low content mode

Holiday Hiatus #1 – Swamp Thing versus a car.

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Your pal Mike needs to recharge his batteries something fierce, so it’s gonna be Low Content Mode on the site through the end of the year. But it’s Low Content Mode with Swamp Thing, so hopefully that’ll be okay.

Thanks for reading, everyone, and hopefully with the New Year will come a newly-refreshed Mike.
 

image from Saga of the Swamp Thing #1 (May 1982) by Marty Pasko and Tom Yeates

So just before Stanley and his Monster debuted in Fox and the Crow #95…

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…the Brat Finks were already there, beating Stanley and said monster by one issue:


Okay, that panel actually is from #95, and not their first appearance, but I was collecting SAHM stories, not Brat Finks stories, so I don’t have #94 in the Vast Mikester Comic Archives.

…Mostly I’m just posting this here for the sheer 1960s-ness of the title “Brat Finks.” Also, for that one Brat Fink wielding the axe:


Out of context like that, we’re just one brief leap away from a funny animal EC horror comic. Tales from the Habitrail, with your host The Old Hamster Wheel Keeper.

…Sorry, gang, I think Christmas is getting to me.

 

image from Fox and the Crow #95 (December 1965/January 1966)

I don’t know why I’m fascinated with the existence of Spanner’s Galaxy…

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…other than being a fun oddball superhero sci-fi mini-series published by DC in the mid-1980s. There were a fair number of these from DC at the time, like Atari Force (nominally a tie-in to the video game company, but ended up being an imaginative and exciting adventure series beautifully drawn by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Eduardo Barreto) and Sun Devils (Dan Jurgens’ space opera, characters from which appeared in later Superman comics, if I remember correctly).

No point to this really, other than a brief twinge of nostalgia for when DC would publish comics like these, not under a separate imprint like Vertigo or Helix, not as any kind of spin-off or tie-in to a superhero comic…just short runs of strange sci-fi or fantasy stories (or, rather superhero comics with sci-fi or fantasy trappings) that were here, told their stories, and were gone.
 

from Spanner’s Galaxy #1 (December 1984) by Nicola Cuti & Tom Mandrake

No post today.

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…Yeah, I know, I suck. Sorry, it’s just been one of those weeks so far, and it’s only…about five minutes past midnight on Tuesday as I write this? Urgh.

Anyway, I am going to get to the New 52 comments eventually, I promise, and I’m working on other site content-type stuff, so I’m not going anywhere. But, you know…Christmastime abhors a vacuum, and my free time has been pretty much shot for the next day or three. I’ll be back up to speed eventually, but for the time being…please have some patience, and sorry for the lack of real, or at least coherent, content.

…Er, yeah. No post today. See you tomorrow, with any luck.

Low Content Mode Day.

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Actually, it’s sort of been Low Content Mode Week, since I’ve been under the weather a bit. But I wanted to note a couple of things today:

1. Mark Shainblum, editor of the Orion fanzine I featured two days ago, popped by the comments to say “hello!” and add a little info to my brief overview of the ‘zine. So, please, check that out.

2. Also in the comments, Troy Wilson points to the Panels for Primates strip Shainblum contributed.

3. “Batroc Ze Leapair” (possibly an assumed name) asks in yesterday’s comments if I’m going to be doing Question Time again, where I hit you folks up for questions, and then I spend about two or three months’ worth of posts answering them. …Not just yet, I’m afraid. It’s been a while since the last time I put out the open call for questions, I realize, but I don’t really have the time or energy for that sort of thing at the moment. But as soon as I do — and I’m stuck for site content! — I’ll let you all know.

Thanks for reading, gang, and hopefully I’ll be back to business as usual in short order.