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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 18, 2017 0:52:48 GMT -5
I never found the Buck Rogers series watchable, even as the kid. The women were too clean-cut to interest me. My memories of Magnus are forever marred by having read Corben's "Mangle, Robot Mangler." Ardala clean cut? And these "bad girls"...
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Post by EdoBosnar on Aug 18, 2017 3:04:06 GMT -5
Yeah, the Buck Rogers show in general was certainly campy, silly, formulaic and maybe even whitebread in style, but "clean cut" is not a word I would use to describe the women. Most often the costume design for the female characters was a step away (if that) from soft porn.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 29, 2017 17:35:46 GMT -5
Sorry for the delays; I am in the midst of preparing for a move and work has been a horrendous pain. Back to Western. Western dabbled in sci-fi, mostly through things like Magnus and Dr Solar, which mixed sci-fi and superhero elements. They also produced comics based on things like Irwin Allen shows, like Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Their biggest attempt at an original sci-fi comic would collide with Irwin Allen, in a rather unique way. Space Family Robinson debuted in 1962. Del Connell and Dan Spiegle created the series, though carl Barks was often, erroneously, listed as the creator. He had suggested a sci-fi adaptation of swiss Family Robinson, a few years earlier, but juts that basic idea. Nothing was pursued. Later, Western came out with this book, featuring a family of space explorers who are living and working on Space Station One, a large, moveable, platform, with a self-contained environment and greenhouse. A cosmic storm throws them off course (issue #2) and they spend their time trying to find their way home. The family was selected by computer for their mission and consists of father Craig, mother June and twins Tim and Tam, as well as their pets. They often venture forth from Space Station One in their Spacemobile shuttlecraft. Being that this was aimed at children, Tim and Tam are usually the focus of the stories, as they are the ones who most often go exploring, with the spacemobiles. Typically, they meet up with alien communities in peril, as well as bug-eyed monsters. The stories tended to be a bit formulaic, when you read them in succession; but, they are well plotted and entertaining. Dan Spiegle's artwork really gets to shine, as he gets to challenge his imagination. So, I know what you are saying, that doesn't look like the Lost in Space tv show. This was an adaptation, right? Nope. Space Family Robinson predated Lost in Space by 3 years. When the tv show debuted, it featured very similar plot points and characters: a spaceship knocked off course in an accident, a family of explorers, with the focus on the younger characters, lots of aliens and bu-eyed monsters. Western saw the similarity; but, they didn't sue. As I said, they were already producing adaptations of Irwin Allen tv shows and they valued their relationship. Instead of going to court, they came up with a more unique idea: they brokered a deal to use the Lost in Space name with Space Family Robinson, even if the comic had nothing to do with the tv show. Thus, with issue 15, the title became Space Family Robinson, Lost in Space. The book would carry that title, right to the end, in 1982. Actually, there were a couple of ends. The series was originally cancelled in 1969, with issue 36, then revived in 1973. This was due to the popularity of Star Trek, in syndication, which led to the popularity of the Star Trek comics, at Gold Key/Western. They decided it was time to try Space Family Robinson again and continued it until 1977. It was then brought back, under the Whitman banner, with issues 55-59 being solely reprints. Space Family Robinson was one of my early favorites, as I got a couple of these as Christmas gifts, with a Whitman sampler pack. I was a sucker for adventure/exploration stories, so it was right up my alley. The art isn't flashy; but, Spiegle was a heck of a storyteller and Gaylord Dubois (who took over writing in issues 8, continuing to the end) was a great adventure writer. Funny thing is, we wouldn't get an actual Lost in Space