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17 Mar, 9 tweets, 4 min read
1939 Centaur publications Amazing Mystery Funnies 11

A wonderfully dramatic cover by Paul Gustavson with "The Fantom of the Fair". This issue hit the stands about 8 weeks after Detective Comics 27.

If it was a contest of covers, I would have picked this one! Image
A very early and emotionally intense Bill Everett cover in Centaur's Amazing Mystery Funnies 6, probably hitting the stands in Holiday 1938. Image
I love covers with girders and skyscrapers under construction! You can see the thrill building the NYC skyline in these covers.

Here is a gorgeous Fantom of the Fair cover, by George Harrison, for Centaurs Amazing Mystery Funnies 23 from Spring 1940. Image
Another great cover from Centaur's Amazing Mystery Funnies - Spring 1939, cover artist unknown.

"Sand hogs" are urban miners, building tunnels and other infrastructure, especially in NYC. They started with the Brooklyn Bridge!

The cover speaks to the times! Its wonderful. Image
Another early Bill Everett cover from Centaur's Amazing Mystery Funnies, from Spring 1939.

Skyrocket Steele! I love the bright colors, even as the action is desperate and warlike. Bayonets and bright yellows!

That's my jam. Image
Another Skyrocket Steele cover, this time by Terry Gilkison, hitting the stands in January of 1939 for Centaur's Amazing Mystery Funnies.

This is the best image of the cover I could find (a bit faded) but its just so evocative of Space Opera! Winged rocketships and domed cities Image
You've probably seen this Bill Everett cover before! Later 1938 for Centaur's Amazing Mystery Funnies. I love the detail. You can see the shirt pockets and the rivets on that gunport.

The deep shadows are an interesting touch, aren't they? Image
The preceding Bill Everett Skyrocket Smith cover in late 1938 for Centaur's Amazing Mystery Funnies. Its an anthology magazine - a bit of western, a bit of Buck Rogers, etc.

I love the details, like the microphone thing and the cape fastener. Engaging composition. Image
Saved the best for last - the *very first* Bill Everett cover. (Oddly, Skyrocket Steele is not part of this anthology)

Is this not a breathtakingly beautiful comic book cover?

Summer, 1938. Centaur's Amazing Mystery Funnies 1 Image

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More from @jeffs_comics

Jeffs Comics Profile picture
18 Mar
Earth Spider Picture Scroll from Tokyo National Museum

Tsuchigumo, a spider-like spirit, here in the guise of a lovely woman, encounters Minamoto no Yorimitsu. Sensing danger, he strikes at her with his sword, and she disappears. He pursues her into caves in a mountain. Image
Inside the pursuers find, not a lovely lady, but an enormous spider. The tsuchigumo is slain, with lead to skulls and smaller spiders coming from the body.

*Source: Dailyartmagazine.com Image
In another tale, Yorimitsu meets an entire yokai army, but attacks the female general. The blow striking, the illusion is broken - the entire army was but a glamor. Again, she is pursued to her cave and slain in her true form of the giant spider

*Source: yokai.com Image
Read 9 tweets
Jeffs Comics Profile picture
17 Mar
Oh, life could be a dream
-sh-boom

If I could take you up in paradise up above
-sh-boom

If you would tell me
I'm the only one that you love
Live could be a dream, sweetheart

-Hello, hello, again
sh-boom and hopin' we'll meet again
Oh, life could be a dream
-sh-boom

If only all my precious plans would come true

If you would let me spend my whole life lovin' you
Life could be a dream, sweetheart
Now every time
I look at you
Something is on my mind

- Dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-duh)

If you do what I want you to
Baby, we'd be so fine
Read 9 tweets
Jeffs Comics Profile picture
11 Mar
Umberto Eco: The Myth of Superman (1962)
Reprinted in Arguing Comics (2004)
#BooksAboutComics

Came across this article about Superman from Umberto Eco, and thought I would tweet out some excerpts and ideas. Image
Eco first talks about heroes - equipped with superior powers, and those powers are often extremes of real abilities. That, in our modern world, man is sublimated to organizations and machines, thus our heroes embody powers to unthinkable degree we ourselves can not satisfy. ImageImage
Superman has seemingly unlimited powers - of sight, hearing, strength, speed, etc. He is kind, handsome, and always helpful. Yet, he lives among us disguised a fearful, submissive Clark Kent - despised by Lois (who in turn, loves Superman) Image
Read 57 tweets
Jeffs Comics Profile picture
22 Jan
Gives ya chills, doesn't it?

From the 1928 film, The Man Who Laughs, an adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel.

So, if asked "Who created the Joker, Batman's arch foe?", perhaps Victor Hugo and the people behind this movie deserve a nod.
Here is an article that says Finger, Kane and Robinson did credit the film, specifically a still of Veidt in makeup as Gwynplaine, for the inspiration.

Funny that Universal did not remake this film as a talkie (it did get a release with sync music)

northparktheatre.org/the-man-who-la…
A few images from the book or the movie.

The book was published in 1869, and is set in England during the time surrounding the brief turbulent reign of Catholic James II. The mutiliation of the protagonist is a symbol for what society is doing to people.
Read 6 tweets
Jeffs Comics Profile picture
21 Jan
My First Adventure with Mary Poppins

This is my first time going through P.L. Traver's book, Mary Poppins (The first in a series). I grew up with the Disney film, so it brings up the differences in adaptations, particularly in how Disney softened Mary Poppins.
In this first book, Mary Poppins is not there to fix anything really. She just, well, "Pops in". She is stern, aloof, vain, curt and, quite honestly, a liar in that she fervently denies several of the adventures with Jane and Michael ever happening.
The version of the book I went through is not the original 1934 version. The chapter called "Bad Tuesday" originally had Mary Poppins, Jane and Michael visiting people in different parts of the globe. Criticism about stereotypes prompted Travers to revise it in 1967...
Read 7 tweets
Jeffs Comics Profile picture
20 Jan
The Doctor : "Do I have the right? Simply touch one wire against the other and that's it. The Daleks cease to exist. Hundreds of millions of people, thousands of generations can live without fear... in peace, and never even know the word "Dalek"."

#DoctorWho on ethics Image
You might think "Of course I would wipe out the Daleks" but the Doctor steps it deeper. Are his orders to do so just? What about all the unions and bridges made between others in the struggle against the Daleks? Does he have the right? Is it right? What does it do to him? Image
NuWho would revisit this "Have I the right" decades later, this time with John Hurt as the Doctor (or whatever name he went by).

There is also the plot device that some things are 'fixed' in time, like Adric's death, and must be. Image
Read 9 tweets

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