Popeye Halloween Mini-Comic: Popeye Vs. the Ghosk

This 2009 mini-comic might say Popeye on the cover. But the story that occurs in this book was originally published as part of E C. Segar's Thimble Theater before the spinach loving sailor eventually became the title character of the long-running comic strip.

This Halloween Comic Fest freebie not only provided a classic haunt for comic book collectors but it also advertised a 4-volume collected set of the earliest adventures of Olive Oyl, her brother Castor and hamburger loving pal Wimpy to appear in newsprint. It might surprise you but Popeye didn't appear in the strip in 1929, a nearly full decade after Thimble Theater debuted! Until then, pencil thin Olive Oyl was the main character. 

With that information established and Popeye taking the lead role, this story was first published in the 1930s. As this adventure occurs during Popeye's expedition to find his long lost father, a further Google search reveals that this episode first saw print around the late summer/early autumn of 1936. 

The search for Popeye's pop is just the framing device. Set on the fearless sailor's ship, the Elsie, Popeye reveals to a crew member that legend has it that his boat is haunted. At first, everyone, including Popeye, laugh this rumor off. However, as more and more sailors report at having seen a ghost aboard, including the helmsman who is constantly ordered by the spook to drift off course, Popeye and Olive Oyl seeks to get to the bottom of things. 

Naturally, this results in Popeye getting into fisticuffs with the 'ghosk'. But what I didn't expect was for the story to involve a floating head that hops around the boat and even talks! At first I thought that character might be Popeye's father. But the sailor man doesn't recognize the head. While there's no a cliffhanger at mini comic's end, the book closes without revealing who this dude was. And now I'm obsessed with finding out his identity!

I guess this Halloween time promo comic did it's job. It just took 16 years to attract me. I entered into my reading not really caring about reading more Popeye related work. But now I'm interested in reading more. Though conventional wisdom would argue that I start with volume 1, I don't think I can wait to get to volume 3 or 4 before finding out what happens next. I've read other series out of order. What's one more on my reading resume...

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

The Spirit Archives, Vol. 25

A couple weeks ago, I was reading a collection of Mike Hammer comic strips from the early 80s when I made a wondrous discovery. Listed in the volume were a slew of other news strip collections available from the publisher. I was beyond thrilled to learn that there was not one but three volumes devoted to a 6-day per week collection of The Spirit comic strips. 

As any established Will Eisner aficionado knows, The Spirit got it's start as an 8-page color insert in the Sunday edition of many national newspapers. But did you know that for about 2 years, readers were treated to 7-days of adventures starring the Spirit, his assistant Ebony and the Central City police force? I sure as heck didn't!

The next day I went on Amazon to try and purchase those volumes. All 3 were available. But at really expensive prices that I just wasn't willing to pay. Then I got the idea that maybe, JUST MAYBE, DC released the dailies as part of the complete Will Eisner's The Spirit Archives. Lo and behold, a volume was produced. The penultimate book in the library has the whole scoop on the Spirit dailies along with a foreword by Tom Spurgeon and a brief introduction from one of those early 80s strip collections by the master himself on the art team behind this version of The Spirit. And I just happened to have this book in my 'to-read' pile and didn't even know that I was sitting on a gold mine!

Will Eisner only got to work on about the first 6 weeks of stories as both the writer, artist and inker before being drafted by the Army. Like a few others in the industry, Eisner attempted to moonlight as the strips artist and inker. But his military responsibilities grew to be too much and he had to go on an indefinite hiatus for the remainder of World War II.

Lou Fine and Jack Cole replaced Eisner in his absence in subsequent order. Both tried extremely hard to make the transition of creators as seamless as possible. While they managed to capture the artwork fairly well (I didn't notice a definite lacking in that quality until about the last third of the book), neither talent could match the genius of Will Eisner. For one thing, their story plotting seems to go in circles. There's a definite lack of creativity. Plus neither Fine nor Cole could portray Ebony White with any sort of dignity. His faces are exaggerated to the standards of the Jim Crow minstrel. His English is severely broken. And instead of being a reluctant hero, Ebony's portrayed more as a buffoon whose fate hinges on pure dumb luck.

