|
|
Reviews and commentary by Tony Isabella
"America's Most Beloved Comic-Book Writer & Columnist"
Current TOT >>
TOT Archives |
About Tony |
Message Board
TONY'S ONLINE TIPS
for Sunday, March 13, 2005
I have become fascinated by the Alan Class comics published in the United Kingdom from the 1950s into the 1980s. These black-and-white titles reprinted American comics material in issues measuring seven-and-a-quarter by nine-and-a-quarter inches and their contents could include stories from Marvel, Charlton, ACG, Tower, and other "colonial" publishers. Most of the issues I have - like the issue shown above - are 52 pages counting the covers.
I don't know when SECRETS OF THE UNKNOWN #156 was published; there are no dates on the comic that I can find. What I was able to determine was that its stories come from Marvel's STRANGE TALES #52-54 (dated November, 1956 through January, 1957). My best guess - based on the title launching with an October, 1962-dated issue - is that SECRETS #156 was published in the mid-1970s.
There are a dozen stories in this issue, all of them a sparse four pages in length. Reading them, I am impressed by how complete they are, how much the writers and artists were able to get into so few pages. Many of these stories are excellent with, assuming I am not just imagining it, subtle nuances that delighted me.
The cover is by Carl Burgos, creator of the Human Torch, and is from STRANGE TALES #52. While it doesn't exactly jump out at a potential customer, it does have a delightfully unnerving quality. Just right for the paranoia of the 1950s.
Here are the contents with information on original publication and artists:
"You Can't Find Me!" (ST #52; Gray Morrow)
"Simon's Stooge!" (ST #52; Joe Sinnott)
"Who Lurks There?" (ST #52; Dave Berg)
"The Frightened Man" (ST #52; Bob Powell)
"The Last of Professor Hogarth" (ST #52; Ed Winiarski)
"I Died Tomorrow!" (ST #53; Pete Morisi)
"The Brute!" (ST #53; John Forte)
"They Crawl By Night!" (ST #53; Vic Carrabotta)
"What Stanley Saw!" (ST #53; Angelo Torres)
"The Man Who Crushed Rocks!" (ST #53; Reed Crandall)
"A Witch By Night" (ST #54; John Forte)
"Something Strange on the Sand!" (ST #54; Doug Wildey)
There were no writer credits listed.
Most of the stories have the requisite twist endings, some of them bizarre. In "The Brute!," a psychoanalyst treats a gangster who fears a strong-arm man in his employ and dreads the coming of a certain date. The twist is that gangster "Julie King" is really Julius Caesar and is dreaming a future fantasy. The date he fears is March 15. You can probably figure out who the Brute is.
"The Frightened Man" and "They Crawl By Night" are pretty good stories of redemption. I got a kick out of the lively Carrabotta art on the latter.
In "The Man Who Crushed Rocks," a low-life swamp rat discovers a stream that grants him super-strength. He returns to the town he had been driven from and proceeds to terrorize its people. When he returns to the swamp, the town's sheriff is waiting for him, having discovered the stream years before. The sheriff subdues the swamp rat easily - the effects of the stream have worn off - but there's something in the lawman's face, brilliantly drawn by Crandall, that indicates his prisoner won't get a second chance at the stream and the power it bestows.
"A Witch By Night" is a sweet *and* scary romance. The hero meets a young backwoods witch who can only use her powers at night and only when she's angry. He plans to use her powers for profit, but actually does fall in love with her. But he must always keep her happy to prevent her from hurting him or any one else with her powers. John Forte's art is terrific here.
I have a stack of Alan Class comics with more on the way. If the loyal legions of TOT readers are interested, I'll be happy to write about them in future columns.
Let's see what else I have for you today.
******
TONY POLLS
New TONY POLLS questions will be posted on Tuesday. Here are the results from the questions which were active during the week of March 1...
