More of those old german Marvel comics

As I never tire to mention in my posts I like to have some diversity. And since it has been almost a year since I did the first post on these german comics from before most comic readers Today were born it´s time to once again start up the way back machine to take a trip down memory lane to the days when buying a new Marvel comic would make your entire week.

Now it has taken me a few days longer than I expected to finish my last post but the promised follow up post about all the other EC Comics titles that were not horror books is still in the pipeline. As those readers that pop in here on a regular basis and do not just wait until the posts are finished can attest the post went through a series of re - writes because at first I put everything in, then I came across real life Power Girl Giselle Gomez Rolon and after adding all the animated GIFs and videos there was just too much stuff about hot women in it so I threw everything out that was related to birthdays from the day before. I even managed to put in a few video as links but I may have written too much about Monica Farro.

Before starting this post I thought about taking some of her pictures out again but on the other side I don´t want to fuss too much over the posts. At least I deleted some of the NSFW text passages. Anyway, back to the topic of the day when people tell me that I just don´t like what Disney is selling as Marvel comics Today because I´m too hung up on them olden days and that it´s all because of the nostalgia. Well, the thing with nostalgia is that there has to be something you can get nostalgic about.

It´s true, everything is someone´s first comic as old issues of DEADPOOL being called classic now attests to but here are two counter arguments. First off, I was never a reader who thought the old ways were best in comics and I was always open for things that shook up the status quo. I mean, some of my favorite runs on books are not those that everybody sees as classic but more the underappreciated or undervalued runs. It´s true, some of them may be considered classics now but just a decade ago nobody would have cited the runs on UNCANNY X - MEN by John Romita Jr or Marc Silvestri nor John Romita Jr.´s run on DAREDEVIL or Paul Ryan´s marathon on FANTASTIC FOUR, Ron Frenz´s run on THE MIGHTY THOR and John Buscema´s second run on THE AVENGERS ( I also have a soft spot for Steve Epting´s period, especially THE GATHERERS Saga ) as their favorites.

Most of these have gotten more attention lately due to the fact that Disney´s current output is so abysmal that compared to that most of the old stories read like comic gold. And some of it has come out in Epic Collections so that readers can easily get them. The other argument I want to make is that it´s not so much a case of me weeping because I don´t like the current comics. It´s more about getting depressed when realizing how far they have fallen. And - yes - Today´s comic readers can´t relate to that because they don´t know how glorious Marvel comics used to be. They have no sense of history and they didn´t experience the pure excitement and sense of adventure and grandeur that seeped from every page of these sloppy translated, misprinted expendable entertainment.

And there were no special stores were you could get missing back issues in pristine condition. The only way to read some older issues were cheaply produced trades were four issues were just glued together under a cheap cover. Anyway, through all their defects they were more exciting to read than most of Today´s Disney output - except for the occassional reprints in MARVEL MASTERWORKS, Epic Collections or the likes which is one of the reasons why most german comic readers still cling on to those old comics from Williams Verlag. So let´s stop talking and show some of that analog excitement or like one translator so aptly put it : Das sagte Nuff !  

I specifically am including the pages dealing with Der Rote Rächer ( Red Guardian ) a story in DIE RUHMREICHEN RÄCHER that led to a discussion if Williams Verlag should continue publishing the AVENGERS issues even if the stories dealt with a worldview that was tainted by the anti communist agenda of McCarthy or skip those issues. Back then there were a lot of people who thought that politics should not be part of the story. Which helps to illustrate my point about how much comics have changed since then as Today´s comics have even worse SJW propaganda on every page.

I have no links for this post and since I already covered Today´s birthdays in this post we get straight to the videos starting with this guy who is very excited that he found some Williams Marvel Comics at a flea market.



Back when I was reading only german comics I was very dependent on the translations which included the names. Now granted while it sometimes was more accurate and cringe worthy at the same time like with Doktor Untergang and outright terrible like with Blitzmann there were some cool translations and I think that the german versions of american comics have lost something. Nowadays kids grow up being more fluent in english than in their native language so comic companies in German don´t even bother to look for a german equivalent of Green Arrow, Flash or the Suicide Squad - especially since that could hurt revenues from tv shows or movies. I for once am glad that I had the privilege to grow up reading the adventures of Silberstürmer, Waldwolf, Blitzschwalbe, Negativblitz and Doppelgesicht.



Speaking of translations, not only is Ben Grimm voiced by the same guy who does Homer Simpson in Germany in this cartoon from 1978, he is also called Der Klotz which means Brick which is also the name of the main character in the first and only issue of Power Freaks. Sadly I don´t live in America because if I did this would be grounds enough to file a lawsuit.