comic, featuring the tv show characters, until the Innovation series, in 1991, with stories from Bill Mumy. Also appearing in a back-up series, in Space Family Robinson, and in two issues of its own, was Captain Venture. This series featured astronauts Rex Venture and Scott McKay, who end up marooned on a weird planet, where they often face hostile enemies. The creative team was also Dubois and Spiegle. Dell did a John Carter adaptation, but their only real venture (apart from tv and movie adaptations) was Kona. The comic featured art by Sam Glanzman, as it tells of a family who travel to Australia on a decommissioned Navy blimp, which goes down, at sea, in a storm (which happened to the USS Akron, one of the Navy's dirigibles, with all but 3 hands, lost at sea). They find themselves on a strange island, with primitive humans and dinosaurs. In typical lost world fashion, their rifles help save the primitives from the dinosaurs. They end up arming these people, though they later convince Kona to give up the weapons, when they are used against other people. It was an odd, but interesting mix. Drew Ford was working on a reprint of Kona, when Sam passed away. Now, another, more paranoid sci-fi series had a brief, yet spectacular life at Western: Wally Wood's Total War, aka MARS Patrol. Total War/MARS Patrol was like a paranoid dream given form. The United States is invaded by an unknown, and seemingly unstoppable power. Into battle goes the Marine Attack Rescue Service Patrol, a group of Marine specialists. The team consists mainly of four men: Lt Cy Adams, leader and pilot, Cpl Russ Stacey, weapons expert and commando, Sgt Joe Stryker, demolitions and paratrooper, and Sgt Ken Hiro, frogman and martial arts expert. The team is an odd mix, for Marines, and feels more like a combined operations special warfare team, rather than a Marine-specific unit. They are just one patrol of MARS and they help stem the tide of the invasion, if only for a moment. Their unidentified enemy consists of fanatics, who take their own lives, rather than be captured. The enemy appear human, though hairless, and are later revealed to have slightly different internal organs. It is hinted, though never overtly stated, that they are aliens or from a parallel dimension. The book was a mixture of a sci-fi and a war comic, with Wood (and assistants) packing it full of military hardware and mayhem. It lasted 10 memorable issues, before disappearing, though many of its elements would show up again in the THUNDER Agents series. The series was notable for a level of violence not seen in many books (aside from war comics), the paranoid idea of an unchecked invasion by foreigners, and a rather progressive racial mix of characters. The idea itself goes back to the pulp era, with things like Operator 5 and the Purple Invasion epic, where foreign invaders conquer the US. Unfortunately, we never got a resolution of the plot, though it never really progressed between issues. Like most comics, it was more of a series of episodes. Aside from the Wally Wood (et al) art, the covers were a big selling point, with art from Western mainstay George Wilson. Wilson also did covers for the Avon Phantom paperbacks (and the Gold Key comics) and similar material. The 1960s were a heyday of the "men's adventure" magazines, with pulpy covers and interior illustrations from top notch artists like Wilson, including Norman Saunders and Mel Crair. These illustrations often featured GIs battling sadistic nazis, with plenty of half naked women being tortured. Being comics, Gold Key just left out the women and made the Nazis into the alien invaders. Western had another big sci-fi series, one in a seemingly endless line of tv-based comics. This one outlived its original series, and helped fan the fires of rebirth that would bring the series back: Star Trek. Next time.....
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Post by mikelmidnight on Aug 30, 2017 11:48:33 GMT -5
Kona was one of the downright strangest comics I have ever read, I own one issue and the characters all speak in this frenetic near-poetry.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,448
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Post by shaxper on Aug 30, 2017 17:08:06 GMT -5
Total War...one of the most jaw-dropping first issues I've ever read!
