The Disneyland Memorial Orgy

Packed with more bite than a typical MAD-style dig at Disney, this legendarily infamous naughty counterculture poster was done for Paul Krassner's 1960's political and social satire magazine THE REALIST. When the idea came up, Krassner naturally remembered the superb MAD parodies of beloved Disney characters a decade earlier and sought out Wally Wood. The original illustration appeared as the centerfold of THE REALIST in 1967 while Wood was working at Tower and beginning WITZEND. So popular was it that Krassner marketed it as a poster on the underground market only to have Disney take offense for some reason. The poster was pulled from distribution and many were destroyed. Few of the black light mini-posters survived either. Mine, seen here, was purchased from animation historian Jim Korkis in the late eighties. You can't tell it from the scan but the colors are still bright and vibrant! For some reason my scanner doesn't read the black light colors well?

For years, Wood publically dodged the question of whether he was the artist but word passed around quickly and it was eventually acknowledged.

The poster in black and white or in color has had a popular second run on the Internet and turns up often. Just today it turned up in a commentary here-http://lisa-mynx.blogspot.com/2009/02/its-disney-world-after-all.html on Disney's current attempt to gut its own Small World theme park ride of much of its diversity to be replaced by trademarked characters. Sigh.

For anyone interested, Paul Krassner himself is now making the poster available again at his site http://www.paulkrassner.com/.

Dr. Fu Manchu

As the story goes, one Israel Waldman bought a bunch of junk printing plates in 1958 featuring comics stories from defunct publishers and--copyright be damned--started publishing them! There's a lot more interesting bits to that story but this post isn't about that. It's about one particular book his IW company printed during their 1958-1964 existance-DR. FU MANCHU!

DR. FU MANCHU reprints in full color the 1951 full-length MASK OF DR. FU MANCHU comic that I said yesterday is generally believed to be Woody's best from this period. Waldman apparently never got cover plates so all of his covers were newly done, often by folks such as Ross Andru, Mike Esposito or Sol Brodsky. GCD attributes this one with a question mark to Brodsky (who would later team with Waldman to create SKYWALD but that's yet another story again!) but I don't know. Looks to me like it could be John Giunta or even Manny Stallman but then I'm not that familiar with Brodsky's art. One thing's for certain and that's that it isn't Wally Wood's striking cover for the original! It also omits the famous inside cover "teaser" Wood did (seen here) but otherwise faithfully reprints the original.

The story itself (found in its entirety here: http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2008/06/wally-wood-mask-of-fu-manchu.html )is a rousing old fashioned pulp adventure, translated with style into Eisner-influenced comics art. GCD credits the actual art to Joe Orlando and the inking to Wood which is possible but much of the layout and style harkens to early Wood sketches so I can't help but think there was more of a collaboration than that.

The problem one encounters when dealing with Fu Manchu is, of course, Fu himself. Created at a time when 19th century fears of the different ways of the Orient lead to talk of a "yellow peril," Fu Manchu embodied the West's nightmares in one dreadful super villain. The star of quite a few rousing pulp novels in which author Sax Rohmer would lovingly detail the insidious tortures the mad immortal doctor would inflict on helpless, often female, victims, the hapless hero, Sir Denis Nayland Smith would always come back again and again to confront his evil schemes.

Fu appeared in a couple movies in the early days of sound including a classic Karloff portrayal. Christopher Lee later appeared in the role for a number of 1960's vehicles of lessening expense and quality.

The novels were reprinted over and over up through the 1970's when suddenly they just felt so wrong and antiquated as to get awkward shudders or laughs rather than the chills they were meant to inspire. Marvel licensed the character during that period but wisely chose to morph the whole thing into the superior MASTER OF KUNG FU series with Shang-Chi and minimize Fu Manchu to the point where eventually he faded from use in the series completely.

More Reprints

In 1987's 1st issue of the comic book, THE 3-D ZONE, obsessive 3-D promoter Ray Zone offers up Wood's early comic book adaptation of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE done with future sci-fi author Harry Harrison (creator of THE STAINLESS STEEL RAT). I've never been able to see the traditional red/blue 3-D myself but based on Zone's reputation for excellence it's probably worth seeking out if YOU can.

If not, the same story appears in non-3-D form in 2004's trade collection THE WALLACE WOOD READER, another offering from Greg Theakston's Pure Imagination. Here one can easily see the major influence Eisner was having on the young artist(s).

Also included in this treasure trove of those early public domain stories mentioned in a previous post is THE MASK OF FU MANCHU, a full-length 1951 book often cited as the artist's best work of this early period.

Fully thirteen additional stories round out this collection including all 3 from WAR AND ATTACK # 1 reprinted previously in WALLY WOOD WAR. The rest are all more early space opera including stories with CAPTAIN SCIENCE and SPACE DETECTIVE. Again, as stated previously, it's fun to watch Wood developing his trademarks as you read along. A final, post-EC sci-fi tale from 1956 shows just how remarkable that development had been in just four years!