The Spirit dailies were a victim of World War II. While popular with readers, a lack of talent willing to take on the assignment, spelled doom for the strip. Jack Cole's Plastic Man had become a hit and he was too busy to continue with the tight deadlines for a daily. So with paper at a premium due to rationing, and other titles more than willing to take Denny Colt's place, The Spirit was cancelled; reduced to merely appearing in newsprint every Sunday.

I think what I liked the best about this collection were the two lost Christmas stories, plus a handful of holiday themed strips. As an owner and reader of The Christmas Spirit, I thought I had read all of the character's holiday offerings. But thanks to this volume, I not only got those untold Christmas tales but at least 1 Thanksgiving and a Halloween haunt to read and enjoy as well!

If there is a lesson to be learned from all of this, it's that if you plan on making a very expensive purchase for an addition to a large comic book collection, be sure to do your research and make sure that you don't own the work in another format. I'm so glad that I didn't make an impulsive purchase without checking my books because I would have spent a lot of money on something that I already had and I would have been furious about it.

Worth Consuming!

Rating:8 out of 10 stars.

Spy Vs. Spy 2: The Cloak and Dagger Files

Black Spy vs White Spy. Are they birds? I've always wondered if they were birds because of the beak-like noses. 

I couldn't tell you where I got this 2007 collection of later Spy vs Spy strips. My guess would be Ollie's. But I'm not sure. The strip of two similar looking secret agents trying to steal the secret plans of the other while attacking them with booby traps was originally created by Cuban political cartoonist, Antonio Prohias. An earlier volume paid tribute to Phobias time at MAD Magazine. This book would feature the numerous artists and writers who were tasked with filling the Spy vs Spy creator's shoes.

I knew that this book was a volume 2. I didn't know that it was not going to have any of the original Prohias works in it. But I'm not too upset as he had retired from MAD before I started reading the magazine as a kid. There were several articles in the book including a section by current Spy vs Spy artist, Peter Kuper, whose use of stencil and spray paint have given the series an industrial artistic look. His section explains his creative process. How Mountain Dew came to do a series of live action Spy vs Spy commercials and how Spy vs Spy became a video game are other interesting features. But I think it's a forgotten piece of Spy vs Spy history that was most interesting: a newspaper comic strip.

For only 39 weeks in 2002, newspapers across the country ran a Sunday funnies strip involving White Spy and Black Spy trying to outdo each other. The pantomime strip was novel in that it looked just like you'd see in the pages of MAD, except in a paneled format like a strip. However, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan occurring at the same time, it was felt that such a strip like Spy vs Spy seeing one or both of the characters blowing up and maiming the other, that it was the wrong time for such antics in cartoon form and the strip was quickly cancelled.

One area of Spy vs Spy history that I didn't see in the book was the animated shorts seen on Fox's MAD TV. Maybe they were included in the first volume. But with this being a chronological account of life after Prohias, it's absence seems strange.

Also, can someone explain to me why the occasionally appearing Grey Spy, a voluptuous blonde in a grey dress never gets her comeuppance? If she appears, she always gets the best of the two spies. They never manage to get her. Just like how Wile E. Coyote can never capture the Road Runner!

This was an okay book. The articles were needed as there's almost no words in the strips. Plus, this is not a book for folks who need reading glasses. To include as many strips as possible, a bunch are shrunken by at least half and with needing to pay attention to detail, the smaller size can give you blurry eyes at best or as with me occasionally, a migraine.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

Star Trek: The Newspaper Comics, The Complete Comics Vol. 1: 1979-1981

Celebrating a forgotten period of Star Trek comics. From 1979-1983, select newspapers nationwide carried the further adventures of Kirk, Spock and the rest of the USS Enterprise crew in comic strip form. Unlike the Gold Key Comics version or Marvel's short-lived run of adventures, the Star Trek comic strips are the rarest of the rare because most newspapers decided instead to run the Star Wars strip along with the continuing escapades of Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon in the funny pages.

