Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jan 1, 2025 | 4 comments

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 61 years ago…

This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott Tipton and I are selecting comics that came out the week of Jan. 1, 1964.

Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of Dec. 25, 1944. 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 Dec. 29, 1963, and Jan. 4, 1964.)

So, let’s set the scene: The nation was still reeling from November’s assassination of President Kennedy but amid the grieving arose a renewed, bouyant optimism embodied by four young English musicians who were ready to take America by storm.

Idlewild Airport in Queens, N.Y., was being renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport and President Johnson signed a bill authorizing a new version of the 50-cent piece, with Kennedy’s profile on one side and the U.S. presidential seal on the other. The week before, American flags returned to full staff following a 30-day period of mourning.

Who knows? Maybe he would have been elected if he’d been able to come up with three more. Nah.

Johnson, however, was already facing opposition to his anticipated bid to remain president. On Jan. 3, U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona announced that he would seek the Republican nomination in that year’s election. “I have not heard from any announced Republican candidate a declaration of conscience or of political position that could possibly offer to the American people a clear choice in the next presidential election,” he said in a statement. “I will not change my beliefs to win votes. I will offer a choice, not an echo.”

At the same time, two secretive missions were being undertaken within the hushed halls of Washington:

On Jan. 2, a committee of experts asked to advise Johnson on the Vietnam War submitted a recommendation for a three-phase series of covert actions against North Vietnam. The first phase, for February to May, called for propaganda dissemination and “20 destructive undertakings… designed to result in substantial destruction, economic loss and harassment,” with following phases increasing in magnitude.

At the same time, top FBI officials were making plans to “neutralize” Martin Luther King Jr. — Time’s Man of the Year, when people cared about such things — primarily by wiretapping hotel rooms to get evidence of extramarital affairs and leaking tapes to the press.

IN OTHER NEWS

— On Jan. 4,  19-year-old Mary Sullivan, a clerk at a finance company in Boston, became the 13th and last victim of the Boston Strangler.

— Few outside Krakow, Poland, took notice, but Karol Wojtyla was appointed on Dec. 30 by Pope Paul VI as the new archbishop and made a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. Fourteen years later he would become pope and adopt the name John Paul II.

But nothing was able to compete with the attention an English musical group called the Beatles was generating. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr hadn’t yet set foot on American soil but were so incredibly popular in the United Kingdom that the British press dubbed the phenomenon “Beatlemania.”

The Beatles in November had signed to play on The Ed Sullivan Show in February but there was a ton of internal debate at Capitol Records, the U.S. subsidiary of EMI, the group’s British label, about whether American listeners would care.

Intense lobbying by the band’s 29-year-old manager Brian Epstein, as well as pro-Beatles forces at EMI, forced Capitol’s hand. The record company agreed to release the single I Want to Hold Your Hand for Jan. 12 but demand was already so great that the label got religion and moved the release up to Dec. 26, and signed off on a $50,000 promotional campaign that included stickers and posters that announced “The Beatles Are Coming!” Male Capitol staffers even had to wear Beatles wigs at work.

On Jan. 3, millions of Americans got their first real look at the band and heard the new song She Loves You in film footage shown on The Jack Paar Program. The host quipped that science was working on a cure for Beatlemania.

Meanwhile, in England, Top of the Pops debuted New Year’s Day on the BBC. The program would become one of the world’s longest-running music shows and the premiere episode led off with Dusty Springfield, while the first band was the Rolling Stones, who played I Wanna Be Your Man — by Lennon and McCartney. The Dave Clark Five, the Hollies and the Swinging Blue Jeans also appeared. Closing out the show was… the Beatles, with I Want to Hold Your Hand, the week’s No. 1 U.K. hit. (The Stones were preparing to launch their first English tour as headliners, with the Ronettes and the Swinging Blue Jeans opening.)

The stage was set. The British Invasion was about to begin.

American movie theaters were jammed with films starring many of the biggest names in Hollywood. The top-grossing film was Charade, starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, and other big hits included Tom Jones, starring Albert Finney; The Prize, starring Paul Newman; Under the Yum Yum Tree, starring Jack Lemmon; and, The Pink Panther, starring David Niven and Peter Sellers.

