Number 728
The apes of Ape-ril
As you read in Pappy's #705, I've got some weird thing for simians in comic books. I'm apparently one of many ape fans, because as I've said more than once, DC Comics found out years ago that putting gorillas on the covers of comic books sold more comic books.
I have three stories for you today: From DC's Strange Adventures #8, 1951, a tale of evolution* by Gardner Fox, illustrated by Bob Oksner and Bernard Sachs. Moving forward along the evolutionary scale we have Nick Cardy's drawing on "Experiment 1000" from House of Secrets #6, 1957. We swing from the branches, away from the DC experimental lab to the Gold Key jungle and a 1964 Boris Karloff tale, starring the Great Man himself, Karloff! chasing after the great white ape in "The Mystagogue." The art is by Frank Thorne.
Chuck Wells' is joining in with his Comic Book Catacombs Going Apeshit jungle story here.
*Yet another take on Edmond Hamilton's "The Man Who Evolved," here.**********
Say...what?
And here's an extra, from Smash Comics #11, 1940:
By Jove, Captain Cook...a rare chimpanzee with transplanted owl eyes trained to steal green so he could eventually steal the royal emeralds would have been my choice for the culprit, too!
While all of these stories are pretty cool, the DC anthology titles of the Silver Age are just so hard to be beat for all out sci-fi action fun.
ReplyDeleteWe can definitely plan on another crossover like this down the road, Pappy. Thanks for the invite!!
I'm for it, Chuck.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the guy who ran the lunch stand in DC's building during that era sold more than the usual amount of bananas when they featured a gorilla story.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteToo many typos in first post. I misspelled "academic" for heaven's sake! That simply won't do . . ."
ReplyDeletePappy: You aren't the only that loves comics littered with apes. Both golden and silver ages seem to have an abundance of big monkey and ape stories, often with the simians being more human than human. Sounds like someone with an academic bent should do some sort of study.
Love the Gold Key story - and love Frank Thorne!
I like how that first story went from the sublime to the ridiculous. I mean that as a compliment.
ReplyDeletePappy, The Groove Agent recently posted two Batman stories featuring a fierce white gorilla:
ReplyDeletehttp://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/