Number 2280: Goodbye to 2018, hello end of the world!

Saying goodbye and good riddance to the old year seems a way of shedding some problems, aggravation and depression over the way things have been for the past 12 months. Now we start afresh with a new year, where the problems are all still there, and then more will undoubtedly pile on.

Wow, I am full of New Year cheer, aren’t I? So much so I thought I would share this comic book adaptation of George Pal’s movie, When Worlds Collide, which is about the end of the world. I have not seen the movie, but I read the 1933 book of the same name by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer when I was 12. Until then my nightmares were about an atom bomb being dropped on my city. I might survive that, I thought. But this was about Earth being destroyed by another planet! Wasn’t the threat of nuclear annihilation bad enough?

The comic book version of the movie adaptation is credited by the Grand Comics Database as written by Leo Dorfman, and drawn by George Evans, with a guess at inking by Al Williamson. The original Fawcett Comics edition was Motion Picture Comics #110 (1952). What I am presenting is the UK version, published the same year by L. Miller.

 Number 421


Thanksgiving Turkey Awards 2008


Welcome to a special Pappy's for Thanksgiving Day. This is the third annual Pappy's Thanksgiving Turkey Awards presentation. Our first was in 2006, with the classic but stupid "The Flat Man." We followed up the next year with "The Day The World Died", an unusual science fiction story. Unusually dumb, that is.

I make the rules for the Thanksgiving Turkey Awards. That means that my judgment is final, my choice of a winner can be whatever I think fills the bill. This year it means a bizarre Jimmy Olsen story, "The Bride of Jungle Jimmy," from Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #98, December 1966.

What's supposed to be a comedy comes out as is a weird tale of near bestiality, condescending, racist attitudes ("We pay our native extras off with trinkets!" Those ignorant villagers worship a gorilla! Ha ha!"), and even showing "scenes" from King Kong with a brunette Fay Wray. Talk about sacrilege.

The only comedy in the story is the unintentional kind. The panel of Bruna, the love-struck gorilla gal, eating the banana is so obvious you just know what kind of wedding night our furry bride has in mind for her groom.

Artwork on this story is by Pete Costanza, who worked with Captain Marvel artist C. C. Beck on many of the Captain Marvel stories. It's written by Leo Dorfman.

"The Bride of Jungle Jimmy," our 2008 Pappy's Thanksgiving Turkey Awards winner, gets three-and-a-half gobblers.

NOTE: I re-scanned the pages for this story in August, 2012.