Spy Smasher was introduced in the first issue of Fawcett's WHIZ COMICS (numbered as #2 so as to account for an ashcan edition created solely to secure copyright to the title.) The brainchild of Bill Parker and C.C. Beck, he became one of the most popular characters in the Fawcett publishing line, appearing in his … Continue reading Spy Smasher in Peacetime: The Last Spy Smasher story
As we've covered in a number of different earlier posts, the chain of causality which led to the creation of the Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel Comics' signature creation, is long and tangled. Every once in a while I see people make reference to this story in relation to it. And in fact, there isn't any direct … Continue reading The First Spider Man Story
One of the casualties of the haphazard manner in which I've grabbed and kept things over the years is that on a more-than-occasional basis, I'm not sure precisely where I culled it from originally. That's the case with this cool four-page 1940s vintage behind-the-scenes article on the making of Captain Marvel comics during the Golden … Continue reading How The Comics Are Made
Here's another interesting novelty sent my way by Mark Waid. It's got a bit of an interesting history to it, which is why I'm featuring it. We're going to look at a 1940s Captain Marvel story the way it saw print in Canada back in 1942. As you'll see, this wasn't a straight reprint of … Continue reading The Canadian Captain Marvel Comics #10
Here's a strip from the past that even I have little information on. In fact, I don't know where I got it from, where it might have seen print. Hopefully, some curious reader of this blog page will help us in that regard. But I saved copies of this amazing little two-page story when I … Continue reading Forgotten Masterpiece: The Silencing of the SHAZAM Sayer
The final appearance of the stories Marvel Family during the golden age was in MARVEL FAMILY #89, the final issue of that title. That story's been reprinted at least once over the years. But it got me thinking: what was the last solo Captain Marvel story to see print? And so, here is the result … Continue reading The Last Captain Marvel Story
As we talked about last time, Captain Marvel was just about the biggest and most popular super-heroic character during the Golden Age of Comics. So it was perhaps almost inevitable that, with a new super hero boom striking the industry in the mid-1960s, the creators behind the Captain's good works would try to strike gold … Continue reading Brand Echh – Fatman, The Human Flying Saucer #1
This is another book that I think was purchased by my grandmother, in this instance for my younger brother Ken. I can see her feeling as though if she was buying a comic book for me, she would have to bring one for him as well. At this moment, SHAZAM was an occasional read for … Continue reading BHOC: SHAZAM #33
Today, there are thousands of books on vintage comics, both collections of material from decades ago or literary tomes discussing those works, how they were created, what impact they had and what they meant. But in the 1970s, the landscape for such volumes was exceedingly scarce. So it was positively an event when a new … Continue reading BHOC: SHAZAM! FROM THE ’40s TO THE ’70s
This SHAZAM Treasury Edition featured Saturday morning’s Captain Marvel, Jackson Bostwick, on its front cover, a transparent though appropriate attempt to appeal to fans of the show, then-airing. I can’t say that I was especially a fan of the show–I watched it, but primarily because it was there. In those days of limited television channels, … Continue reading BHOC: LIMITED COLLECTORS’ EDITION #C-35
The Tom Brevoort Experience 