Saturday, September 24, 2016

I Love Zombies! You Love Zombies! Everybody Loves Zombies!

ZOMBIES!
Call them the undead, the unliving, reanimated corpses, or even the ultimate carnivores, zombies are HOT, HOT, HOT!
With The Walking Dead back on tv screens for its' final season, zombies have never been more popular!
But it, as well as all the other films and tv series currently featuring zombies owe a debt to the visual depictions of the shambling undead from the horror pulps and comics of the Golden Age (1930s-1950s)!
Like video games today, those periodicals were deemed so harmful to the psyches of impressionable youths that the government held hearings about possibly banning them altogether! 
The comics industry barely survived, but ended up toning down horror comics to a mere shadow of their blood-dripping selves, only recently, in the 1990s,  returning in all their gruesome glory!
Even with modern technology, today's zombie flix are hard pressed to match these classic comics for visceral visual thrills.
So, it's with pardonable pride that Atomic Kommie Comics™ re-presents some of the creepiest and koolest covers from those bygone days, digitally-restored and remastered, on a line of collectibles including mugs, hoodies, iPad/Kindle/messenger bags, and a 2016-17 12-month calendar!
If you're looking for a birthday or holiday present for a fan of the life-impaired (or a Halloween treat for yourself), why not combine one of our kool kollectibles with one of the books or DVDs available on-line or at brick-and-mortar stores?

Friday, September 23, 2016

Reading Room STRANGE JOURNEY "Space is a Secret"

Before you read this tale, go HERE...
..because this is the second version of this story!
Like almost all other comics publishers, Ajax/Farrell was hit hard by the Seduction of the Innocent witch-hunt of the 1950s.
They survived where many others didn't by kow-towing to the sometimes inane restrictions placed on them by the censor agency created by the industry itself...the Comics Code Authority!
This story, from Ajax/Farrell's Strange Journey #2 (1957) is a classic example of how extreme the Code took matters.
Every page has alterations, including changing the ending (in the original version, the Earthmen never escape)!
The final version, taken back to it's original level of horror...and beyond...can be found on our "brother" RetroBlog, Seduction of the Innocent!
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Atomic Kommie Comics
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Thursday, September 22, 2016

Trump Reading Room LOOIE LAZYBONES "There's No Feud Like an Old Feud!"

Our story opens as we gaze upon a life-size statue of one of Don the Con's "deplorables"...
 ...as rendered by the legendary Frank Frazetta!
Created in 1943, Looie Lazybones floated around the Nedor Comics line as a "filler" strip until settling down in Thrilling Comics as of #56 (1946).
Young up-and-comer Frank Frazetta took over the art as of this issue, #67 (1948) bringing it amazingly-close in visual style to the strip's "inspiration", Al Capp's Li'l Abner, which had already become a media sensation, with a radio show, feature film and tons of merchandising!
So close, in fact, that Capp hired Frazetta to "ghost" Li'l Abner in 1954!
BTW, the writer is unknown.
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Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Reading Room MENACE "Witch in the Woods"

It's Banned Books Week, and though many don't consider them to be "books"
...since the 1950s, people have tried to ban comics!
As Stan Lee's somewhat snarky script for this story from Atlas' Menace #7 (1953) points out, those beloved fairy tales were as mind-rotting as the comics Wertham and the others hypocritically tried to ban!
Joe Sinnott's clean and elegant renderings keep the story from being too grotesque, helping to sell Lee's point without the extreme gore some other publishers of the period (and even Atlas itself) occasionally went for!
We presented another one of Lee's responses to the Seduction of the Innocent witch-hunt HERE.
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Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Reading Room WEIRD THRILLERS "Tentacles of Death"

Beneath this kool painting by Norman (Mars Attacks) Saunders...
...is an equally-kool tale by writer Jerry (Superman) Siegel and illustrator George (Iron Man) Tuska!
The cover-featured tale from Ziff-Davis' Weird Thrillers #4 (1952) has the "feel" of a chapter from an ongoing series, but there were never any other tales of Dr Mark Savant (aka "Doc Savant") and the others.
Was it a rejected "pilot" that ended up as filler?
We may never know the answer...
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Atomic Kommie Comics
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Monday, September 19, 2016

Reading Room CAPTAIN JOHNER AND THE ALIENS "Face of Time"

...buckle up because things are about to become cosmic!
Gold Key's Magnus, Robot Fighter #20 (1967) takes us where no comic series has gone before!

While creator/writer/illustrator Russ Manning's art didn't have the sheer power of Jack Kirby or the psychadelic weirdness of Steve Ditko, his precise, classical, rendering style along with an enthusiasm to boldly experiment within the technical limitations of color separation and printing pack a punch, even today!
Sadly, he passed away in 1981.
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Sunday, September 18, 2016

CLASSIC War of the Worlds Movie Posters!

Because Halloween makes me think of War of the Worlds, here's a link to a batch of 6 limited-edition posters from the first (and best) movie version of HG Wells' novel.
Photographed from the original posters (not from second-generation repros, tiny pix in books or low-rez internet files), the art has been lovingly-restored and digitally-remastered.
And, best of all, every one of the posters features those really-kool Martian war machines!
And there's even a couple of foreign versions...
Enjoy! ;-)