Set immediately after the events of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, this book covers the next 5-year mission, which coincidentally is being explored right now in the IDW Publishing miniseries Star Trek: The Motion Picture: Echoes. These 23rd century episodes are full of Klingons, with their new head ridges, along with many of the races introduced in the 1979 Robert Rise flick such as Arcturians, Saurians and Zaranites. But sorry Next Gen fans, not a Romulan in the bunch!

This joint IDW/Library of American Comics collaboration was published in 2012. I didn't even know this thing existed until I saw a post about this in one of the Star Trek Comics groups I am a member of on Facebook. I learned about this collection from Rich Handley, who wrote the foreword and helped with the editing, from a post. Thus, in the manner of complete transparency, I am not in any way being compensated for a review of this book. (Unless Rich follows through on the No-Prize I requested when I found an error in one of his story recaps.)

The main genius behind many of these stories is Thomas Warkentin. He provides nearly flawless older representations of the Enterprise crew. It's forgivable that Lt. Ilia appears in the first story, despite having died earlier in her lone canon appearance during The Motion Picture. The quality of the stories, the artwork and just how in character everybody is is top notch! 

After about a year, Warkentin left the strip. He was replaced by Sharman DiVino and Ron Wilson. The stories were just as good. The art was just as stunning. Only for some reason, both Spock and Kirk have been de-aged to look like their 1960s incarnations while Uhura, Scotty and the rest remain their middle aged selves. 

Both this volume and volume 2 are out of print. Amazon at least still has a few copies of this edition left at the original cover price of $49.99. As for the companion piece, it's really expensive. Not just on Amazon but everywhere that claims to have a copy. $119 and up! No joke. And no way I'm going to ever get my hands on a copy for that price, right?

If you do go searching for Volume 2, it can also get a little confusing. Eaglemoss, which is a publisher out of England, released the entire 1979-83 run of the strips in 3 volumes. They can be purchased on eBay for around 25-40 pounds. Not sure what the dollars to pounds conversion rate is. And since I already have volume 1, I'm not about to go that route. Plus, with UPS about to go on strike, I'm afraid if I order from the UK, it'll be the 23rd Century before I receive them.

A great read of long lost tales exploring the final frontier! Including a fantastic look at the ST:TMP McDonald's Happy Meal boxes that featured comic strip art by Thomas Warkentin!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

The Official Jungle Jim by Alex Raymond Collection (Vol. 1)

Before creating his most popular character, the swashbuckling spaceman Flash Gordon, cartoonist Alex Raymond took readers to the deepest, darkest jungles of the Malay Peninsula. It is there that Jungle Jim Bradley took on poachers, pirates and deadly dames with the help of his trusty servant, Kolu. Jungle Jim wasn't just stuck to the rain forests of Asia. At least one story in this book is set in a British controlled Afghanistan. 

For some reason, I really thought Jungle Jim took place in Africa. With Kolu being black and some of the pirates in the very first story also being black, I would have lost money if you bet me that this series took place in South East Asia. Adding to the confusion is that the series of live-action films that starred Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) as Jungle Jim were all set in Africa. Heck, I would be willing to bet money that I've seen at least 1 Jungle Jim flick and mistakenly thought it was a Tarzan feature.

Alex Raymond's artwork is so distinctive. There's a Roman influence on the way the male characters appear. Strong noses. Thin eyes and even thinner hairlines. And chiseled physiques. As for the women, I get the strong sense that Dorothy Lamour was the inspiration to at least one of the female characters in this book.

The Official Jungle Jim by Alex Raymond Collection was Pioneer's only graphic novel sized collection of strips. The action stops in the middle of a story with nothing like a 'To be Continued' or any other claim to finding out more in the pages of another volume. This also happened with the Official Prince Valiant Collection Pioneer published at around the same time as this. Pioneer did release 17 comic book sized issues of strips, along with 1 annual. From what I can tell, this trade paperback collects at least the first 3 issues of the floppies series that ran from 1988-89. But as to whether that multi-year series managed to collect the entire story is another unknown to me.

