Number 1875: Heaping it on

In 2013 I showed an origin of the character, the Heap, by Tom Sutton and Robert Kanigher, from Skywald’s one-shot issue of The Heap (1971). You can see it by clicking the link below this story. The origin I am showing today is the one told a few months earlier, in issue #2 of Skywald’s black-and-white publication, Psycho.

If you hang around this blog long enough you will catch up on all of these crazy stories. Read this origin, then follow up with the second origin, and then picture Pappy in 1971 with a puzzled expression on his face.

More Heap origins! This one from the one-shot color comic, The Heap, from Skywald, the other is the original Heap from Air Fighters Comics #3 (1942); Just click on the thumbnails.

Number 1840: Love and fraud for Claude

Who can resist a story about a gigolo? I can’t. When I was 14 our assignment in English class was to write a composition, what career we wanted to pursue when we grew up. I put down “gigolo.” I explained it was because it meant that girls would pay for dates. I thought I was being funny, but I got the paper back from my (female) teacher with “gigolo” underlined in red pencil and a stern note: “You need to look up this word for its precise definition.” I did. I defend it as a career choice, but unfortunately for me it was not to be. What I need now in my dotage is a gigolette. Also not likely to happen. (Especially if I want to keep Mrs Pappy.)

We meet both gigolo and gigolette in this story, drawn by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito for Heart and Soul #1 (1954). The art team had their own short-lived comic book line that year. Unfortunately, they came to publishing at a bad time for the industry, with titles crowding each other off the racks. Heart and Soul lasted only two issues.

Louis Prima and Keely Smith did “Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody” on a television program in 1959. Years later Van Halen ex-lead singer David Lee Roth remade the Prima version of the song.

Number 1184: “The man who dares to cut holes in the Iron Curtain!”

Three fast-moving, well-illustrated tales from Atlas Comics' Spy Thrillers are presented for your pleasure. It's the pleasure of seeing Ross Andru and Mike Esposito's artwork, especially the dynamic and symbolic splash pages.

AtlasTales.com equivocates on the cover credits, giving both Sol Brodsky? and/or Carl Burgos? a credit. Kind of.

Rick Davis is a globe-trotting United States Secret Service agent who answers his country's call to duty in Dick Tracy's yellow topcoat, and suits only a color blind person would pick. Green with a red tie. Nice Christmas colors. Where's his black suit and sunglasses, the uniform we consider appropriate for a Secret Service agent? Rick's world of the mid-'50s is full of Reds and commies, those treacherous and dangerous Cold War enemies of America. They have an advantage over Rick, able to spot him from quite a distance, glowing like a neon sign.

A couple of months ago the Secret Service took a beating over some rogue agents and some unprofessional conduct in Colombia. I have a high regard for the agency and believe they will get through this and do the job they should be proud to do, and with much better sartorial sense than Rick Davis.

From Spy Thrillers #4 (last issue, 1955):

Number 1051


Mr. Universe and the jungle that time forgot


Mister Universe ran for five issues in the early '50s, and it had different artists handling each issue. Ross Andru did some penciling and inking in number one, but number two, which I'm showing today, is the only issue done front to back by the Andru and Mike Esposito team, and the only issue with a book-length story.

"Jungle That Time Forgot" is credited to writer Harry Kantor. It's a precursor to many stories Andru and Esposito would later do for DC, featuring lost worlds and modern soldiers fighting dinos.

I took the scans from an online source, and although I've cleaned them up to the best of my ability, they still show that the issue was printed poorly with off-register colors. I've mentioned several time in this blog it's probably no surprise to anyone who has read comics for many years that early comics were the Rodney Dangerfield of the publishing world. They got no respect, printed by the millions on giant web presses by (sometimes) indifferent pressmen.