My Kind of Opera! by Dave Goode

MY KIND OF OPERA by Dave Goode

Wally Wood has been my favorite comic book artist for decades now. His style worked in every genre. Humor, horror, romance, mystery, jungle adventure...He could do it all. I'm especially fond of his science fiction stories. Or should I say "space opera". The stuff that featured steely-eyed, square-jawed space pilots with ray guns rescuing sexy damsels in distress wearing modified burlesque costumes. And of course B.E.M (Bug Eyed Monsters). And nobody drew the interior of a rocket ship like Wally Wood. Not even Jack Kirby.

I sometimes imagine Wood drawing comic book adaptations of certain 50s sci-fi flicks that Dell never got around to. The classic THIS ISLAND EARTH (1955) based on Raymond F. Jones 1952 novel with Wood illustrating the Metaluna mutant would have been pure magic. Not to mention what Wood's rendering of Faith Domergue in her sexy space suit would look like.

 

Another one that would have been great drawn by Wood would have been an adaptation of WORLD WITHOUT END (1956) written and directed by Edward Bernds who was well known for his work with the 3 Stooges. WORLD WITHOUT END was pure sci-fi pulp with it's future world of mutant cavemen and an underground civilization populated by leggy beauties in futuristic miniskirts. I always thought that with a little tweaking this flick could have made a good Challengers of the Unknown movie.

The list seems endless. With Wood drawing adaptations of QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE (1958) and others. Another one I would have loved to have seen Wood illustrate, maybe as a graphic novel, would have been INVADERS FROM MARS (1953). No Flash Gordon or Captain Future types in that one. But it did have Martian mutants, ray guns, and beautiful Helena Carter in seamed stockings.

WHAT'S A PERFECT NUMBER FOR A TEAM OF HEROES? by Dave Goode

Being born a year after the Silver Age of Comic Books began I was just three when the Justice League of America premiered. It was a re-imagining of the Justice Society of America feature from the Golden Age of Comics. And like the Justice Society,  the Justice League was a collection of All-Stars that first appeared in The Brave and The Bold No.28 (March 1960). Written by Gardner Fox it had a cover illustrated by Mike Sekowsky and Murphy Anderson with interior art by Sekowsky. The cover featured Aquaman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman in combat with Starro, a giant starfish. Both Superman and Batman made cameo appearances in this first story. But were not featured on the landmark cover.

I was one of those people that the editorial staff at DC was trying to entice with the all - star team format. Hoping that someone who was a fan of the Flash would buy a copy of the Justice League and find Green Lantern was pretty neat and start buying that hero's title as well. Though at this time in my life as a young comic book reader I couldn't understand why Captain America wasn't a member of this team. It seemed like a natural. If nothing else he and Wonder Woman would look great in scenes together.

 

The JLA had some of the coolest covers going. Some, like the cover for JLA No.1, would become iconic. And most of these covers displayed the "super friends" using teamwork to defeat an enemy. Though it always seemed to me while reading these stories that if any of the villains they fought had turned up in any of these heroes' individual titles they would be handily beaten as well. I also preferred the earlier stories where Superman and Batman only made cameo appearances. And the action was carried by lesser known characters. After Green Arrow joined the team I thought that he and Martian Manhunter would have made a good substitute for the "World's Finest Team". To me four or five was the perfect number for a group of superheroes. But seeing that this was an all-star squad I could see them having a few more.

Below is a cover from the Goode Guy Comic Book universe illustrated by Vance Capley. It features the heroes Dr. Judo, Mr. Incognito, the Phantom Gorilla, and the Judo Twins (Judo Jim & Judo Jenny) with a guest appearance by El Tigre.

Get Dr. Judo, Judo Comics, Monster Magazine, and many more....here:

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/VanceCapley

Now YOU can support the JLA!!

ANOTHER QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE by Dave Goode

Fight Comics 32...Tiger Girl

The argument can always be made that the most popular Tarzan comic book imitator was Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Her popularity would lead to the creation of a number of "jungle queen" imitations. My favorite of the Golden Age Sheena imitations was Tiger Girl created by Robert Webb and often drawn by legendary good girl artist Matt Baker. Appearing originally in Fight Comics No. 32 from Fiction House in 1944 she was no relation to the Tiger Woman from Republic Pictures. THE TIGER WOMAN (1944) was a 1944 serial that starred the stunning Linda Stirling, who just might have made a great Tiger Girl.