That all being said, if I was to run across a nice collection of Alex Raymond Jungle Jim strips (for a nice price, mind you), I would definitely add it to my collection. The artwork was amazing. The stories were pretty good, despite being a tad dated and bearing norms and action that by 2020's standards are archaic. On at least 2 occasions, Jim slaps a female for getting too emotional. I see these books as historic documents of the 1930s time period full of artistic genius and flawed ideals of masculinity and Anglo-American Imperialism. But above all, I enjoy these books as they take me to corners of the world I've never visited; let alone knew existed.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: The Newspaper Comic Strips

Everybody whose a fan of the classic He-Man and the Masters of the Universe line knows that with each action figure came with a 8-10 page mini-comic. But very few know that in the late 80s, MOTU ran as a weekly newspaper comic strip. Maybe the fact that only about a dozen major cities ran the strip has something to do with it. Could also be the sad but inevitable fact, that for the time, He-Man was running out of steam with the kids of the era.

Dark Horse continues it's compendium of all things He-Man in this massive 2017 hardback! When I say massive, I'm not lying. The book weighs about 12lbs. It has over 500 pages. Plus this collection of strip is over-sized, much like a tabloid. I honestly have no idea where I'm going to store this thing as my graphic novel shelves can't hold something this big!

He-Man, Man-At-Arms, Orko and friends battle Skeletor, King Hiss, Hordak and the mutants of Trogg on the far-out future world of Primus . There's also some all-new characters such as a woman named Miranda who wins Duncan's heart. However, due to copyright/licensing issues, She-Ra and her cronies do not appeared anywhere in these stories.

The first 6 or 7 episodes are really well done. The color job on the Sunday strips are so amazingly bold. They look like screen shots from the animated series, only done with crystal clear clarity. 

Towards the end of the run, most of the American publications had dropped the strip. But since most foreign nations were still getting 'first run' episodes  of He-Man on their national TV stations, the comic managed to survive until the early 90s. While the quality of the strips were good in both story and artwork, the preservation of the strips was sorely lacking. 

A total of 1,674 days worth of story were produced. Amazingly 98% of them were able to be retrieved thanks to microfilm preservation of newspapers or the clippings of those lucky few fans who got to read the paper first run. Still, some of those finds weren't of the best quality and they do not translate into high-grade paper very well at all.

As for those missing tales, editor Daniel Chabon and his staff do a great job describing the missing scenes thanks to script notes from the original creative team of Chris Weber, Karen Willson and Gerald Forton; all of which sit-down for in-depth interviews of the creative process throughout. 

I really enjoyed this collection. But even more, I enjoyed the kick-butt customer service I got from bellwetherbooks, a seller on Amazon. My collection of He-Man mini comics was missing 30 pages. As a replacement alternative, they gave me this book for free! I'm not saying that you need to take advantage of them or worry that they provide damaged books. But I do recommend them as a company that fixes it's mistakes, has good communication and super fast shipping and good prices! Give them a try!

As for this book- a very good read with some editing issues. Some are Dark Horse's fault. but for the most part, it's due to not being able to find pristine negatives because Filmation and or Mattel decided to trash them.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Captain America: The 1940s Newspaper Strip

The 1940s saw Batman and Superman living in the funny papers. Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, and even Captain Marvel (for about a second) lived there too. But, curiously absent was Captain America and his sidekick, Bucky. Rumors swirled for years that Stan Lee and Kirby & Simon were trying to adapt Capt. to the dailies, but getting drafted or fired from Timely kept that dream from becoming reality… until now.

In this book, Karl Kesel crafts a lengthy tale that has Captain America and Bucky sent to a secret Army base for testing in hopes of recreating the Super Soldier formula. But, when scientists turn up missing it’s up to the pair along with Army liaison Betsy Ross to find out who’s behind the crimes!

I liked the book very much. The art was 40’s retro and very fitting. I also enjoyed how the book was structured like an actual comic book newspaper strip in which it  had 6 mini comics and a long Sunday edition tale. However, in true 40’s funny pages fashion, Sunday’s tale would have been a different story, unrelated to the weekly feature. If Kesel was given 4 issues instead of 3, he might have had time to do that aspect right.

The 1940s Newspaper Strip was like reading a time capsule. I wish the setting was more involved with the war front in Europe, but it’s still a classic feeling tale. Fans of funnies or Captain America will delight.

Worth Consuming.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.