A Glance at the Gallery By Michael McFadden, CGC Quality Control
Greetings, fandom! Michael McFadden here, CGC’s denizen of the Fortress of Qualitude, with a scintillating soiree into the splendid skies of shiny slabbed, superbly certified comics of singular sizzle-itation!
Newly exhibited on the CGC DigiGallery for your enjoyment and edification are some exciting pedigrees, including the Mile High copies of Colossus Comics #1, Fight Comics #45, Smash Comics #63, Funny Pages V3 #4, Jungle Comics #15 and a 9.6 Super Comics #1. Super! We added a number of Carson City books: All Top Comics #1, Goofy Comics (aren’t they all?) #1, Happy Comics #1, Girls Love Stories #1 and Movie Comics #1, an Academy Award, winning 9.6. X-Men 4 (9.8) is a Curator copy, Mystery Men Comics #16 is from the Allentown collection (8.5), Mystic #58, a Circle 8 copy at 9.0, Brave and the Bold #1 (Ohio, 7.0), 80 Page Giant #11 (Boston, 9.6) and Tomahawk #9 is a River City copy at 9.2. Pacific Coast entries are Avengers #2 (9.6) and Strange Tales #114 (9.8).
File copies from Harvey begin with that irrepressible psycho, Little Dot #s 3 and 5, both 9.4 and Black Cat Mystery Comics #47, 9.4 as well. Gaines File Copies added include all four issues of Picture Stories from American History, Picture Stories from the Bible #s 2 and 3, Picture Stories from the Satanic Bible #nn, Crime Illustrated #2, Crime Superstores #s 7 and 12, and Two-Fisted Tales #37. About a month early is Mickey and Donald Merry Christmas #nn, a Firestone premium, Four Color #s 63 and 466, all Dell file copies.
Let’s look at some other fabulous books that crossed the Quality Control Alter at CGC World Headquarters this month. Sixties fans will remember Ed Aprill, a good guy who left us tragically in the early seventies. I was fortunate to meet Ed at the 1969 World Science Fiction Convention in St. Louis where, in addition to his extensive comic huckster spread, he was promoting his publishing efforts. In the sixties, there was much appreciation in fandom for the adventure newspaper strips of the 1930s through the 1950s and their landmark artists, giants like Hal Foster, Alex Raymond and Milt Caniff. Great Classic Newspaper Comic Strips #5 features the first reprints of Frank Frazetta’s little-known, short-lived racecar epic, Johnny Comet. Technically a fanzine and certainly a rarity, this copy is a solid 9.6. Johnny Comet, incidentally, bears a striking resemblance to Frazetta himself.
Harry “A” Chesler books in higher grades isn’t that common either. Dynamic Comics #22’s cover feature, Dynamic Man, is about to put the hoodoo on a zoot-suited, sax blowing pied piper leading a parade of boozy bobby-soxers and cheap hoods. But I gots to dig those crazy threads, man! And Red Seal Comics (the lifestyle magazine for those rare red seals, I guess)#17 depicts the dreaded Black Dwarf busting up an armed assault. Now let’s get something straight, and I do use that word advisedly, but on some level all comic geeks want to be masked avengers. Fine, but how many of us would pick the Black Dwarf’s ridiculous get-up? Personally, I would not choose to fight crime in a floor length nightshirt, a floor length cape and a skimmer borrowed from the hep-cat on the cover of Dynamic Comics #22. That pistol he brandishes I would mercifully turn on myself. I just have to wonder what his Red Seal co-feature, the Gay Desperado, wears.
Timely’s Super Rabbit #1, from 1944, shows the bombastic bunny- who knows how a superhero is supposed to dress- forcibly dragging Hitler and Tojo to the “War Guilt Trials.” Terry-Toons # 7 shows the beloved Gandy Goose and Sourpuss in a rare snapshot of unanimity as they dangle Axis leaders from a U.S. airplane over the open jaws of a hungry shark. Yummo! Facists are tasty! War covers are uncommon for funny animal comics unless you happen to be published by Timely, the outfit that gleefully reveled in unabashed war propaganda covers. Also added to the DigiGallery from Timely are Terry-Toons #38, the first appearance of Mighty Mouse in comics and Marvel Mystery Comics #’s 13, 18, 27, 46, 58 (Davis Crippen), 72, 76 (9.4!) and 85.
No stranger to those classic Timely World War Two covers (or the fan-boy adulation of our own West Stephan), Alex Schomburg shows a softer side of his work with his painted romance cover on Dear Beatrice Fairfax #8, a pulp fiction “Dear Abby,“ a 9.4 entry. Then obscure Charlton artist Dick Giordano really stretches to portray the Beatles on the 9.2 cover of Summer Love #46, released in the summer of 1965. The cover of M.F. Enterprise’s Crime Does Not Pay V3 #4, the cheesy 1970s magazine, not the classic Golden Age comic, is painted by, uh, I dunno, the Marquis de Sade, maybe? Anyway, these gangsters are giving a whole new meaning to getting together for a hot poker game. The lady didn’t want to play; she said she was all tied up.
