Saturday, May 30, 2009

The Coming of...CALENDARS!

Among our most popular items are 12-month calendars.
(Y'know, the ones with different illustrations for each month.)
Last year we almost doubled the selection of subjects, and you pop culture aficionados responded by gobbling them up like there was no tomorrow (pun intended)!

Plus, there were several subjects that you requested we do calendars about!
No fools we, if the demand is there, supply it we will!

So, for 2010, ATC is unleashing the following ALL-NEW calendars...
Basil Rathbone IS Sherlock Holmes!™
(replacing Sherlock Holmes: the Greatest Sleuth of All!™ which will return, revised, in 2011!)
Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics™ Team-Ups
(classic covers featuring two or more characters together who already had their own strips or titles!)
Classic The Owl
Classic Monster of Frankenstein
Classic The Flame
Classic Doc Strange
Classic DareDevil
Classic Captain Future
(featuring all three versions--original pulp hero and both comic incarnations!)
Classic Cat-Man
Classic Blue Beetle
Classic Amazing-Man
Captain MidNight™
Phantom Lady
Mr District Attorney™
(replacing Crime & Punishment)
Captains of the Comics!™
(replacing Captains of the Cosmos™)
Jungle Girls™
Masked Western Heroes
Aviators of the Golden Age of Comics™
(replacing War: Past, Present & Future™)
Along with heavily-revised versions of these previous best sellers...

Friday, May 29, 2009

Fantastic Femmes--Jacqueline Obradors

Jacqueline Danlle Obradors is one of those actresses who does a superlative job in supporting roles, but up to this point, hasn't had a breakout role that would put her in the public eye! (which is a damned shame because she's well worth watching!)
Genre appearances include:
NCIS (Paloma Reynosa)
Cold Case "Mind Games"
Crossing Over (Special Agent Phadkar)
UnStoppable aka 9 Lives (Detective Amy Knight)
Atlantis the Lost Empire / Atlantis: Milo's Return / Atlantis the Lost Empire [VG]
(Audrey Rocio Ramirez)
NYPD Blue (Detective Rita Ortiz)
Silk Stalkings "Silent Witness"
Burning Zone "St. Michael's Nightmare"
Murder, She Wrote "Death Goes Double Platinum"
Renegade "Sawed-Off ShotGun Wedding"
Diagnosis: Murder "My Baby is Out of This World"
Vanishing Son "Dance of the Dust"

Check out...
Jacqueline Obradors Dot Net (FanSite)

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Lotsa Logos (comic book logos, that is)

We at Atomic Kommie Comics™ are big fans of logos.
You know, the distinctive title lettering for a book or character.
Visually, it's the main element that distinguishes one book from another, especially when they're "racked" in a traditional magazine rack so only the top 1/3rd is visible.
And nowhere were logos more distinctive than during The Golden Age of Comics.
So, it's with pardonable pride that we present a line of kool kollectibles featuring the best of classic comic book logos in our line of logowear!
We've included some of the niftiest lettering ever to grace t-shirts, messenger bags, mugs and other goodies including Amazing-Man Comics, The Black Terror, Captain Future, Cat-Man Comics, DareDevil, The Face, Fighting Yank, Green Lama, and The SkyMan!
We're also featuring our own retro-themed Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics™ logo in it's own line of logowear!
There'll be more to come, so check us out as often as you can!

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Beware...The Owl!

"I'm not a Batman rip-off...and get off my flying Owl-Mobile!"

Comics in the 1940s were noted for, among other things, a tendency to see what worked, then take elements from it, mix it with a few other things and see if that new version would sell!

Sometimes the recombination sold better than the original!
For example: Batman's still going strong as a multi-media phenomenon, but most of his "inspirations", including The Shadow and Zorro, are marginal pop culture characters today (though, in the past, both had periods when they eclipsed Batman)!
On the other hand, The Owl was one of those who, while interesting, didn't quite hit the heights.

Nick Terry, a police detective who felt the law was too easily manipulated by racketeers and gangsters (and their lawyers) decided that operating outside the law on behalf of justice would be the way to go!
(Any number of Golden Age heroes, including The Whisperer, Black Hood, Guardian, and DareDevil, had the same concept of one who upholds the law having to indulge in extra-legal methods to achieve true justice.)
He became a Caped Creature of the Night to battle criminals (like Batman, The Shadow, and The Sandman, among others.)
Nick also used a plethora of themed weapons and gimmicks (including an Owl-Mobile, and Owl-Light) not unlike Bat-you-know-who and Green Arrow. (Although since he wasn't a millionaire like most of the aforementioned characters, it's never explained how Nick affords all this stuff!)
His nosy reporter girlfriend (Can you say "Lois Lane" or "Vicki Vale" boys and girls?) eventually discovers his dual identity and forces him (ala Captain America's Bucky) to make her his similarly-costumed sidekick, Owl-Girl! (think HawkGirl, but with hyphenation!)
One of his unique features (he did have a couple, don't get snarky) was that he wore a full-face cowl with sight-enhancing lenses, predating a similar style later worn by Spider-Man!
And, he does have a very distinctive look! You won't mistake him for anyone else!

The Owl didn't have his own title.
Instead, he was the cover-feature of Dell's Crackajack Funnies for over a year before being downgraded to the back of the book in Popular Comics for another year before being cancelled.

But, that's not the end of the story...

In the 1960s, with the pop-culture success of Marvel Comics and the Batman tv series, superheroes were in vogue again!
Curiously, while Marvel, DC, and Archie revived their Golden Age characters, other publishers with old heroes chose to do new characters instead...with one exception!
Gold Key now owned the Dell super-heroes, and though they did several short-lived new characters, they did revive their Golden Age character most similar to Batman.
Guess who?
The Owl finally got his own comic!
And because they felt it should be as much like the tv Batman as possible, Gold Key camped it up beyond belief...
It only lasted two issues.
And except for a cameo appearance, The Owl fluttered into oblivion...

But that's still not the end of the story...

Recently, The Owl was one of the many Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics™ revived by Alex Ross in his acclaimed Project SuperPowers series.
Up to this point, Nick Terry's alter-ego been a peripheral character, but the covers for the second Project SuperPowers mini-series indicate he's about to become a major player in the plotline!
So, we at Atomic Kommie Comics™ felt the time had come to expand our line of Owl collectibles.
(The fact we had just purchased a large comics collection including a near-complete run of Crackajack Funnies had nothing to do with it, we swear!)
Have a look at the half-dozen classic covers we've emblazoned on items from t-shirts to blank sketchbooks, to mugs and many other goodies.
And pick up Project SuperPowers, the best Golden Age of Comics revival on the stands today!
(You thought we were gonna do a "Whooo..whooo" joke of some kind?)

Monday, May 25, 2009