Now I was looking for clips of german music from the time when Marvel comics were published by Williams Verlag when I found some complete episodes of Musikladen. Which may pre - date them but for me it´s close enough. There are quite a few episodes of this cult show on YouTube and I don´t have the time to watch them all so I picked one with Arabesque which people from my generation remember as the all girls band where Sandra started. The show also has live performances by The Gap Band, Motörhead and Queen ( Flash from the Flash Gordon movie with Sam Jones which is of course based on the classic comic strip by Alex Raymond ). 



Speaking of comic adaptions, I have posted the Spider - Man movies from the 70s a few times but I don´t think that includes the german version.



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Jetzt geht´s rund !

Tales From The Crypt Thursday : Bill Gaines

Well, you really didn´t think I would miss an opportunity to put more EC Comics on the blog, did you ? Especially since Today is not only Bill Gaines´ birthday but also the birthday of Jack Oleck who wrote House Of Mystery, Weird War Tales and a lot of EC Comics including Crime SuspenStories.

This is really the best way to start a month. I already wrote a lot about why Bill Gaines was such a big pioneer in the field of comics in last year´s tribute post so I won´t bore my readers by repeating it again. Which is also the reason why I switched things. To keep things interesting. So last year I went with full stories - preferably the original art if available - but this year I wanted to represent the full range of EC Comics publishing.

Because when most people talk about EC Comics they only talk of their most famous ones which are the horror anthology titles Tales From The Crypt, The Vault Of Horror and since it hasn´t received the full movie treatment it takes people longer to come up with the third one The Haunt Of Fear. Now don´t get me wrong. The reason why everybody talks about these three comic books is that they are the best. And I don´t mean they were the best, no, they are the best. Today´s comic readers might think they are knowledgeable about comic books but if you have not read these three comic series you know nothing of good comics. They were the best comic books ever made when they came out, they have become such cult comics because most of those issues were like master classes on how to make comics and they still hold up. They are still better than a lot of the comic books that come out Today ( especially in light of the crap that DC and Disney has put out in recent years ) and they were all done analogue.

Anyway, instead of just looking through my EC folder for some original art I also went on the internet to do some research on all the different series EC Comics published. Now you won´t see any of the funny animal comics or bible comics in these posts but apart from that I tried to include as many genres as I could. Which is the reason that I split it into two post.

As longtime readers know my posts used to be very short and I have tried to not let the posts get out of hand where the length is considered even though I have not always been successful. After making the final selection I had too many pictures for one post even applying the rule that original art and color art together only count as one piece of art. So I split this into two posts where this post will contain mostly the aforementioned horror books while our next EC post will be all about the other EC stuff.

To still make this post a bit special we have a little Deja Vu section and I included those titles that later became the three famous horror titles.

I only found one link for Today´s post but it´s a rare find. Back in 1972 the EC Fan - Addict convention was held that brought together Bill Gaines, Al Feldstein, Wally Wood, Jack Davis, Marie Severin, George Evans Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, Jerry DeFuccio, Joe Orlando and Al Williamson and you can find the full transcript of the panel on 20TH CENTURY DANNY BOY .

One of the perks of doing posts on the same day is that I can skip the birthdays that I have already covered which is why this section may look different for those readers who don´t wait until the posts are finished.

When I first wrote the post I included three birthdays from Yesterday here because I had videos and a few links to older posts but because I added a lot of stuff about somebody else ( to which we will come at the end of this post ) I took it all out again. I mean, it was after all stuff I should only include if I had written this Yesterday. And the less I write about former Miss Uruguay Monica Farro who confesses to being a complete sex freak, having sex up to six times a day and having three g - spots, the better.

Any comment like that she loves to do it in the shower, had sex with ten guys or that she is the born sex instructor who loves to give young studs lessons in bed is completely not safe for work not to mention her pictures since she is not only an absolute MILF knockout but also has the prototype heart shaped butt which led to uncountable pictorials in PLAYBOY, MAXIM and other men´s magazines. I should not post any of them on the blog.

As for videos, all the clips with her erotic strip dances from Bailando Para Un Sueno are of very low quality as are most of the others. And even if some of them were available on YouTube - like her threesome or foursome sex scenes from Sexo Seguro - I could not post them in clear conscience.

So I cut all of that and since I covered most of Today´s birthdays last year the only anniversary I am going to mention is the late Arnold Drake. If you are not familiar with his name don´t worry, I had to do a bit of research myself which made me decide to pay homage here. Most people don´t know his name but he surely left his mark in the comic book landscape because he co - created The Doom Patrol with artist Bruno Premiani, Stanley And His Monster with Win Mortimer and Deadman with Carmine Infantino at DC and at Marvel he created Mesmero, Lorna Dane and Havok and co - created the original Guardians Of The Galaxy with Stan Lee.