Which of these items would you most like to see reviewed in TONY'S ONLINE TIPS columns
KIRBY UNLEASHED.....21.11%
Alter Ego #45.....11.11%
Alter Ego: the Graphic Novel.....10%
Godzilla Tokyo S.O.S......8.89%
Zounds! A Browser's Dictionary of Interjections.....7.78%
Negative Burn: the Best from 1993-1998.....6.67%
The Walking Dead #15.....6.67%
The X-Files, Volume 1.....5.56%
Arguing Comics.....4.44%
Small Gods Volume 1: Killing Grin.....4.44%
Mort Walker Conversations.....3.33%
PVP Reloaded Volume 2.....3.33%
CFQ/Cinefantastique.....2.22%
Mora #1.....2.22%
Heroes in Birmingham #1.....1.11%
Patty Cake & Friends #13.....1.11%
Associated Student Bodies Yearbook.....0%
Dr. Chaos Presents: American Idyll #1.....0%
Isaac the Pirate Volume 2: the Capital.....0%
Quixote by Bryan J.L. Glass.....0%
Look for a review of KIRBY UNLEASHED in a near-future edition of this column.
Here are some more categories for the 2005 Saturn Awards, awarded by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films. Which of these your choice for BEST DIRECTOR?
SAM RAIMI (Spider-Man 2).....46.34%
Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill: Vol. 2).....23.17%
Yimou Zhang (House Of Flying Daggers).....10.98%
Alfonso Cuaron (Prisoner of Azkaban).....8.54%
Michael Gondry (Eternal Sunshine)..... 9.76%
Michael Mann (Collateral).....1.22%
I went down to the wire with this and finally cast my vote for QUENTIN TARANTINO. The reason? As much as I loved Spider-Man 2, there wasn't a single surprise for me in the movie. Chalk it up to my working in comics most of my life.
BEST WRITER?
BRAD BIRD (The Incredibles).....45%
Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine)....18.75%
Alvin Sargent (Spider-Man 2).....17.50%
Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill: Vol. 2).....15%
Steve Kloves (Prisoner of Azkaban)....3.75%
Stuart Beattie (Collateral).....0%
Maybe I'll change my mind when I finally see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - the only one of these movies I haven't yet seen - but, for now, it's BRAD BIRD all the way.
BEST MUSIC?
DANNY ELFMAN (Spider-Man 2).....33.33%
Michael Giacchino (The Incredibles).....24.64%
John Williams (Prisoner of Azkaban).....24.64%
Edward Shearmur (Sky Captain).....11.59%
Alan Silvestri (The Polar Express).....2.90%
Alan Silvestri (Van Helsing).....2.90%
I don't know nothing from music and I haven't seen The Polar Express or Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I decided not to let being uninformed stand in the way of my voting, much as 51% of the voters in the last presidential election didn't let that stop them from voting. I went with MICHAEL GIACCHINO because I really love The Incredibles.
Oh, and don't let that presidential election crack give you a seizure. I'm just another one of them godless gay Muslim terrorist sore losers who hates America. I'm sure the government will deal with me sooner or later.
BEST COSTUME?
WENDY PARTRIDGE (Hellboy).....34.25%
Stella McCartney (Sky Captain).....31.51%
Emi Wada (House Of Flying Daggers).....15.07%
Alexandra Byrne (Phantom Of the Opera).....6.85%
Jany Temine (The Prisoner of Azkaban).....6.85%
Gabriella Pescucci/Carlo Poggioli (Van Helsing).....5.48%
I voted for WENDY PARTRIDGE, but I came this close to casting a protest vote for EDNA MODE (The Incredibles).
BEST MAKE-UP?
HELLBOY.....57.75%
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.....18.31%
Dawn Of the Dead.....11.27%
Van Helsing.....7.04%
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.....5.63%
Resident Evil: Apocalypse.....0%
I voted for HELLBOY. I haven't see Resident Evil: Apocalypse because, let's face it, what is there left for film makers to say about George Bush?
I got a million of them.
BEST SPECIAL EFFECTS?
SPIDER-MAN 2.....73.33%
The Day After Tomorrow.....9.33%
I, Robot.....6.67%
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.....5.33%
Chronicles of Riddick.....4%
Van Helsing.....1.33%
This was a slam dunk. SPIDER-MAN 2 got my vote for the corny-yet-wonderful subway train sequence and for Doctor Octopus. But I would like to take this opportunity to say...
