COVERING UP: Xela Xes: Wonder Comics by Alex Schomburg

Let’s get freaky on this Freaky Friday with some very cool Alex Schomburg Wonder Comics covers I found online. Please enjoy!

Here’s a quote from Pappy’s Golden Age Comics:

In the war years Alex Schomburg was in demand by comics publishers for his covers. The eye-popping, continually inventive scenes of superheroes clobbering nasty Nazis and Japanese made the books fly off the racks. Several publishers used him. After the war he toned down his approach somewhat; there were still covers of superheroes clobbering gangsters or stick-up guys (sometimes wearing domino masks), but the covers weren’t as cluttered with men and machines.

These five covers he did for Nedor in 1947 and 1948 are some of his best. He used airbrush as his medium. I don’t know whether that was his idea or the publishers, but whatever, these covers worked. He must’ve felt his airbrush artwork was different enough to sign a pseudonym, so he became Xela.

Three of the covers shown here have the typical damsel in distress (D-I-D) covers. Those are the ones featuring the character Wonderman. The blonde on the other covers is Tara, a Fiction House-styled babe with boyfriend trailing as she adventured on various planets. It’s interesting that when women are the titular (no pun intended) characters, they can be shown kicking butt. Otherwise it’s the tried and true D-I-D cover: muscular hero coming to the rescue of voluptous babe.

And voluptuous they are…I’m not sure who did this sort of thing better, but the girls on these covers are pin-up lovers’ dreams. I also like the fact that each of the covers could be a poster, and that there are no cover blurbs or speech balloons to deface the artwork. Schomburg’s—Xela’s—artwork speaks for itself. No words were needed.

It’s time to get freaky, see my other questionable Freaky Friday posts here.

~Joe

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Meme - Spider-Man Edition 1960s Meme

“Now we wait for…” oh that sneaky Spider-Man! Hiya Spider-dudes and Spider-dudettes, I’ve started collecting online found images based on the Spider-Man 1960s animated TV show meme. I’ll be posting them from time to time. Please enjoy, Roboteers.

About

60’s Spider-Man, also known as “Retro Spider-Man”, refers to an image macro series based on still shots from the original Spider-Man cartoon series, typically featuring an absurd internal monologue that correspond with the actions depicted in the images.

Origin
The Show

The base still shots are from a Spider-Man animated television series that ran from September 9th, 1967 to June 14th, 1970. It was jointly produced in Canada (for voice talent) and the United States (for animation) and was the first animated adaptation of the Spider-Man comic book series, created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko.

Sometimes referred to as “Spider-Man ’67,” the series was notorious for its bad art and often over-the-top script as early as 2004.[7] The show reached a newfound audience in 2009 after Marvel officially began streaming the episodes via its website on April 2nd, 2009.[8] The episodes were subsequently reviewed on geek culture blogs like Topless Robot[9] and Daily Pop[10].

Check out all my Spider-Memes here!

~Joe

Monday New Art - Joe’s Sketches - Spidey-Art Gallery April 2012 - Color Versions (My Original Art) - Joe’s Sketchbook!

Your Spider-senses should be tingling like a motherfucker right now gang, and no, those good ol’ spidey-senses aren’t deceiving you… this is the second of my spankin’ new Monday New Art posts for today!

In today’s follow-up post, I bring you my Marvel Master collection in all it’s glorious full JoesGiantRobots Vit-A-Color magnificence! I made up that Vit-A-Color thing, but it is in glorious color!

For the uninitiated in Spider-Lore, the above fun characters are Spider-Man and his original line-up of supervillains; Doc Ock, The Green Goblin, Sandman, The Lizard, The Vulture, Electro, and Mysterio.

I know Marvel’s The Avengers is this summer’s movie blockbuster to beat. It’s is a tough act to follow for everything else coming out this summer (kudos to Joss Whedon finally making it mega-bigtime), but I’m actually pretty tentatively excited about this new Amazing Spider-Man movie too.

As always Roboteers, please enjoy my Spidey-Art Gallery April 2012 artwork series of drawings.

Monday New Art - Joe’s Sketches - Spidey-Art Gallery April 2012 - B&W Versions (My Original Art) - Joe’s Sketchbook!

My Spider-sense (among other things) is tingling!! Hey Roboteers, with this summer’s reboot of Spider-Man on it’s way, today’s Monday New Art post is quite timely. It’s my humble homage to Spider-Man and a slew of his awesome old-school super-villains spanking fresh from the pages of my latest sketchbook of drawings!!

I truly do love the original stable of Spidey villains: Doc Ock, The Green Goblin, Sandman, The Lizard, The Vulture, Electro, and Mysterio. With the new Amazing Spider-Man movie less than two months away from swinging into theaters, inspiration struck me and did this series of sketches.

Hopefully you, my faithful readers, enjoy my contribution to the world wide web today with my Spidey-Art Gallery April 2012 series of drawings. And remember Roboteers, your crazy Robot Uncle Joe (twice removed but with a smidgen of sweet condensed milk) loves you all.

Wowzers gang, this is part one of a two part JGR-Mini-Mega-Post today!! Stayed tuned for post two of my original artwork in 30 minutes!

Pussycat, Pussycat, I love you…

It’s Freaky Friday time Roboteers! Freaky Friday is when your good old pal Joe gets his freak-on and serves up some salacious retro-sleaze.

I’ve stated this before on JGR, but, Bill Ward is one of my all time favorite Good Girl/Pin-Up artists. Here’s a really neat web find with some Bill Ward drawings I’ve never seen before. As always gang, my internauts win is your internauts win! So Roboteers, please enjoy.

Here’s a quote from Pappy’s Golden Age Comics:



Did anyone ever draw glamorous, sexy chicks as well as Bill Ward? 

Pussycat was a feature Ward did in the 1960s for Marvel Comics owner Martin Goodman’s line of men’s magazines, after having established himself as a cartoonist of excellence in drawing the female form. Ward had worked as a comic book artist for years. He created super-siren Torchy, as well as being an artist specializing in love comics and several other genres, including Blackhawk. It was the pin-up art that made him famous, though.

Pussycat was a satire on the spy craze started by the James Bond phenomenon, continued on with TV shows like The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (and The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart, et al.) The character she most resembled was Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder’s Annie Fanny in Playboy. Like Annie, Pussycat was an innocent, without guile. She apparently didn’t understand the effect she was having on the men around her, who acted like horny idiots.

This particular strip was originally published in 1966, then reprinted in 1968 in a compilation magazine, Pussycat #1, listed in the indicia as being published by Marvel Comics. It contains one story by Wally Wood and another by Jim Mooney. The cover is by Bill Everett. The rest of it is all Ward.

Several books have been published reprinting Ward’s pin-up cartoons. For years he sold about 30 of them a month to Goodman’s Humorama Publications. You couldn’t open one of those digest magazines without seeing a new Ward.

Years ago I got lucky and found some of Ward’s cartoons for sale at a San Diego Comicon. I even found a rough he submitted for approval, most likely to the aforementioned humor magazines he contributed to so regularly.

Even though it’s a rough he lavished his time and attention on the girl. The guys in his cartoons, and even in his comic strips* were drawn as generic guys, with a lot less attention than he gave to his girls. The guys in his cartoons all went crazy at the sight of a pretty girl. If you were ever to see a living Ward girl walk down the street you might go crazy too.

*Ward was also a regular for years in Cracked Magazine, sometimes under the name McCartney.

It’s time to get freaky, see my other questionable Freaky Friday posts here.

~Joe