Now I thought I still had Comics Alliance´s You Think You Know The Doom Patrol bookmarked but I must have used it in some other post. But fear not dear reader instead here is the Doom Patrol cartoon from DC Nation. Or better the first installment. For some reason the Amethyst one is the only cartoon where somebody bothered to put all the parts into one clip so like the Atom you have to look for the other episodes on YouTube.



Well, one man´s loss is another man´s gain so here are some interesting facts about the Tales From The Crypt comic book series and EC Comics.



Bob Ross, one of the most important painters of the 20th century, always said we don´t make mistakes we only have happy accidents. Usually I like to include a music video but I could not find one that was horror oriented and I didn´t want to include a music video with Elvira, the Mistress of the Dark because of the last part of this post. So instead I am posting a video from Tales From The Crypt. Initially I picked this illustrated audio drama because it´s the longest I could find - due to the fact that it includes three stories that have a special connection. You see, while the stories in the EC comics were great they were all standalone done - in - one stories so they never had continuity like and therefore these three stories are the only case of a crossover. While none of the characters appear in any of the other stories the first story gets mentioned in the two other stories.



Two videos in a row about the same subject are enough so instead of a third video about Tales From The Crypt - with an episode of the tv series - here is the first tv movie about Kolchak, the Night Stalker. This is a series I literally know very little about. I don´t know if it ever aired in Germany and the only reason why I know of it´s existence is because video tapes were always in the pre - order catalogue ( Whichever was the one before PREVIEWS became a monopole - Advance Comics ? ) along with the comics.



At this point you are probably wondering what prompted me to cut all the stuff about Police Academy, Janet Jones Gretzky, Leslie Easterbrook, Becky Mullen, Monique Sluyter and the Tutti Frutti girls and the reason for that is that I wanted to include some videos with Giselle Gomez Rolon who would have been a prime candidate for my SEARCH FOR POWER GIRL series. Unfortunately I am not doing that anymore but not only is Giselle the living embodiment of the Maid of Mammaries, she also looks exactly like the kind of women I draw. From the proportions - which women don´t tire to tell me are not average to which I always reply that I am not trying to draw average women - down to the hairdo to the way I draw eyes and those crazy, curved eyebrows it´s like one of my drawings came to life.

She even has those bikini tan lines that I find sextremely attractive.

Anyway, the first video I found is from The Toc Show where she is wearing an incredible black short dress and re - enacting Sharon Stone´s famous scene from Basic Instinct. Now as always I am a bit late to the party - the clips are from 2016 - so I have no idea how the general reaction was but apparently there were some wild rumors spreading and I want to clear some of them. Some people see only what they want to see but contrary to what you may read on the internet there is no wardrobe malfunction.

Since I could not find any good pictures nor GIFs I had to make my own which meant going through the video frame by frame and even though some websites pixelated the shots of Giselle Gomez Rolon I can say without any doubt that she is wearing panties - unlike Sharon Stone ( unless she was using a body double ). And all the people who got upset surely have seen the original scene with Sharon Stone so it´s not like this would have been the first time they saw a woman´s unmentionables.



I am including this second short video from the show because they have a higher quality than the complete episode - at least the version I found .



To make up for that here are two more videos from an episode of Toc Show where Giselle really struts her stuff. Her dress in this one is even better.

As those visitors that can read spanish can see the first short clip is about sexual harassment and the context here is a study that was made where a woman was molested by a guy in public and a guy was also molested in public by a woman. And the outcome was that with the woman people were very quick to respond while with the man it was mainly ignored. So the discussion is about why it is seen as so different but also about when is a man sexually harassed by a woman and when is she just being friendly.



And here is the complete show in high quality. Now my mother watches on of these morning shows but it´s five old women talking about illnesses, medicines, who died, who cheated on his secretary with his wife and all the stuff nobody wants to know about and I tell you after five minutes of that hens cackling away I have a headache for the rest of the day. Give me instead something like Toc Show with hot Power Girls like Giselle Gomez Rolon with her boobs almost jumping out of her dress and re - enacting Sharon Stone or sexbomb Pauli Bolatti demonstrating how to squat down the right way to play volley ball , showing the best uses for a beach towel or building a sand castle wearing a bikini and I could watch that all day.



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A newspaper man is the loneliest guy on earth. Socially he ranks somewhere between a hooker and a bartender.