enough, and given the enormous popularity of the Tracy strip at the time that seems to have been good enough for all the newspapers who couldn’t get the real thing.

I’ve posted the stories featuring Dick Tracy, Terry & The Pirates and Little Orphan Annie for no other reason than these are my favorites.

And I’ve included this back page ad because I honestly don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing these kinds of ads. I said it before but I wish there was a comic book themed fast food place that used these kinds of pages as decorations, like how in days of yore Wendy’s used pages from turn of the century catalogs.

My very first favorite comic book was Casper the Friendly Ghost in the early sixties. With dozens of spin-offs, my dad had no problem bringing me anew one just about every time he went out! Here’s one now from 1960!

http://www.bigblogcomics.com/2011/10/friendly-ghost-casper-in-golden-touch.html

Over at Kiddin’ Around today, we find a nice, simple, philosophical look at the eternal question of who created what in the early Marvel Universe.

http://kidr77.blogspot.com/2011/10/stan-jack-or-steve-or-was-it-all-three.html

If you haven’t been keeping up with DC’s “New 52,” don’t worry. Tony Isabella’s been doing it for you and here he is now with some no holds barred observations.

http://tonyisabella.blogspot.com/2011/10/and-more-52-to-go-before-i-sleep.html

Finally today, direct from my own personal collection, I’m selling books, records, DVD’s, toys, etc at my brand new site, Booksteve’s Bookstore. New items added daily at reasonable prices. Please check ‘em out!

http://bookstevesbookstore.blogspot.com/