Restoring The Gossips

Here's a nice black and white scan of the censored last panel to The Gossips! which you may now print and paste over the Superman Supacomic advertisement in your copy of Haunted Tales #6.

This copy is courtesy of Ghoul Tales Vol. 1 No. 1, Portman Distribution Ltd., U.K.

Doomsday Album No.6: The Demon/Merlin photo cover

As mentioned a week or so ago, the first 8 issues of The Demon were reprinted in various issues of Doomsday Album.

I neglected to mention that the cover to the first issue in this run is a photo cover based on the splash panel to The Demon #1, featuring Merlin.

The majority of the Doomsday Album covers are painted images, however there are also some photo covers. They are in general generic enough to doubt they were solicited specifically for their respective issues, yet at least another 2 or 3 covers do appear to be related to the lead features.

Superman Supacomic # 87: Smells like Newton Comics

I don’t think K.G. Murray were as prone to rushing out issues with printing stuff-ups on their covers as Newton Comics were, but that’s not to say it didn’t happen.

Mind you, this sample is something of a variant because correctly coloured copies of this issue are the norm.

Nevertheless, it’s undoubtedly a candidate for the junkyard vomitorium… makes me feel queasy and off-balance just looking at it.

Thanks to Mr M for the scan. If I ever find a copy for myself I think I might just file it along with my Newtons.

The Planet of the Apes Sunday Observer Special

The Planet of the Apes Sunday Observer Special was a free giveaway with the Sunday Observer newspaper dated 1 June 1975, promoting the Newton Comics series and the television show.

The Newton series was launched mid-1975 and by all accounts was quite heavily promoted in the Sunday Observer with full colour advertisements.

This is a 16-page digest-size booklet. All the pages are black and white with red ink highlights, apart from the covers and centre pages, which are full colour. It contains a number of behind-the-scenes articles mainly related to the television series with plenty of photos. There is also a competition to win a copy of the Newton comic, and a full-page advertisement for the comic, but there are no comics stories or excerpts in this issue.

The Planet of the Apes Sunday Observer giveaway is one of the scarcest items on Newton Comics collectors’ wishlists, and unlike the majority of the series issues, it’s an item rarely seen in collectors circles these days. In fact I’ve never seen one before, even though I’ve discussed it on occasion with other collectors.

And this is where it gets even more interesting – there may be two different Sunday Observer Planet of the Apes giveaways!

Last time I met up with Kevin Patrick we happened to be talking about this supplement, so naturally I sent him a scan when I received this copy just a few weeks later, and he mentioned the one he remembers had a different cover, possibly an amended or cropped version of the cover to Planet of the Apes #2, and that it also contained comics, possibly excerpts from the Moench and Tuska adaptation which ran as a back-up serial in the Newton series.

Given the Sunday Observer was party to a robust advertising program for the series, it does appear quite possible that there were indeed two different Sunday Observer supplements. And, if the recall of collectors is accurate (and I’ve learned it’s a pretty safe bet to trust the memories of kids who pored over their comics obsessively… hey, some of us never grow out of it!) and there was another supplement (as per Danny Best’s blog possibly dated circa 1 July 1976... this date is a Thursday, not a Sunday, so maybe that's a typo...?) it also stands to reason the second supplement might feature the cover from the second issue, just as the first supplement features the cover from the first issue.

I’d love to see confirmation of a second supplement - but for the moment, I'm calling this the missing link (sic) of Newton Planet of the Apes collections!

The Demon in Doomsday Album

Some time ago someone asked me which Australian series and issues reprinted Jack Kirby’s The Demon series. I knew I’d seen some in various issues of Doomsday Album, and could also summon up in my mind's eye some Batman and The Demon team-ups in Batman Albums, but at the time could not say for sure which issues to chase down for a set of reprints of the original series.

I've now completed my run of Doomsday Album, and can at least confirm that the first 8 issues of The Demon were reprinted in Doomsday Album #’s 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 17 and 19. Even though the Doomsday Album issue numbers skip a few beats to get there, The Demon issues are reprinted in sequence.

