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Leftover Comics

Brute Force #1

Just take a moment and look at that cover. who could pass up a dolphin in a land-walking suit holding an uzi for 25 cents?
I sure as shit couldn't pass this up when i saw it in the quarter bin at Fat Jacks

We start things off with a bang in Brute Force, with a group of clown terrorists breaking into the lab of Dr. Pierce! In the middle of a delicate operation at that!
These clowns then successfully kidnap the gorilla patient for a mysterious reason...

the pace of this comic is incredibly fast, so much so that it seems almost like a spoof of itself. The above panels set the plot up, his son comes into the room eating a Tastee Burger and the clown mascot were the same clowns that kidnapped his gorilla, put into account that tastee burger is owned by the evil Flex corporation that burns down rain forests, that means thats were the gorilla must be! DUH, how simple!
Dr. Pierce is a doctor in Cyborg Robotics. The gorilla they stole has a special suit that makes him smart and super strong...he also has a bunch of other animals laying around the lab....

His son made the obvious opinion of telling his the doc to suit up the rest of his animals and go in search of the gorilla in an unnamed rainforest!

The animals may have special abilities in their new cyborg outfits but they are still a bunch of stupid animals, and they seem to be constantly throwing deadpan humor at you like the one above, with the perfect rolling of the eyes and sighing panel.

First read that panel out of context.

Once the newly formed BRUTE FORCE lands in the amazon rainforest the kangaroo who was just happening to be sticking his head out the window, wearing his stylin ray-bans and rocking out to his walkman, sees the gorilla being taken away by evil military looking men. c'mon BRUTE FORCE! everyone out of the plane and get them!

OOPS! oh BRUTE FORCE, your nothing but a bunch of dumb animals! you can't give a dolphin legs! let alone an uzi! no where in this issue do they explain how the doctor trained the animals in proper weapons use.

YES

BRUTE FORCE ends up beating down a bunch of mercenaries at the airport but they still manage to elude the rescue of there gorilla comrade!
somehow and without explanation BRUTE FORCE then have there own personalized vehicles for the chase to save the gorilla!

above is another example of the deadpan humor sprinkled throughout BRUTE FORCE, the dolphin comes up with the perfect plan just to have the eagle tell him he's wrong and that he's the leader who should make plans, he then repeats the same exact plan the dolphin rolls his eyes and says 'BRILLIANT.'
COMIC GOLD

They then try to save the gorilla, who instead doesn't want to be saved and fights them, above is a great LAZER EYE panel.
The gorilla then gets taken away again, BRUTE FORCE FAIL.
Where is the gorilla being taken too??

OH SHIT! ITS THE MORE EVIL MULTI-CORP THATS IN CHARGE! and whats that? they're putting together there own cyborg-animal team?? HOLY SHIT! As many plot-holes, continuity errors, cheesy jokes and dialog this comic has, it does its job and make me want to pick up the next issue! look at the Octopus with tank wheels! and a shark with razor-blade wheels!! A CYBORG TEAM OF ANIMALS NAMED HEAVY METAL! FUCK YEAH!!

Next up:

Heavy Hitters- LAW DOG #2

That cover reminds me of something Bald Eagles would come up with, just a complete BADASSSS, don't give a fuck, big guns and grenades, 5 oclock shadow, big as fuck, vein bulging, chain wearing, MOTHERFUCKER
give notice to the butcher knife sticking out of his leg.

and thats exactly what LAWDOG is. He's also a dimension-hopping cop of some sorts. In this dimension, a slutty blond is being sacrificed to a gigantic million mouthed demon monster by an even bigger gang of devil worshipers.
LAWDOG teams up with his own gang of CHRISTIAN WORSHIPERS.

He just jumps right in shooting, at first glance it looked to me like his cock was a giant gun which would make this comic all the more better.

While LAWDOG kills all the satanist he send his Christian soldiers to save the damsel in distress.

LAWDOG then shoots some more, fucking more shit up, and ends up stealing a giant crane, packs it with an explosive and...

we get a big-ass-explosion splash page!
It looks completely abstract if you don't know thats an exploding monster your looking at.

LAWDOG Then finds a highway to another dimension INSIDE the monster they just blew up. Ya'see LAWDOG roams from dimension to dimension, keeping things in line, and only he can see the DIMENSIONAL HIGHWAY.

He can't control what dimension he goes too, unfortunately he ends up in a dimension with disgusting flying monster things that spit acid on his car. he luckily drives off a cliff that of course is a DIMENSIONAL HIGHWAY he can only see. So if LAWDOG is some sort of nomadic dimensional peacekeeper, what dimension is he from?

