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Dec17

RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1950!

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Dec 17, 2025

RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1950!

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 75 years ago… This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott and I are selecting comics that came out the week of Dec. 17, 1950. Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of Dec. 10, 1980. Click here to check it out. (Keep in mind that comics came out on multiple days, so these are the comics that went on sale between Dec. 14 and Dec. 20.) So, let’s set the scene: It was the thick of the Korean War and international tensions were high. On Dec. 16, President Truman announced in a national radio address that he would declare a national emergency: “Our homes, our nation, all the things we believe in are in great danger. This danger has been created by the rulers of the Soviet Union.” He added, “The future of civilization depends on what we do— on what we do now, and in the months ahead.” Truman’s comments came amid the famous Hungnam evacuation, which included the retreat of 105,000 U.N. troops and 91,000 civilians from North Korea. The withdrawal, from Dec. 15 to 24 — dubbed the Miracle of Christmas — included 17,500 vehicles and 350,000 tons of cargo. The evacuees were protected by U.S. Navy air support and shelling from 13 ships. As Harvey Kurtzman wrote in 1951’s EC classic Two-Fisted Tales #26, “What equipment they hadn’t brought, they had destroyed!” IN OTHER NEWS — On Dec. 19, retired General Dwight D. Eisenhower was brought back by Truman to serve as the first Supreme Allied Commander of Europe. (Eisenhower had been serving as president of Columbia University.) This as NATO agreed on the gradual rearmament of Germany and its integration into the defense of Western Europe. — The day before, Truman ordered the establishment of the Nevada Proving Ground so that nuclear weapons testing could be performed within the continental United States, and the American stockpile could be rapidly increased. The Atomic Energy Commission would, within days, lease a portion of the Air Force’s Tonopah Bombing and Gunnery Range in Nye County, Nevada, 65 miles from Las Vegas. The ground was renamed the Nevada Test Site. — On Dec. 20, by a vote of 247–1, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950, providing $3 billion for fallout shelters nationwide and...

Dec10

RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1980!

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Dec 10, 2025

RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1980!

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 45 years ago… This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott and I are selecting comics that came out the week of Dec. 10, 1980. Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of Dec. 3, 1989. Click here to check it out. (Keep in mind that comics came out on multiple days, so these are the comics that went on sale between Dec. 7. and Dec. 13.) So, let’s set the scene: John Lennon, the former Beatle and one of the most prominent countercultural forces in the world, was shot dead the night of Dec. 8 as he was coming home to the Dakota apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Lennon, 40, and his wife, Yoko Ono, had gotten out of a limo and were walking toward the building’s entrance when a lunatic named Mark David Chapman shot him four times in the back. Just hours earlier, Lennon had autographed for Chapman a copy of his recently released album Double Fantasy. The response to Lennon’s death was immense and immediate, with crowds forming outside the Dakota and Roosevelt Hospital, where the ex-Beatle was pronounced dead. As the news spread, fans around the world gathered publicly and privately in a widespread outpouring of grief. Lennon was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, N.Y., the day aftter he was killed. Ono said there would be no funeral and instead asked for 10 minutes of silence globally on Dec. 14. In addition to other events that day, 225,000 people gathered at the Naumberg Bandshell in Central Park, and 30,000 people assembled in Lennon’s hometown of Liverpool. Chapman’s motives were muddled and ultimately unimportant and pointless. He was a profoundly mentally ill man, who now sits behind bars in an upstate Dutchess County prison, where he’s visited by his wife, Gloria, who has stood by him for the 45 years since the slaying. He’s been denied parole 14 times, most recently this year. He’s 70 years old. Sales of Double Fantasy and other Lennon and Beatles music skyrocketed. Both the album and the upbeat — but bittersweet in retrospect — single (Just Like) Starting Over topped the charts in the US and the UK after the murder. Imagine, from 1971, hit No. 1 in the UK in January 1981 and Happy Xmas (War Is...

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