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Post by sabongero on Aug 30, 2017 17:11:37 GMT -5
Wow! Buck Rogers' female cast, I'll have to say are some of the most beautiful women of the 70's. Princess Ardala and Colonel Wilma Derring.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 30, 2017 17:44:05 GMT -5
Gold Key Western did find itself with one very large sci-fi hit: Star Trek Now, from the get go, there were problems with the series. The early art was produced in Italy and th artists (especially Alberto Giolitti) had never seen the show and only had a few publicity photos as reference. As a result, there are some continuity problems. For a start, Scotty is drawn as a tall, thin, blond man! You will also notice the green tunic. We see these quite a bit when a team goes down to a planet. It looks like they may have been adapted from the field jackets you see in "The Cage," (and "The Menagerie") in the original series. What's more, you see green uniforms on several characters. Also note the rocket exhaust coming from the engine nacelles. The ship interiors did not match the series, apart from some of the bridge, which was probably depicted in the publicity photos. My guess would be that the green color comes from the tunic you would occasionally see Kirk in, which seemed to be a captain-only uniform. Either that, or a color mistake in the photos used that made the yellow uniforms look green. Continuity was also a bit off, as the stories and characters didn't quite match the series. Again, this was at the beginning. As things progressed, the comics started to more closely match the series, though they still had their own ideas. McCoy has a daughter, Barbara. whose hair color changes a bit. An even bigger difference is the sparse involvement of the female characters. Uhura appears in just a few issues and is never a central character. Janice Rand only appears in the first issue. Nurse Chapel appears in 7 issues. Of the men, Chekov makes the fewest appearances. The focus is mostly on the Kirk/McCoy/Spock trio, with Scotty and Sulu being more prominent for the supporting characters. Over time, the characterization became closer to the tv series and characters from the series (and the animated series) pop up and there are even sequels to classic episodes, as the Guardian of Forever reappears, as does Harry Mudd. There are references to classic episodes and characters. Despite the variation, the series helped fuel the popularity of Star Trek, post-network broadcast. They, along with the early novels, helped feed a growing fan community, as well as the Filmation animated series. They helped keep the flame burning and provide material for those of us who discovered the series in syndication, because we were too young to see the network broadcast (I was born the same year the series premiered; but, didn't see an episode until I was about 4 or 5. The art was always top notch, if not flashy and the writing improved, with people like Len Wein, George Kashdan and Arnold Drake providing scripts. Early covers featured photos from the series, which then gave way to painted covers by George Wilson. Star Trek was probably Gold Key's best selling title, though I have no figures to prove it. The only other rival I can think of is Uncle Scrooge. Star Trek was better distributed than most Gold Key comics and were favorites of Trek fans, at conventions. Gold Key/Western published the series up through the tail end of the 70s; but, they didn't get a chance to join in the Trek revival, as they lost the license to Marvel, who got to adapt The Motion Picture, and start a new series after. From there, it shifted to DC, then Malibu (and Marvel, as a result of their takeover of Malibu), Wildstorm, and IDW. For many years, you had to hunt conventions and shops to find the Gold Key issues; but, Checkerboard finally collected the material, in 2004, in "The Key Collection." Finally, younger Trek fans got to see those comics, for good and ill. Younger fans may find it hard to picture a time when Trek wasn't all over tv and home video, without tons of merchandise. In the early 70s, there was little. Syndication brought the series to a new audience, who could see it regularly. It proved immensely popular, which led to things like books, comics, model kits, toys, action figures and memorabilia. Trek conventions took hold in the 70s and became major events. For my generation, the Trek comics, the Filmation cartoons, the toys, and the reruns ed our love of the series and the characters. The movies and revived series grew out of that love, building the franchise from the ashes of the short-lived tv show, which the network nearly dumped twice before. DC may have produced better Trek comics; but, Gold Key was there first, putting an effort into a series that DC and Marvel skipped. Next, we start to wind things down with Western's horror titles.
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Post by berkley on Aug 30, 2017 23:31:15 GMT -5
I don't know if the comics were any good but I was a very big fan of the following tv shows when I was small: Land of the Giants, Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and of course Star Trek.
On the Buck Rogers show, I was already perhaps a little too old for it when it was on but I would watch anything SF related at the time since there wasn't a lot to choose from. I did like Princess Ardala, both the character and her look, and of course the revealing costumes. Didn't care for Wilma or Buck himself or the little robot.
