We're back for the fourth and final chapter of Blooperman, a story that ran in Charlton's GO-GO for four issues during 1966 at the height of the super hero craze, and which incorporated ideas and characters from comic book fandom, most of which were the innovations of future Marvel superstar Roy Thomas. On this issue's … Continue reading Brand Echh: The Fannish Adventures of Blooperman, Part Four
Continuing our look at the obscure 1966 strip Blooperman, which incorporated a number of parody ideas from comics fandom, many of which had been originated by Marvel writer/editor Roy Thomas years earlier. Once again here, the character's designed Jon D'Agostino draws the small vignette of Blooperman on this cover for GO-GO #5. Writer Gary Friedrich … Continue reading Brand Echh: The Fannish Adventures of Blooperman, Part Three
Continuing on in our survey of the four Blooperman stories published by Charlton Comics in the mid-1960s and how they intersected with certain elements of fandom, today we're taking a look at the second adventure of the dimwitted character, published in GO-GO #4. The character's visual creator Jon D'Agostino drew Blooperman on the cover, but … Continue reading Brand Ecch: The Fannish Adventures of Blooperman, Part Two
GO-GO was a strange little comic book that was published by bottom-rung publisher Charlton for nine issues starting in 1966. It was something of an attempt to appeal to a counter-culture crowd, combining Archie-style teen hijinx comics with MAD-influenced parodies of assorted genres and a broad helping of what somebody thought was "teen-focused lingo." It … Continue reading Brand Echh: The Fannish Adventures of Blooperman, Part One
While the early days of Marvel Comics were explosive and ultimately game-changing for the field, on a conceptual level they were not always quite as revolutionary as they sometimes seemed. A lot of the appeal of the line came down to the manner in which familiar ideas were executed, rather than the ideas themselves being … Continue reading The First Watcher
Talk about a disparity between title and visual! It would be difficult to come up with an image that less embodied the concept of SCARY TALES that this one, featuring a happy super hero whose body fragments into pieces comically battling a pair of thugs amidst a bright green forest. And that's because, like the … Continue reading Brand Echh: Scary Tales #38
Now this one is a bit of a strange aberration, one that I wasn't even aware of when it first saw print. SCARY TALES had been released intermittently by publisher Charlton filled with weird mystery stories of the sort that DC and other publishers were issuing--that is to say, stories that had twist endings or … Continue reading Brand Echh: Scary Tales #40
Thunderbunny was one of the more successful characters to come out of the world of amateur fan publishing. He was the creation of Martin L. Greim, who was a fan who published a well-regarded fanzine, THE COMIC CRUSADER, for several years beginning in the late 1960s. His final fan publication was a black and white … Continue reading Brand Echh: Charlton Bullseye #6
As we've spoken about in the past, Charlton Comics never really had a motivated interest in getting into the super hero field. They were quite happy most of the time to produce their line of largely-interchangeable war, romance, mystery, hot rod and western comics. But every once in a while, somebody at the organization would … Continue reading Brand Echh: Son of Vulcan #50
Charlton was pretty much the bottom rung of the comic book business. Yes, they published a lot of material, but it was always on the crappiest paper, and always had the worst distribution. What's more, it only rarely seemed as though anybody cared about what the content of these magazines was. One notable exception was … Continue reading Brand Echh: Thunderbolt #54
The Tom Brevoort Experience 