From Captain America #3, May 1941.
Democracy Against Dictatorship Before Pearl Harbor
Category: Comic Books
At Last, Atlas
A while back I took advantage of a sale on digital reprints of Atlas comics from the 1950’s. Some of the art published by Atlas is right up there with EC.
Brother Andrew’s Traveling Salvation Show
Anne van der Bijl has died at age 94. “Anne,” as in a Dutch variation of Andrew, was better known by his alias, Brother Andrew. I learned of his passing at the library in, of all things, the print edition of The Economist.
In my “born-again” period during college, I read Brother Andrew’s book God’s Smuggler. It’s his autobiographical account of taking Bibles into what were then the Communist countries of the Soviet Union.
There was also a comic book adaptation of God’s Smuggler, by Al Hartley. Somehow I missed seeing this Spire Comic at the time.
Hartley was a former Marvel artist, who had drawn Patsy Walker for Stan Lee.
The notice in The Economist missed an opportunity to point out that it was economics, not Brother Andrew’s efforts at planting copies of the Bible à la the Gideons, that contributed to the breakup the Soviet Union. The seeds of discontent grew from the public’s awareness of the worldly benefits of 1980’s secular consumerism — plentiful food, blue jeans, CD players, VCR’s, etc. China has since embraced the advantages of Capitalism, independent of Christianity or Democracy.
The Talk
There comes a time in every boy’s life, even for 12-year-old Clark Kent, to learn where he came from.
Kal-El was only months old when he was rocketed to Earth, and yet his biological mother had an impossibly tiny waist! Krypton truly had a race of physically superior beings.
Arty Party – Covers
Bernie Wrightson
Wally Wood
Gene Colan/Frank Giacoia
John Romita
Mike Sekowsky/Joe Giella
Calling Out Copyists
This Bizarro comic strip last week got some people exchanging views, once again, about the validity of Roy Lichtenstein’s work.
In cartoonist Wayno’s blog he tells of his thinking behind the strip. (I’m amazed Google still hosts blogs.)
http://waynocartoons.blogspot.com/2022/08/copycat-crime.html
David Barsalou’s extensive research project, Deconstructing Roy Lichstenstein, reveals every one the comic book panels that were copied by Lichtenstein.
David and I were fortunate to have had Barbara Harris as our Art History instructor in college.
http://bostonvoyager.com/interview/check-barbara-harriss-artwork/
