Breakfast With Diana

Adding to our ever-growing selection of free and/or promotional comics is this Wonder Woman comic from Post™ cereals, circa 1979. As you'd expect, this isn't the type of story that would win any awards or even get nominated for "best story", but you've gotta admit that a free comic (or free toy or stickers or whatever) in your cereal did make for a good morning. Unless your brother woke up earlier than you and snagged it first.
















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Pocket Sized Parody

In 1967, TOPPS released a set of sixteen little parody comics under the title KRAZY LITTLE COMICS. They are extremely rare due to the fact that they were printed in smaller quantities than Topps' baseball cards and they had only limited distribution. A complete set sold at an auction for over $1000 USD.
This is the Wonder Woman parody, "BLUNDER WOMAN", illustrated by none other than Wally Wood himself.
Most of the whole set can be viewed over at The Wonderful Wonderblog.








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Sunday Funnies: THE FUNDAY TIMES 1989

From the September 17th, 1989 issue of THE FUNDAY TIMES, here's a batch of old strips that should bring back memories. I still wonder why more newspapers don't add a supplemental tabloid for comics. With printed paper sales rapidly shrinking, a collectible portion might increase the sales slightly.It would also be a good way to gather long runs of popular strips that don't get collected in book form, ie: PRINCE VALIANT, DICK TRACY, THE PHANTOM, etc. etc.
But anyway, here's a look at the funny pages from twenty years ago....







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Carl Burgos Original Art

Carl Burgos is probably one of the most underrated and under-appreciated artists who worked during the golden and silver ages of comics. Starting way, way back on the original Human Torch comics (the robot one, not Johnny Storm), his career included work with almost every major publisher in his lifetime.
A lot of his published output was just simple formula works for anthology titles, but ya can't hold it against a guy for trying to earn a living can ya?
This original art is, sadly, not owned by me; I just got these scans off of ebay. If you're interested, the set of five pages are for sale for about $500 USD.

by Carl Burgos
finished art published in ALARMING ADVENTURES #3, February 1963






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DEVIL CHICKEN

Add this to the category of "Things You Don't See Everyday": a devil chicken. And just what is a devil chicken? Well, read on....

from DEVIL KIDS #100, August 1980




You'd think he would've learned his lesson after the last time he tried to eat an egg. And also, wouldn't you think a devil chicken would lay deviled eggs? That would come in handy around Thanksgiving time I think.





Yep, stuck babysitting again. A suitable ending, I think.
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IT'S A MAD WORLD: Germany

In Germany, MAD is subtitled "das intelligenteste magazin der welt", ie: "the smartest magazine in the world". Kind of fitting, actually, since studies have shown that people with a sense of humor are smarter, happier, and more successful than crabby people.
I can't guarantee any of the joy or success, but if you take some time to decipher these comics from the original Deutsch language, you'll at least be slightly more educated than you were before.

by die übliche bande von idioten
from MAD (German) #137, January 2011

this whole issue is some kind of hip-hop special edition, and this is the first of several articles about rappers; this is basically a satire of "hip-hop reality vs. hip-hop fantasy"....




these should be easy for you, single panel gags....




another article on hip-hop, "What's worse about gangsta rap?"...



next is the easiest yet, a wordless piece...



finally, even you can turn an old poem into a rap song. just follow these tips...



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THE MAD COVER SITE - that MAD magazine fansite that shows all the covers
COLLECT MAD - the other MAD fansite that shows all the collectibles
THE ULTRA RARE MAD TV SHOW FROM 1974 - how does this stuff end up on youtube? apparently there were a lot of people who saved old VHS tapes
MAD TV - episodes from the live-action series viewable online
THE OFFICIAL MAD SHOW ON CARTOON NETWORK - the most current incarnation of MADtv
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WHAT IF...WEDNESDAY WITH STRETCHY SUPERHEROES

The Fantastic Four, by some inexplicable reason, all gained different powers after being exposed to cosmic rays. Reed and Sue seemed to get the best part of the deal (or at least they adapted well), while Ben became detached and grouchy and Johnny became arrogant and superficial because of their respective powers.
But what if the playing field were leveled, and they all shared the same defect?

by Jim Valentino and Hilary Barta
from WHAT IF? #11, March 1990





Bonus points for you if you recognized the way they just parodied Plastic Man's origin story right there...


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