The only unfortunate thing about this nice package is that some of the pages are a little murky. This may or may not have anything to do with the fact that all of the pages have been "Theakstonized." This, if you're unfamiliar with it, is a process developed by Theakston and widely utilized by the major comics companies. As I understand it the process essentially bleaches the color from printed pages for reproduction. In this case, the indicia notes that each panel has been altered ever so slightly in order to protect the company's investment.

If your're a 3-D buff or enjoy Wally Wood's dashing space operas, add both of these to your want lists.

Wally Wood War

This 1995 full color reprint comic is actually entitled MASTER'S (sic) SERIES Vol. 1 No. 1. Under what has to be one of the dullest comic book covers ever (painted by an unnamed artist from a Wood panel inside) the reader is presented with six war stories originally done by Wally Wood (possibly with dan Adkins) for Charlton Comics in the mid-1960's. Most of the stories are far from his best work and feature uninteresting writing with Charlton's trademark annoying machine lettering. There's a brief inside cover introduction that explains why Charlton was unique amongst comics companies and points out that the reprinted pieces come from WAR & ATTACK # 1 and D-DAY # 2, both comics code approved issues. Other than that there is no information on the reprints themselves. Only one story, LONE DEFENDER, seems to have any real life to it. In fact, if not for the lettering, one might mistake its highly detailed art as being from a previously unpublished EC war story!
To sum up, published by a company called ACG-America's Comics Group--this comic offers lesser quality Wood war comics reprints for the completist and it offers them on better (if still cheap) paper than the originals and with better color!

Comic Book Marketplace

Published throughout the 1990's, I had a real love/hate relationship with COMIC BOOK MARKETPLACE. On the one hand, it was a fanboy's delight with articles about and interviews with Golden and Silver Age collectibles, characters and their creators and a beautiful section of color illustrations every issue. On the other hand, much of every issue was taken up with values and preservation and grading and all the stuff that took the joy of the hobby away from me.

1997's issue 44, however, was the special Wally Wood issue and it really was special. Behind a cover adapted from EC's WEIRD SCIENCE 16, there are no less than five articles on Wood and his work.

THE FORGOTTEN MASTER by Link Yaco is a 7 page biographical sketch dotted with looks at the artist's lesser-known (to the general public anyway) works for GALAXY, SKY MASTERS, WIZARD KING, etc.

WOOD ALL OVER THE PLACE by the great fan historian Lou Mougin discusses woodwork from Charlton, Harvey, Wham-O and Gold Key as well as Woody's cameo in Warren's HORROR OF PARTY BEACH magazine.

There follows a 5 page Wally Wood cover gallery in full color.

A full color ad for Wood's RADIAN is a bonus next.

SECOND TIME AROUND is a one page review of Wood reprints.

HECK...WALLY WOOD MUST HAVE BEEN AN ALIEN! is a nice 8 page appreciation of Wood with some rare pictures and a reprint of Woody's EC ARTIST OF THE ISSUE.

Finally,Vanguard publisher J. David Spurlock (who has since put out a number of nice Wood-related products) offers 5 pages of his personal DIARY OF A WALLY WOOD FAN.

There are other interesting pieces in this issue but quite frankly they're superfluous. For a magazine that starts out in its editorial trying to convince me that I should now refer to myself as a "panepictographist," this issue is a pure delight for Wood fans and probably easy to find at your local comic shop or on EBay.