I remember seeing Pamela Hensley, the actress who played Ardala, on a Canadian talk show once - probably she wasn't a big enough star to be on the American ones - and she was a bit of a character herself. She had the same sort of precise way of speaking that she had on the show, one of the things I liked about the character. The other guest was Ron Ely and they knew each other, which was pretty cool. Looking her up on wiki I see she was in the Doc Savage movie, so probably that was the connection.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 31, 2017 9:28:53 GMT -5
I don't know if the comics were any good but I was a very big fan of the following tv shows when I was small: Land of the Giants, Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and of course Star Trek. On the Buck Rogers show, I was already perhaps a little too old for it when it was on but I would watch anything SF related at the time since there wasn't a lot to choose from. I did like Princess Ardala, both the character and her look, and of course the revealing costumes. Didn't care for Wilma or Buck himself or the little robot. I remember seeing Pamela Hensley, the actress who played Ardala, on a Canadian talk show once - probably she wasn't a big enough star to be on the American ones - and she was a bit of a character herself. She had the same sort of precise way of speaking that she had on the show, one of the things I liked about the character. The other guest was Ron Ely and they knew each other, which was pretty cool. Looking her up on wiki I see she was in the Doc Savage movie, so probably that was the connection. Hensley did a lot of guest roles on tv, with Buck Rogers and Matt Houston being her two biggest roles, in a series. She did several tv movies and mini-series, as well. Her biggest feature film was Rollerball, where she was James Caan's girlfriend. She was married to a tv producer and gave up acting after Matt Houston went off the air.
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Post by Prince Hal on Sept 1, 2017 12:37:54 GMT -5
Nice work here, codystarbuck! I enjoyed the few issues of Space Family Robinson I picked up. I was not a fan of te TV show and always thought that the comics were far more "mature" than the show. As for MARS Patrol, I had but one issue -- this one -- and loved it. As you said, it was violent, and I'd say even more so than Sgts. Rock's and Fury's comics. Those purple aliens died by the dozen: no fistfights, no ricochets, no flesh wounds. It seemed to me even then that it derived some "inspiration" from the notorious Mars Attacks trading cards set: recognizable locations in ruins or under attack (Lincoln Memorial, NYC, Niagara Falls), lots of flame-oriented weapons, and what passed for ultra-violence in the early 1960s. (Though nothing in comics, especially Gold Key comics, could compare with the brutality of Civil War News and Mars Attacks...)
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Sept 1, 2017 18:12:22 GMT -5
The comic featured art by Sam Glanzman, as it tells of a family who travel to Australia on a decommissioned Navy blimp, which goes down, at sea, in a storm (which happened to the USS Akron, one of the Navy's dirigibles, with all but 3 hands, lost at sea). They find themselves on a strange island, with primitive humans and dinosaurs. In typical lost world fashion, their rifles help save the primitives from the dinosaurs. They end up arming these people, though they later convince Kona to give up the weapons, when they are used against other people. It was an odd, but interesting mix. Drew Ford was working on a reprint of Kona, when Sam passed away. Now, another, more paranoid sci-fi series had a brief, yet spectacular life at Western: Wally Wood's Total War, aka MARS Patrol. The issue of Kona where he fights the giant cat is one of my favorite comics ever. Love the whole series! MARS Patrol I barely heard of - definitely going on my want list.
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 2, 2017 0:18:57 GMT -5
Nice work here, codystarbuck ! I enjoyed the few issues of Space Family Robinson I picked up. I was not a fan of te TV show and always thought that the comics were far more "mature" than the show. As for MARS Patrol, I had but one issue -- this one -- and loved it. As you said, it was violent, and I'd say even more so than Sgts. Rock's and Fury's comics. Those purple aliens died by the dozen: no fistfights, no ricochets, no flesh wounds. It seemed to me even then that it derived some "inspiration" from the notorious Mars Attacks trading cards set: recognizable locations in ruins or under attack (Lincoln Memorial, NYC, Niagara Falls), lots of flame-oriented weapons, and what passed for ultra-violence in the early 1960s. (Though nothing in comics, especially Gold Key comics, could compare with the brutality of Civil War News and Mars Attacks...) Oh, I'm sure Mars Attacks factored into Total War/MARS Patrol. Wally Wood worked on those cards and I'm sure he liked the idea of an invasion creating destruction across the country. He was of the right age to have potentially read the Operator 5 pulps, which feature the same thing. The big epic in that series was the Purple Invasion, which ran across 13 issues, where the Purple Empire (a Nazi allegory) conquers the United States, after conquering the rest of the world. John Christopher, aka Operator No. 5 leads the insurgency against it. Emile Tepperman wrote it and it is considered to be one of the greatest epics of the pulp era. The other great epic is the Spider vs the Empire State, where a fascist government is elected in New York State, whose actions soon puts the Spider at odds with it. That ran across 3 issues, with fast-paced mayhem and cliffhangers at every turn.
