Philip José Farmer - Jan. 26, 1918 to Feb 27, 2009
One of my favorite authors died February 27 at 91.
Just some of his work includes The World of Tiers series, the Riverwold series, The Stone God Awakes, Two-Hawks from Earth, The Dayworld series, Tarzan Alive, Blown, Flesh, Nothing Burns in Hell and many, many others.
I have put together a tribute to some of his work
Sometimes it’s just the cover, sometimes it’s the whole comic, but there have been some messed up ones over the years.
1. Before turning to “True Crime” stories, Headline Comics featured a gang of kids that were a rip-off of Simon & Kirby’s Newsboy Legion called the Junior Rangers, a number of the covers were weird, but this one? Hitler is a genie and…. Wha?
2. Ah yes, the immense treasure house of humor to be mined from capital punishment, in this case the electric chair.
3. There were a lot of racist images that showed up in the comics of the Golden Age. But YOW, this one for a Mickey Magic story abused the privilege!
Ironically enough this magazine also features the first appearance of another series character, Voodah, who was perhaps the first, and certainly one of the first, positively displayed black heroes in a comic book.
However for the character’s whole of his run whenever Voodah was featured on the cover he was depicted as white!
4. Ah Jack Chick, what can I say? A special case, but this one I think goes beyond the pale even for him.
By the way, please notice that there are 5 characters featured on the cover of the Four Horsemen.
Why don't the pictures that I put in show up with the messages here?
The concept we have of werewolves is not based on folklore, in those stories the man-beasts become such though wicked choose and they became fully wolf-like in form.
The current pop-culture idea of the werewolf with the humanoid form, turning when the moon becomes full and only being harmed by silver comes mostly from The Wolf Man written by Curt Siodmak.
Which takes it out of folklore and puts it solidly in pop culture.
Right where comic books live, which explains some of the great werewolf covers there have been down the years.
1. Captain Triumph was for the whole of his run was pretty cheesy, and more than a touch dull, but damn that’s a nice beastie, I by the way would say that the Capt seems to have met more than his equal!
2. Yeah, and only a really good lawyer will be able keep him out of the gas chamber for shooting a woman just because she’s getting in touch with her “running with the wolves” self.
3. Hmmm… this looks familiar, only when the image was used with Superman and Supergirl, Cyclops and Dark Phoenix, or Batman and Robin, no one tried to shoot Superman, Cyclops or Batman afterwards.
4. Yow
In the 70 + year history of the comic book there have been a lot of superheroes and heroines and as such superpowers tend to get reused at lot.
And yet for some reason we see few who have the ability to increase their mass and height, which I think is a little odd what with giants being such a part of myth and fairy tales, two cousins of the comic book, and yet when it comes to star characters they are few and far between.
In the Golden Age there was the Green Giant, which lasted for all of one issue before he left the business and got into frozen peas, while in the 60’s we have Elasti-Girl in the Doom Patrol, who is one of the few supers to die and not come back, Colossal Boy, lost among the crowd of other supers in the Legion of Superheroes, and then there is the whole Hank Pym / Ant-Man / Giant-Man along with all Goliaths that came after him to be ignored and forgotten quickly at Marvel.
Not an A or B list hero in the bunch.
I wonder why that is?
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