RETRO HOT PICKS! | 13th Dimension, Comics, Creators, Culture

Apr24

RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1954!

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Apr 24, 2024

RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1954!

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 70 years ago… This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott Tipton and I are selecting comics that came out the week of April 24, 1954. Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of April 17, 1990. Click here to check it out. (Keep in mind that comics came out on multiple days, so these are technically the comics that went on sale between April 21 and April 27.) So, let’s set the scene: The cracks in Communist witch-hunter Joe McCarthy’s facade were widening. McCarthy, a red-baiting Republican senator from Wisconsin, had risen to prominence in 1950 and his impact and influence grew through 1953 with notorious congressional investigations into unfounded allegations of widespread communist infiltration of the U.S. government and the Army. Finally, it was payback time: Earlier in the month, following reports by highly respected journalist Edward R. Murrow on the CBS news program See It Now, McCarthy went on the show and made outlandish assertions against the host but they blew up in his face, further eroding his own popularity. March 9, 1954 Then, the Army returned fire on McCarthy in hearings that were covered gavel to gavel on the DuMont and ABC television networks from April 22 well into June. The hearings hit their climax June 9 when Army counsel Joseph Welch lowered the boom with the famous line excoriating McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” He didn’t and by year’s end, McCarthy would be condemned by the full Senate and his career would slide into pathetic obscurity and further decline, fueled by alcohol and drug abuse until his death in 1957. He would go down in history as one of America’s greatest villains. McCarthyism of a different sort was also playing out — which is why we picked this week for RETRO HOT PICKS: As Fred Van Lente wrote on Sunday, it’s the 70th anniversary of Seduction of the Innocent and the bombastic and highly questionable congressional hearings into the “evils” of comic books that led to the self-censoring Comics Code Authority and the end of the careers for countless writers and artists. Overseas, the French-Indochina War was in its final stages as the communist Viet Minh thrashed France’s forces. The U.S. gave aid...

Apr17

RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1990!

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Apr 17, 2024

RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1990!

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 34 years ago… This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott Tipton and I are selecting comics that came out the week of April 17, 1990. Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of April 10, 1973. Click here to check it out. (Keep in mind that comics came out on multiple days, so these are technically the comics that went on sale between April 14 and April 20.) — So, let’s set the scene: Baseball non-Hall of Famer Pete Rose fell further into disgrace April 20 when he pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion charges. Three months later, he would be sentenced to prison. He’d already been banned from baseball by this time and remains on the outside looking in at Cooperstown. He is still baseball’s all-time leader in hits. The high-flying ’80s were over and it was time to pay the tab. Junk-bond king Michael Milken — one of the inspirations for Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko — pleaded guilty April 14 to fraud-related charges. He agreed to pay $600 million in fines and restitution and was later sentenced to 10 years in jail. (He served just under two years for cooperating against his former colleagues and for good behavior.) Earlier in the month, Ivan Boesky, another dirty trader who inspired Gekko and who informed on Milken, was released from federal custody. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the top-performing movie at the box office. Other movies in theaters included The Hunt for Red October, starring Sean Connery, and Pretty Woman, the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold rom-com that made Julia Roberts, who’d previously been nominated for an Oscar for Steel Magnolias, a superstar. Hits on TV included America’s Funniest Home Videos, Cheers, A Different World, The Cosby Show and Roseanne. But David Lynch cultists and connoisseurs of fine television were already obsessed with Twin Peaks, which debuted April 8. There was nothing else like it on TV and that first season remains a highlight of Lynch’s illustrious career. Kyle MacLachlan was hilariously weird as pie-and-coffee-loving FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper. In response to Saturday Night Live’s well-earned reputation as a mostly white sketch show, In Living Color premiered April 15 on Fox and became a cultural force. Created by Keenen Ivory Wayans, it made stars of siblings Damon, Kim, Shawn and Marlon, and turned...

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