The Doomsday Album series ended with #19 (well, I haven’t seen any higher numbered issues, so until another turns up…), and I’m unaware of any other reprints of The Demon series in other K.G. Murray series, so it’s possible that only these 8 issues were reprinted, leaving the balance of 8 issues on the shelf. Then again, it’s also possible there are more scattered around in various other K.G. Murray series such as Terror Tales Album, or any number of one-shots.

Captain America: Smells like Newton Comics...

Do not adjust your sets - yes, that’s a green and purple Captain America!

On the one hand it’s quite true this cover hails from Tales of Suspense #70.

On the other hand, this cover could only truly be said to be the spawn of the endearingly kooky - and sometimes downright bizarre! - quality control zombies punching the clock in the Newton Comics basement circa 1976.

Really gives you that Red White and Blue feeling, right? What?! Who said it's the colour spectrum of vomit...? "If This Be Treason" indeed....

Ah, c'mon, face it, it's beautiful stuff, True Believers... Down UnderGround Pop Art...! And beware - there’s more where that came from!.

Vault of Evil #2: Confirmed!

Ah, such a vain pleasure to be proven correct! As I suspected, there was indeed a Yaffa/Page Vault of Evil #2, which was later shrunken and rebadged as the digest-sized Terrifying Tales. The contents are precisely the same, the only difference being the editing of the title blurb on the first story of the digest as already noted.

My thanks to Dillon Naylor who prompted me this morning with the confirmation of another digest issue titled Tomb of Darkness which reprints the US Vault of Evil #’s 7-9, which we may safely assume was previously published by Yaffa/Page as Vault of Evil #3; and another titled Shock Stories which reprints 3 issues of Chamber of Chills. There are at least 4 issues of the Yaffa/Page Chamber of Chills series.

The Mighty Thor #7: The Yaffa/Page digest series

I’m not sure precisely how many issues there are of the digest-size series of The Mighty Thor but I do know there’s more than a fistful of them because I’ve seen them.

The only one to hand at the moment is #7, and no surprise to find it reprints sequential issues of Journey Into Mystery.

Specifically, it contains the lead feature from #101, and the complete feature contents of #’s 102 and 103, including some sharp looking Larry Lieber art in the back-ups.

The cover is reprinted from Journey Into Mystery #103

Terrifying Tales NN - or, Vault of Evil #2

This is a curious Yaffa/Page horror digest issue.

It appears to be an unnumbered issue of Terrifying Tales. However, it may as well be Vault of Evil #2.

It reprints in sequence Vault of Evil #’s 4-6. This suggests there was a previous issue, numbered or otherwise, reprinting Vault of Evil #’s 1-3. However, it’s just as possible that there was a Yaffa/Page Vault of Evil #1, or indeed an unnumbered issue. I say this because I’ve come to expect fidelity from Yaffa/Page reprints, and it’s odd to find that this issue isn’t titled Vault of Evil.

The Vault of Evil series carried text boxes on the splash pages such as "There Is No Escape From The Vault of Evil!". The first one in this issue has been altered to read "Stan Lee Presents: Terrifying Tales". However, the rest has been left intact.

The cover image is a reprint from Vault of Evil #4 This issue also contains a black and white reprint of the cover to Vault of Evil #5.

"Who is the Master?" from Vault of Evil #4 is omitted, otherwise issue #’s 4-6 are reprinted in full.

Crypt of Shadows #4: The Yaffa/Page digest series

This digest-size issue of Crypt of Shadows is a real beauty! It reprints in full the contents of the US Crypt of Shadows series issue numbers 10-12.

This means it contains stories from Atlas/Marvel series such as Adventures Into Terror, Tales to Astonish, Uncanny Tales and Mystic. It also means it contains art from the likes of Gene Colan, Bernard Krigstein, Don Heck and Russ Heath.

The cover to this issue is sourced from Crypt of Shadows #10, May 1974, itself a homage to Joe Maneely's cover to Marvel Tales #129, December 1954. The covers to issue numbers 11 and 12 are not reprinted.

The only fault with this issue is that it omits the first title page to “Dance, You Fool!”, the Heck-drawn story Tales to Astonish #34 - a victim of the page count. The rest of the stories are crammed in by utilising the inner front cover and both sides of the rear cover.

I don’t know how many issues were published in this series, but I expect those that were published all contained complete sequential issues of the US series.