There was also It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, with its all-star cast led by Spencer Tracy and featuring a batshit hilarious dance sequence with Dick Shawn and Barrie Chase. Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, was still around, and Disney had The Sword in the Stone.

The most popular TV shows of the time included The Beverly Hillbillies, Bonanza, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Candid Camera, The Lucy Show and The Ed Sullivan Show.

On Dec. 30, meanwhile, NBC introduced a new daytime game show — Let’s Make a Deal, hosted by Monty Hall.

There! I’ve Said It Again, by Bobby Vinton, topped the Billboard 100, followed by the Kingsmen’s Louie Louie at No. 2. Down at No. 11 was Surfin’ Bird by the Trashmen, a song I can no longer hear without thinking of Family Guy or, even better, John Waters’ Pink Flamingos.

Now, here’s who had albums among the best-sellers: Peter, Paul & Mary (with In the Wind, at No. 2, and Peter, Paul & Mary, at No. 9); Barbra Streisand (with The Second Barbra Streisand Album, at No. 3); Elvis (with Golden Records Vol. 3, at No. 4); Trini Lopez (with Trini Lopez at PJ’s, at No. 5, and More Trini Lopez at PJ’s, at No. 11); the West Side Story soundtrack, at No. 6; and Joan Baez (with Joan Baez in Concert, Part 2 — her first LP to include Bob Dylan songs — at No. 8).

Topping them all, however? The Singing Nun, with her self-titled debut album (aka Soeur Sourire, her name in French-speaking areas).

There were a couple of interesting footnotes: Merle Haggard had hit the country chart for the first time with Sing a Sad Song and, on Dec. 31, Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir played together for the first time at Dana Morgan’s Music Store in Palo Alto, California.

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Scott Tipton, contributor-at-large, 13th Dimension

The Avengers #4, Marvel. A legendary issue of the Silver Age, with the return of Captain America and his arrival to what would become his most significant role as the heart of the Avengers.

Dan adds: I have nothing to say other than what Scott wrote and this great piece by Peter Bosch that we ran for this issue’s 60th anniversary.

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The X-Men #4, Marvel. Another landmark Marvel issue, with the debut of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and in particular future Marvel mainstays Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.

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Tales to Astonish #54, Marvel. Hank Pym never had the most impressive rogues’ gallery, but even by that standard, El Toro here doesn’t quite cut the mustard.

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Rip Hunter… Time Master #19, DC. Hard to say “no” to Cleopatra, I guess. Poor dumb Rip.

Dan: Especially when Elizabeth Taylor has a movie out.

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Dan Greenfield, editor, 13th Dimension

Archie’s Girls, Betty and Veronica #99, Archie. Hiram Lodge, I could kiss you! You are so right!

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Gorgo #17, Charlton. I shit you not: Gorgo unintentionally helps end the Cuban Missile Crisis. As the giant beast knocks over a missile with his tail, a Russian soldier grips his head and blurts out, “Zounds! What a pest!” There’s even an appearance by a feckless Fidel Castro lookalike named Raoul, who is admonished by his Soviet masters to “throw out that abominable native cigar you’re smoking!” It goes on like this for 20 pages. The writer might be Joe Gill, but whoever it was deserves a hearty roar.

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Our Army at War #140, DC, and Sgt. Fury #6, Marvel. It’s not a competition, I know. But Joe Kubert had it all over Jack Kirby — who, let’s face it, dominates this list — when it came to war covers. There, I said it. Fight me.

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Detective Comics #324, DC. Came out the week before but I’m allowing it because it was still on the stands and it’s a favorite of Paul Kupperberg’s, who nevertheless called the lead story “a truly terrible, pointless Batman story.” (Martian Manhunter had the back-up.)

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MORE

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of Dec. 25 — in 1944! Click here.

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of Dec. 18 — in 1981! Click here.

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Primary comics sources: Mike’s Amazing World of Comics, the Grand Comics Database.