CLASSIC BAD ASS LINE
"MY WORLD IS DEAD, THERE IS NOTHING THERE BUT DEATH"
yeah hes a lone anti-hero alright.
they seem to be in a 'normal' dimension now right? lets go grab something to eat and see whats up.

oh shit, NAZIS.
yeah this is the world where NAZIS rule the WORLD.
let's just kick some ass and get out of here alright?

UH OH. Another awesome last page that makes me crave some more! he's going to fight a giant nazi robot death machine! LAWDOG!!!
BADASSSSS

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Leftover Comics

UFO Flying Saucers #5


Another Gold Key Comics pick this week, with UFO Flying Saucer.
First glance, you get a very retro-pulp looking cover, this comic was made in 1975 but it looks like something out of 1952.
Further investigation leads me to actually find out who did the cover, which was Latin American comic artist Luis Dominguez

This comic is actually an anthology of a few different UFO encounter stories, and whatd'ya know the internet actually knows who drew the interiors as well, credit goes to aritst Frank Bolle who apparently is still alive and working.
The comic is set in real-life and treats each story as something that really happened and were reading what the witnesses and 'case files' actually said.
The first true story is the tale about the Virginia Giant.
The idea focus of it being a 'true story' really dulls this comic down, we see no crazy mind fights, lazer cannons, or face raping aliens.
this particular story is incredibly uneventful.
boy goes camping, dog runs off, boy sees flying saucer, a giant comes out, dog growls at giant, giant walks away.
then for some reason the last page is '2 days later' and his sister sees a flying saucer while driving home.

thats it. really. thats the end. it says 'this case has been studied extensively for 3 years with no explanation found'
how can scientists study and find an explanation from a 8 year old boys story and his teenage sister claiming she saw something 2 days later as well?
really?
and thats the best case file you can find that scientists extensively studied?
LAME.

the next story is even more of a bland UFO encounter story.
so bland i didnt even bother to scan any of it in.
its a 2-page story of a fugitive running from the police, when hes deep in the woods and thinks he lost them he sees a motionless, orange glowing, rectangle in the sky. He's scared for a second because he thinks its a police tracking device but it soon jets off into space in 2 seconds flat. He then got caught and he's writing this story to the editors from a prison cell.
whippee doo.
next.

This 2 page feature is probably the best in the book.
so good i just scanned and posted the whole thing above.
just classic looking alien profiles.
i particularly like the sexual predator looking venus alien in the red jammies, page 2 panel 3.

This story really has nothing to do with UFO's, but whatever.
this is the story of the invisible groper, it goes around making wind lines appear around people while grabbing and feeling them.
above youll see poor Mrs. Bee being lifted against her will and sexually violated.
I'm really into the 4-color treatment that was done here, Mrs. Bee has her 'full color' body with the blue coat, pink dress and white gloves and scarf, while her middle ground object is solid gray brick wall with cross hatching, and the background houses are red with an even light orangish sky, then once shes nabbed everything besides her goes green.
I used to take a lot of coloring techniques for granted, thinking for instance that Frank Bolle IS the artist and the colorist is just some secondary dude not even paying attention to his job. I see now the importance to differentiate the color choices between the planes to make distinctions, read distance, and in the last 2 panel cases to make sure you know when someones getting attacked. although i would have had the first panel with the green background and when she gets attack it then turn red, red being the more aggressive color.

The next comic is a cynical 'don't trust the government about UFOs' niche story.
The Maury Island Mystery is told through 2 high-ranking government guys, one a skeptic the other a believer, going over the evidence of the case.
the case being a UFO that was DUI started shitting out metal fragments which injured some sailors and killed a dog.

this is the only cool action packed panel in the story.

the rest is boring talking head panels arguing back and forth whether UFOs are real or not.
blah blah blah.
it ends with one guy believing it was aliens and the other guy not. how memorable!

The last 'story' is actually true! like for real real true. The narrator, 'the hoaxmaster', however is not real.
the story being the recollection of the War of the Worlds radio broadcast back in the 30's.
Above is another awesome example of good 4-color process coloring. notice the whites of the eyes and teeth in the flat color people, ups the dramatics!

and this last panel is probably my favorite in the whole book.
just some more great colors in psychedelic circles.

this Gold Key comic was way better then Wacky Witch, but still not good.
I'm on the fence with a lot of this classic looking house style in these comics. I know where the artist is coming from with the ways they take care of narrative problems through compositions, but they just seem so sterile to me. And i have read about different grid and panel composition techniques, just about every page in this comic has 4 perfect square panels and one long one, it just gets old to me, i like to see my comics with seemingly random panel layouts that the artist either put no thought into it at all or so much thought it looks like they didnt put any thought into it. It might just be from my strict diet of art comics, mini's, and art object books that makes me just brush off these styles as crappy assembly -line-get-it-done-fast type comics, which this is, but sometimes i just look at it and say 'meh, whatever dude'.

