HOPE YOU LIKE IT: The Art of DAKOTA ALEXANDER… By DAKOTA ALEXANDER Email from Dan, after we did faux covers for a few weeks: “Shall we pivot to splash pages or house ads for awhile?” This got me to thinking of a certain Marvel house ad. Picture it: 1979. You’re flipping through the pages of your favorite Marvel comic and you see a startling full-page house ad. “He strikes from outer space… cleaving through the sky like a fiery sword of justice… hurtling Earthward on his dread mission of cosmic vengeance! AND NOTHING CAN STOP HIM!!” This impressive introduction reads almost like a manifesto, as it leaps off the page with Sal Buscema’s iconic illustration of ROM SPACEKNIGHT emerging from a blazing crater! And if you saw this for the first time, you’d probably presume he would be a hero. However due to his imposing design and fiery entrance you would also be right to presume that this is not you’re average type of hero. This is something to be reckoned with. The ad doesn’t mention that ROM was a toy tie-in but it’s one of the best-known examples of that kind of synergy. The toy version of ROM was developed by Parker Brothers and was a new venture for the company, which up until that time had mostly made board games. Electronic toys were also still very new, so the decision was made to produce the figure as cheaply as possible. It had only a few points of articulation and bore little resemblance to its exciting and heroic comics counterpart. Frankly, this seems more like a robotic henchman than a valiant spaceknight. Not to mention that the figure was 13 inches tall and, with all its accessories, was said to weigh close to 5 pounds. Suffice it to say, the toy was not a hit. Marvel, however, was more successful, producing a cult-favorite series that managed to run until 1986. Some of its longevity was due to the stories by Bill Mantlo, and some of it was in part to Marvel’s insistence on incorporating the character into practically every major title it could. As a kid, I knew of ROM without ever having to read a ROM comic. He was everywhere. The X-Men tussled with ROM, and so did the Hulk, Dr. Strange, Spider-Man, and even Power Man...
REEL RETRO CINEMA: New looks at old flicks — and their comics connections… By ROB KELLY As a child of the ’70s (Whip Inflation Now!), my relationship to Rima, The Jungle Girl was informed solely by the fact that she had her own DC Comics series and later showed up on various iterations of Super Friends. That told me that she was an official Big Deal, a member of the DC stable on par with the likes of Aquaman, Green Arrow, Hawkgirl, etc. And while all that might not exactly be true, her history in many ways is even more grand and impressive. Rima was one of the many characters DC adapted from other media in the 1970s and tried to turn into a comic-book star, like her fellow jungle adventurer Tarzan, the Shadow, the Avenger (in Justice, Inc.) and, for one glorious, treasury-sized month, Dick Tracy. While I kinda sorta knew Tarzan wasn’t a DC character, exactly, I always assumed Rima was their attempt to combine the Lord of the Apes with Wonder Woman. In fact, in one of those, “Wait, Buck Rogers came before Flash Gordon?” kind of things, Rima actually predates Tarzan by a full decade. She made her debut in the 1904 novel Green Mansions, written by W.H. Hudson, while Lord Greystoke didn’t debut until 1912. Hudson was a naturalist who moved from his home country of Argentina to the United Kingdom, where he found success as an author of both fiction and non-fiction. His most famous work concerns Abel, a failed revolutionary who escapes into the jungle to evade capture. There he meets various denizens of the forest, including a young, wraith-like girl who seems to not only survive in the harsh climate, but possesses supernatural powers. Green Mansions as a book is a fine enough read, if you can put aside the numerous Lolita-like mentions of how attractive this small, very young girl is to this much older man. Abel is undoubtedly the main character (Rima actually dies near the end of the book), but I will mention that the paperback version I read (published in 1959), does feature some quite beautiful illustrations by artist Sheilah Beckett. The reason the book was republished in 1959 was as a tie-in to a big-budget movie adaptation, also called Green Mansions. Starring Audrey Hepburn as Rima,...
The famed colorist has died at the age of 99…
Old-time radio shows and their comics connections…
A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE…
Mark your calendars…
