Look There Nikima!

This is my favorite Frazetta Tarzan painting and perhaps my favorite Frazetta overall. The sense of adventure is overwhelming. 

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Neither Man Nor Beast!

One of Wally Wood's most personal creations is the ferocious Animan. That's shown by the fact that Wood saved Animan for his independent publication witzend!

Animan appears in the first two issues of witzend. The splash above is clearly inspired by this Hal Foster panel from the earliest adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes. 

(This is my favorite Tarzan image and arguably my favorite book cover.)

It's possible that Frazetta was inspired by it for Tarzan and The Lost Empire and then Wood by him. 

It was a pose which clearly made a powerful impact on Wood, as he used it in other places as well. Here it's the cover of a volume of Sally Forth comic strips. 

Animan even appears here as part of the advertisement for issues one and two of witzend. The drama of this panel is potent indeed. 

There are sketches of a figures much like Animan found on pages from Wood's earliest days . Clearly this was a figure he felt  deeply about.

To read the both parts of the Animan story from witzend #1 and #2 go here. 

Last year I picked up the full saga in this tome from Vanguard. The Animan stories are easily the most impressive pages in the book.

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Smoking Doesn't Pay!

I imagine most of us have seen Frank Frazetta's famous "ad" from vintage Warren magazines preaching the defects in the then quite common practice. I read recently that this was Frazetta's final piece of "comic art" of any kind and that it was specifically commissioned by James Warren for his magazines despite the profound loss of revenue rejecting smoking ads meant that the time. As it turns out comics were common device to sell cigarettes, so I guess it's only fair to use the format to present the counter view. Below are some vintage cigarette ads which use the comics format.

Don't fall victim amigos. I am lucky not to have the craving, though I will confess to having enjoyed the rare cigar from time to time. These days I've given it all up completely. 

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Blazing Combat Two!

Blazing Combat has always been considered a critical success and with the talent involved it's hard to see how it couldn't be. These are legendary artists assembled to put together both grand and small tales of war and service and bravery and other things too. Archie Goodwin gives us a broad spectrum of man at war with stories ranging from the American Revolution to the then current struggle in Vietnam. And it's that latter story in the second issue set in the land that America chose to stand up to worldwide Communism that the trouble for Blazing Combat really began. 

"Landscape" with art by Joe Orlando tales the story of war from the perspective of a villager caught between the armies that seek to slay one another in the name of their respective ideologies. And from where that old farmer sits the destruction that comes from the infiltration of the Vietcong or the flames of the American troops that come to seek them out is not really any different. It's this story which maybe suggests that American troops might've burned out a native village that put the American Legion and the U.S. Military on notice that Blazing Combat was not a magazine that was reliably tooting the patriotic trumpet.

On the opposite end of things is the second story featuring lush art by Reed Crandall which takes us to the American Revolution and shows how soldiers were unhappy with the classic style of war fought in Europe and instead embraced a new more aggressive approach led by the most surprising of war heroes.

"MIG Alley" tells us the story of fighter pilots trying to keep their nerve as they face down their Korean counterparts in an air war that is faster and more deadly than any to that point. One man is supremely confident and he is justified in that confidence until he's not. It's a dandy tale by Goodwin and Al McWilliams on the art chores.

Joe Orlando is up again drawing a Goodwin story about the Spanish-American War and the raw nature of combat and how fighting it "Face to Face" can change the way one sees the enterprise. The glamour of war fades when fear and death are looked square in the eye.

Al Williamson and Angelo Torres draw a handsome tale about brutal tank warfare which puts the reader in the seat of a tank which runs into the Panzers of Rommel in the deserts of North Africa. It's a sobering encounter as tables turn and then turn again.

Alex Toth is generally given a co-writing credit with Archie Goodwin on "Lone Hawk", a story of World War I flying aces which celebrates the ebullient bravery of one Billy Bishop as he strikes deadly streaks across the skies of Europe and all the while heroes die. Nifty twist in this one indeed.

The "Combat Quiz" in this issue was illustrated by Angel Torres.

"Holding Action" is a tale drawn by John Severin set in the Korean War and as Blazing Combat tales do so very very well puts the reader into the trench alongside the soldier. This time a soldier must confront his fear and what that transforms him into is scarier still. 

Archie Goodwin's tales in Blazing Combat seem to have a common bond and that is that war is fought by and around real human beings who are changed by the experience. Goodwin and his excellent cadre of artists make us experience those changes, make us feel, if only for a moment and in the most ephemeral of ways, the costs of waging war. It's no wonder the war makers of this country were bothered by this little comic book magazine. The powers that were started to boycott the magazine, in hopes of choking it out of existence, but not before two more issues were created. 

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