Leftover Comics

Wacky Witch #18

first thing i must point out here, is that no where in this entire comic is there a scene of skiing
another weird, or shall i say wacky thing about this comic, and most all Gold Key comics, is that its completely anonymous.
even the issue number is hard to find hidden in the first small text at the bottom.
I myself have made anonymous comics, i would draw these small 8 page comics made from one piece of 8.5x11 printer paper, literally drawn on the paper made-to-scan, i would print out like 200 and hand them out a ton of local philly basement and warehouse shows, eventually getting a small notice amongst the noise band hipsters as the dude that made those weird comics.
but yeah, im sure the intent behind Gold Key's anonymous comics were on the complete polar opposite of my motivations to leave weird comics for people to enjoy and question its existence. I can only imagine a cramped studio with an assembly line of artists cranking these comic books out with no deeper passion for the content they are making. probably surly about the fact they bust there hands drawing all day with no credit what-so-ever.
while i purposely make anonymous comics for fun.
times change i guess.

anyways about the comic, its an anthology format with a bunch of short pieces
Wacky Witch is a sassy little witch girl that for some reason or other is the personal assistant to king dingaling
the first story and the longest, and the one it would have made sense to base the cover around instead of some seemingly random pinup of wacky witch skiing, is about the king wanting a falcon.
ya'see king dingaling is a greedy, bratty, stereotype who wants what he doenst have. after hearing about how hip trained falcon servants are he must have one.
so wacky, along with her sidekick, a ghoul named Greta, go out to find a falcon for the king.
as you can see above they find a falcon and Wacky decides to hypnotize it

and what d'ya know! once the king snaps his fingers he gets flown away by the falcon himself! how wacky!

The falcon brings King Dingaling back to his home perch where they run into a blatant Fred Flinstone character design rip-off with the name King Roxy.
we learn above that this falcon was actually his guard falcon and now his treasure is stolen!

but don't worry, Wacky Witch has the power to manipulate the ionosphere where she manages to crash land the bandits zeppelin and get King Roxy's gold.

But Wacky never got King Dingaling's falcon! so now she is forced to mind out the king's sick furry-esque tickle fantasy.

next we have a 2 page story of the 'Three Tusketeers'. The king loses his porridge bowl sends the Tusketeers to find it, they find a family of mice bathing in it and find out a cat sold it to them, they then find the cat who is then forced to feed King Dingaling. Simple corporal punishment joke.
great for kids.

The next comic is a 3 pager with a parrot and a guy named Chester whos freaking out because he's stressed and tense. The parrot, Piccolo, then does a punch of jokes and gags at his expense to relax Chester like the one above.
Piccolo then makes the mistake of giving Chester a badminton set, which of course the required 'hit the birdie' joke is had with Chester relieving his stress by hitting Piccolo with his racket.
violence is always the best punchline!

the dustbowl has hit King Dingaling's kingdom! Wacky Witch does some investigating and hears from Batty that it was the Grim Raker who's cause all the plants to die!
its up to Wacky Witch to serve some justice!

Wacky of course finds this Grim Raker, turns his rake into a black magic joke, forcing him to explain himself, which he goes on to blames the Midnight Knight.
So now Wacky has to find the Midnight Knight.

to make things worse were told that off-panel the Knight has stolen the Kings gold. now its personal.
BOOM! Wacky's hit.
Greta decide's to take it into her own hands, she then jumps out of a gopher hole and scares the Knight giving Wacky time to steal the gold back.

so...
Wacky then puts a bunch of cacti around the king's gold.
the end.

when i first plucked this from the dollar bin at Atomic City Comics i was pumped to have a wacky time with witchcraft. I was severely let down. Very boring and just not wacky enough. i can't imagine kids even thinking this is cool. looking at it just makes me hear the whiny obnoxious voices of 70's kids cartoons.
there also seems to be an over-abundance of sweat drops, movement lines, and highlighting lines.
major bummer.
next week ill be reviewing another Gold Key comic with hopefully better results!

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when i look back at my childhood, like any average white middle class family, i remember waiting in line for the rest of my family to sharpen pencils hours on end. this vintage snoopy ad brings all those memories flooding back to me!

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i'd like to point out the excess amount of controls and switches on the zit fighters battle ship that seemingly cover every surface possible. but luckily they found the fire button quick enough to shoot a giant astringent pad at mount fuji