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 2, 2017 0:24:10 GMT -5
The comic featured art by Sam Glanzman, as it tells of a family who travel to Australia on a decommissioned Navy blimp, which goes down, at sea, in a storm (which happened to the USS Akron, one of the Navy's dirigibles, with all but 3 hands, lost at sea). They find themselves on a strange island, with primitive humans and dinosaurs. In typical lost world fashion, their rifles help save the primitives from the dinosaurs. They end up arming these people, though they later convince Kona to give up the weapons, when they are used against other people. It was an odd, but interesting mix. Drew Ford was working on a reprint of Kona, when Sam passed away. Now, another, more paranoid sci-fi series had a brief, yet spectacular life at Western: Wally Wood's Total War, aka MARS Patrol. The issue of Kona where he fights the giant cat is one of my favorite comics ever. Love the whole series! MARS Patrol I barely heard of - definitely going on my want list. Dark Horse reprinted the first 3 issues, which features the Wally Wood material. You can get the trade fairly cheaply. Like I mentioned, the covers matched the men's adventure pulp magazines of the era, with similar painted covers and story illustrations, with plenty of GIs fighting sadistic Nazis, fighting their way through V2 launch sites, blowing up submarines, and the like. The early 60s were filled with that, before Vietnam made people rethink war as entertainment. Still, The comic would make for a great movie (though John Milius' original Red Dawn pretty much covers the idea).
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2017 11:24:06 GMT -5
Wow. I always thought I was more of a Charlton fan...but these threads made me remember the amount of Gold Key/Dell titles I bought. Probably because most of them only lasted a few issues I had forgotten them. Also I think most Charlton titles were every other month & the Gold Key titles were quarterly? I remember growing up keeping up with titles that were published 6,8,12 times a year. 4 times a year or Annuals? Not as successful.
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 2, 2017 18:57:38 GMT -5
Wow. I always thought I was more of a Charlton fan...but these threads made me remember the amount of Gold Key/Dell titles I bought. Probably because most of them only lasted a few issues I had forgotten them. Also I think most Charlton titles were every other month & the Gold Key titles were quarterly? I remember growing up keeping up with titles that were published 6,8,12 times a year. 4 times a year or Annuals? Not as successful. It depended on the title; but, yeah, quarterly was standard for a lot of them. The popular ones were more frequent. A lot of the licensed books were more on the quarterly or bi-monthly side. Charlton was less frequent, also. Comics were a sideline, for them, to keep their printing presses in work. Westerm was much the same way, as comics were a sideline of their other publishing and helped keep the presses going. They sold a heck of a lot more jigsaw puzzles and Little Golden Books than their comic titles; so, guess what took priority? In the latter days, they were spending more time producing bagged sets of DC titles than they were putting out the bagged sets of their own titles. I'm planning on looking at Charlton, too, though that also covers a lot of territory. I also need to read up a bit on some of that, as their history is a bit complicated. Younger fans may not know that comics were often bi-monthly, rather than monthly, apart from the big titles. Even without the Independent News distribution deal that hamstrung Marvel's early growth, it wasn't uncommon to publish a title, bi-monthly; especially since the greater page count meant more stories A bi-monthly schedule helped make it easier to assemble all of the content. If you look at the indicia of many Silver and Bronze Age comics, you see titles that were published anywhere from 6 to 12 times a year. Many were actually 8 or 10 issues, going bi-monthly during a certain point in the year.
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