Comic shows didn’t end with summer and we have outstanding SigSeries books to prove it. Leading off is St. Louisan Jim Lee’s sharply illustrated portrait of Witchblade on the Sketch edition of Witchblade: Art of the Witchblade #1. Lee also added his signature to a 9.8 copy of Image Zero #nn, along with an impressive cast of Image luminaries: Jim Valentino, Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, Whilce Portacio, J. Scott Campbell and Marc Silvestri.
Amazingly, we added no Fallen Sons #3 this month, ending a solid streak that began the month the book came out. Gene Colan lends his ample talent to a Secret Invasion #1 Sketch edition, continuing its unbroken run. Marvel Bullpenner Herb Trimpe does a vigorous full-figure rendition of Wolverine on a copy also signed by Brian Michael Bendis. Bendis also personalized a copy with an Eric Powell sketch of Goon, Skrull style. Steve Epting delivers a dynamite Skrull Captain America illo that could easily pass as a real Secret Invasion cover! See it you must.
We’re always in awe of celebrity in the Fortress of Qualitude. Who’s a bigger celebrity than Barack Obama, the nation’s President-Elect? I bet that Savage Dragon endorsement on the variant cover of #137 really swung the hotly contested superhero vote his way. Who’s gonna argue with a guy who wears a size 36 collar, anyway? This copy is signed by Bara… uh, Eric Larson. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Oz #1 has a photo cover autographed by Seth Green. And a Baltimore Comic Con Edition of 3 Geeks: Slab Madness #1 is personalized by CGC’s ex-mega head cheese Steve Borock, current Vice (he has many)-President Paul Litch and writer-artist Rich Koslowski. Both Borock and Litch are featured as characters in the story. Slab Madness? Gosh, Batman, what could he mean by that?
Nine-nines this month start with Avengers/JLA #4, JLA: The Nail #1 (I hear the sequel will be “The Hangnail“), JSA Classified #1 (a SigSeries copy), Justice League of America #23 (the new run, naturally), Evil Ernie Straight to Hell #1, Lady Death #1 Leatherbound (Lady Death, with her ample bosom and drag queen hair, bound in leather? There’s a great line here that I’m sure my lovely editors will not let me use!), Fantasy Masterpieces V2 #6, Gears of War #1, Mouse Guard: Winter 1152 #1 (my grandcat‘s least favorite book), Secret Invasion #6, Spiderman/Black Cat #1(What’s that story title? “The Quality That Printers Do?“), Superman: For All Seasons #4, Wormwood Gentleman Corpse: Calimari Rising #3 RRP, X-Men #6 (the newer run, naturally), Uncanny X-Men #145, Wildstar: Sky Zero #1 and Ultimate Spider-Man #s 15 and 50. As usual, we had a crapload of Transformers… All Hail Megatron #3, Reign of Starscream #3 RRP and Spotlight: Hardhead #1 RRP.
Supersonically streaking to the Ten-Ozone are Back to Brooklyn #1 (Is this book about the L.A. Dodgers?), Deadpool #1 and Superman: Red Son #3. Now the amazing thing this month is that there we added no new Locke and Key to the DigiGallery. Guess they aren’t a Locke anymore. Superceding that franchise is a new up and comer with an astounding seven entries this month: Image’s War Heroes. Issues #1 and #1A, #1 (SigSeries), #1 Sketch (SigSeries), and #2 all had copies certified ten-oh; a War Heroes #1 (Tour of Duty Edition SigSeries) and a #2A both hit nine-nine. Garth Ennis and Amanda Conner’s Pro #1 earned a ten, a certification equaling the book’s story and art.
My favorite this month is Lawbreakers Suspense Stories #11. This cover illustrates a typical pre-code domestic scene. A demented maniac is politely explaining to a stunning, scantily clad mute that screaming for help will avail her naught, because he has cut out the tongues of everyone downstairs. Cut out their tongues? How creative! How thorough! How much did we need this guy during the election campaign? While the craftiness and theatricality of our razor-knife wielder is impressive, indeed, his housekeeping skills are hard to swallow. There are severed tongues galore all over the place. I wonder if they’re still flapping? Some people never know when to shut up. Someone really needs to follow this guy around with a Swiffer and a dustpan! This is the only house that if you step on something soft, squishy and sticky, you hope it’s some idiot’s carelessly discarded wad of gum… and not a severed sliver of mangled mouth meat! Tongues will be wagging about the quality of this certified copy at 7.5. Sorry it’s not an 8.0, folks, but that’s a mute point.
Comments and questions regarding the gallery? We’re fans, too. We enjoy hearing from you, unless we don‘t. You can contact me at mmcfadden@cgccomics.com. Thank you for your time and do remember- be good to yourself. Be CGC-ing you!