VAN HELSING isn't as awful as I was led to believe. It's got problems - lots of them - but it's also got some great characters and sequences. I've seen much worse.
If you'd like to vote on the current TONY POLLS, you can do so by going to:
www.worldfamouscomics.com/tony/poll
******
TONY'S MAILBOX
ALAN LIGHT, creator and first publisher of THE BUYER'S GUIDE FOR COMICS FANDOM, which became COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE after he sold it to Krause Publications, sent me this photo:
It shows Alan receiving an award for "best fanzine" from yours truly (hiding behind the podium) and Carl Gafford (wearing a hat). Alan wasn't sure what year the photo was taken and neither was I. Fortunately, the Gaff, as he is known to his many friends in comics fandom, has a better memory. He wrote:
Yep. That's you and me handing out Don and Maggie Thompson's fan awards at the 1972 July 4th NYComicon at the old Statler. That was the last con Phil's soon-to-be ex-wife Carole organized, making it the last well-run Seulingcon. Jack Kirby was in attendance that year with pencils of books that DIDN'T make DC's schedule after the Fourth World was canceled. This and the photo in AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS #1 are the only pics I know of showing me and my old hat, long since lost among the ancients.
Comics fandom's first awards were the Alley Awards, organized by Jerry Bails and named after Alley Oop on the basis the caveman was the first super-hero. They faded from existence along the way and were subsequently revived by the Thompsons via their NEWFANGLES fanzine as the Goethe Awards, named for the German dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe for reasons I can't recall, save that they made my head hurt at the time. I also remembering winning the award for "best fan writer" in one of the two or three years that the Goethes were given out.
If anyone else out there has ancient photos of me, please send them my way. They amuse my wife and kids.
Thanks for spending a part of your day with me. I'll be back soon with more stuff.
Tony Isabella
<< 03/12/2005 | 03/13/2005 | 03/14/2005 >>
Discuss this column with me at my Message Board. Also, read Heroes and Villains: Real and Imagined.
Recent Columns:
| NEWEST | Finale (06/22/2010) |
| 06/17/2010 | I review Siege |
| 06/16/2010 | Linda Gold 1949-2010 |
| 06/15/2010 | Everett True Tuesday! |
| 06/14/2010 | I review The Amazing Adventures of Nate Banks #1: Secret Identity Crisis, Secret Identity Crisis: Comic Books and the Unmasking of Cold War America and The Walking Dead Volume 2: Miles Behind Us. |
| Archives >> |
Current TOT >>
TOT Archives |
About Tony |
Message Board
|
|
THE "TONY" SCALE
ZERO: Burn your money before buying any comic receiving this rating. It doesn't *necessarily* mean there's absolutely nothing of value here - though it *could* - but whatever value it might possess shrinks into insignificance before its overall awfulness.
ONE: Buy something else. Maybe I found something which wasn't completely dreadful in the item, but not enough for me to recommend it when there are better comics available. I only want what's best for you, my children.
TWO: Basic judgment call. I found some value, but not enough to recommend it. My review should give you enough info to decide if you want to take a chance on it. Are you feeling lucky today, punk? Well, are you?
THREE: This denotes something I find perfectly respectable. There are better books out there, but I wouldn't regret buying this item. Based on my review, you should be able to determine if it's of interest to you. Let the Force guide you.
FOUR: I recommend anything earning this rating. Unless you don't like the genre, subject matter, or past work of the creators, I believe you'll enjoy this item. Isn't it uncanny how I can look right into your soul that way?
FIVE: Anything getting this rating is among the best comicdom has to offer. You should buy/read this, even if the genre/subject matter doesn't appeal to you. It's for your own good. Me, I live for comics and books this good...but not in a pathetic "Comic-Book Guy" sort of way.
Please send material you would like me to review to:
Tony's Online Tips
840 Damon Drive
Medina, OH 44256
|
|
Anything Goes Trivia
Last Kiss