Superboy's Darkest Secret

Edited. Originally published at Booksteve's Library 6/06
In the late sixties, artist Bob Brown had a healthy run on DC’s SUPERBOY, abetted by inkers such as Jack Abel and the great Wally Wood. The issue seen here, # 158, dates from mid –1969 and features an incredible, apocryphal event in the life of our hero—the discovery that his Kryptonian parents are still alive! Writer Frank Robbins had drifted in from his long-running newspaper strip JOHNNY HAZARD and proceeded to do a number of unconventional stories for FLASH, BATMAN and SUPERBOY. This particular one, while interesting on its own merits (and the absolute ONLY time I’ve ever seen the word "inculcated" in a comic book!) flew in the face of all established continuity. SuperMAN’s parents had not been found alive floating in cryogenic sleep in a kryptonite rocket, therefore, how could SuperBOY’s parents have been?
Basically, Supes picks up a space message in Kryptonian claiming to be from Jor-el and Lara. Using a "mini-radio-finder(??)" he finds them floating in deep space but asleep. Suddenly he bumps into a fake asteroid that turns out to be a nuclear mine that sends him reeling toward the deadly Green K capsule. Seems this evil Kryptonian villain named Xonar had been using Jor-el and Lara as bait to destroy Superboy as Jor-el had thwarted his evil plans back in the day. That’s okay, though, because, you see, this benevolent Kryptonian scientist named Krylo shows up and saves the Boy of Steel in the nick of time. Whew! Lots of living Kryptonians around here. Tell me again why Kal-el is called the Last Son of Krypton?
Krylo explains that while Kal was being loaded into his rocket, he (Krylo, not Kal) suggested that Jor-el and Lara get cryogenically frozen with him and sent off into space to avoid the planet’s impending doom. They declined but agreed to send their son a message that Krylo could deliver when the boy was fifteen so he could understand it. Slow learner? After recording the message and firing off their firstborn, Krylo conked ‘em and froze ‘em anyway, blasting them, along with himself, into space in two separate rockets. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Xonar’s prison fell apart due to Krypton’s earthquakes (Errr…why wasn’t he in the Phantom Zone?) and he escaped the planet’s death in a rocket. You know…a rocket…one of those things that, according to tradition, there weren’t any of around which is why Jor-el could only send a tiny baby in his itty bitty prototype. Sigh. Continuity be damned sayeth Robbins! I just wanna tell a good story. You know, like Bob Haney!
Anyway, Krylo explains that Kal’s parents can, in fact, be revived but, since the outer hull of their ship is now Green K, they need help to do so. Enter…PA KENT! This is the new, recently improved, younger version of Pa and he’s soon suited up and dragged off into deep space with a tow line. That creep Xonar is still hanging around though with his nuclear mines disguised as asteroids and he cuts the line! Dammit! Supes is royally pissed (to put it mildly) and flings Xonar into one of his own nuclear mines…err…accidentally, of course. Kablooey! OOPS! Just killed a guy. Say, where’d everybody go? Seems Krylo sacrifices himself to rescue Jonathan Kent, who then is able to get the tow line to his son who then flies the whole shebang back to earth. They, of course, take it immediately to Superboy’s secret Polar "Cave of Science." Yeah. You know the one. Not the later Fortress of Solitude, mind you, but the little known "Cave of Science!" Uh-Huh. While trying to open the nose cone, Pa accidentally replays the original message which, when you hear the whole thing, points out that if his parents ARE revived, they would die a long, painful, lingering radiation death because Jor-el had contracted radiation poisoning while investigating Krypton’s seismic troubles. Awwww, maaaaaan! He sends the ship back into deep space. After this, Superboy’s darkest secret, the fact that his real radioactive parents are frozen in space but COULD possibly be alive again someday is simply never mentioned again and, after Crisis upon Crisis, no doubt never happened anyway!
The art on this issue is very good with Woody being quite a good match with Brown (longtime artist on CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN). Continuity-wise, though, we have Jor-el, long established as preferring green jumpsuits, wearing red yellow and green with a triangular (as in "S" shield) geometric symbol on the chest. Nice touch. Dr. Krylo’s geometric shape is a diamond…at first. At some point, the artists started drawing his as a triangle, too!
Note the black and white panels, here. These are close-ups from one of the very few pages of original comic book art that I possess. It just happens to be the seminal page from this important epic in the life of the Boy of Steel! Or at least it would have been if this had occurred in any kind of real continuity. As with the dreaded Mopee story in FLASH, somebody at DC wisely said never to mention this again. Eventually, perhaps feeling that his most original stories were unappreciated, Frank Robbins returned to drawing where he did, among others, BATMAN, THE SHADOW and a long run on Marvel’s INVADERS, all in his erratic, quirky, Caniff-inspired style. Bob Brown continued with SUPERBOY into the early seventies and finished his career with a good run on DAREDEVIL just prior to that book being Millerized. Wally Wood went on to ink a Miller DD cover as his final professional comics job. Jor-el and Lara, as of this writing, are dead and, quite frankly, I’m not sure this particular version of Superboy ever even existed in current continuity. Do I even exist? Do you?

Wham-O Giant Comics

Adapted from Booksteve's Library 7/06
Whatever else you want to say about it, this is one of the hardest comic collectibles to store! WHAM-O GIANT COMICS # 1 (and only) dates from the year 1967 but to the best of my understanding was not distributed at that time. Apparently the entire warehouse stock sat for several years and then was sold off in bulk. I bought it at a Dollar store circa 1970 for, if I remember correctly, fifty cents. Being as huge as it is, this cover scan (which is itself only a partial view) comes from a double page spread in the Wally Wood issue of COMIC BOOK MARKETPLACE. Clearly it was intended as a regular series as there is a six issue subscription ad contained therein. Six issues were $4.98. Considering the size, however, your mailman would have hated you and if all the kids in the neighborhood had subscribed, he may well have gone postal!
Put out by WHAM-O toy company, it was intended to be a sales vehicle and feature ads fro WHAM-O products along with the stories. The incredible cover art is signed by W.T. Vinson. I’ve read that LITTLE LULU guru John Stanley had some work in this and I think I recognize some very late Lou Fine. The whole book has some of the worst comic book coloring I’ve ever seen and the eclectic mix of styles reminds me of a British Annual and the American Boy Scout magazine, BOY’S LIFE.

The real highlights here, though, are two marvelous pieces by Wally Wood. The book opens with RADIAN, a T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS style hero. Later on we have the first appearance of GOODY BUMPKIN, Wood’s fantasy version of his space kid hero BUCKY RUCKUS The GOODY story is one of Woody’s all-time best, filled with his trademark puns and humor and some of his smoothest art from that whole period.

It’s hard to store, it’s hard to find and with its teeny tiny panels, it’s even hard to read but for fans of the esoteric or more particularly fans of Wally Wood, WHAM-O GIANT COMICS is a must-have!