Linda Stirling as Tiger Woman

Someone else who would have made a good Tiger Girl would have been my favorite ecdysiast Lilly "The Cat Girl" Christine. It has been reported that the sensual Miss Christine was considered by producer Sol Lesser to play Sheena of the Jungle in a series of films in the late 1940s. Unfortunately that series never materialized. 

She would have been great as the whip - wielding Princess Vishnu a.k.a Tiger Girl who fought the forces of evil in the Indian jungle with her pet tiger Benzali.

There was another Tiger Girl in the Silver Age of Comics. She was a one-shot character that appeared in her own title from Gold Key in 1968. Created by Superman's co-creator Jerry Siegal and Jack Sparling. A fun little story starring circus performer Lilly Taylor who put on a tiger - striped costume and fought the bad guys in this high camp adventure with the aid of her pet tiger "Kitten" and other performers of the circus. I really wish there had been more than one story.

And now, Dave Goode and Vance Capley present

a brand new Golden Adonis strip!

ONE MAN'S NOSTALGIA PART TWO by Dave Goode

Do you remember the television series LOVE THAT BOB/THE BOB CUMMINGS SHOW (1955 to 1959). It starred Bob Cummings as Bob Collins, a suave ladies man and photographer working in Hollywood, and his interactions with his models, family and secretary. Bob Collins was the first pin-up photographer that I was introduced to. And though he was a womanizer he was still depicted as being more or less a nice guy.

Art by Dave Stevens

That wasn't always the case for glamour popular fiction where they were quite often depicted as "sharp-shooters" taking advantage of innocent young girls from "Small Town, America" who come to big cities with stars in their eyes. This was often the case in exploitation paperbacks and grind house movies.

 

This made for interesting reading and movie viewing. But there was probably nothing further from the truth. How much business would a pin-up photographer get once they got a reputation as being a skirt-chaser? But of course that's what young boys fantasized about. Scoring with the models they saw in "girlie mags". And of course teenaged boys were under the impression that these photogs were getting this action. This was reinforced by Russ Meyers who had married two of his models and dated a number of others.

And then there was the fantasy of saving some naive young model from the clutches of an unscrupulous photographer who was in fact a (gasp) pornographer. I've used this story line in comics with both my Dr. Judo and Mr. Incognito characters. But this is seldom the case. In fact in the Mr.Incognito strip the model berates the American luchador for his rescue. And is worried that she's not going to get paid for the session that the masked man broke up. The models are adults who have made a grown up decision. And they're also quite able to take care of themselves when it comes to handling a lech as Miss Ginger Snaps does in the new comic by myself and Vance Capley.

Dave Goode copyright 2019

_______________________________________________________________

You can also order our budget edition here.

________________________________________________________________

VVV - CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO GET YOUR COPY OF DR. JUDO! - VVV

____________________________________________________________________

CLICK THE PICTURE TO GET YOUR

DR. JUDO T-SHIRT TODAY

ZAN...THE FORGOTTEN TARZAN by Dave Goode

One of my favorite ersatz Tarzans was Zan, King of the Jungle (1969). The star of this European production known alternately as Tarzan En La Gruta Del Oro (TARZAN IN THE GOLDEN GROTTO) and KING OF THE JUNGLE the movie's star Steve Hawkes claimed the film company that produced the flick couldn't pay the licensing fee to the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate for the use of the Tarzan name. And so they simply cut the jungle hero's name in half. 

In any case the production was a fairly entertaining flick that was filmed in Africa, Florida, Italy  Spain, and Suriname. And it featured something that was rarely seen in a Tarzan movie since MGM's TARZAN THE APE MAN (1932). Tarzan in mortal combat with a gorilla.

The movie's star Steve Hawkes was born Stepjen "Steve" Sipek in Croatia and relocated to Canada in 1959. I've read interviews with Hawkes where he claimed to be a champion swimmer (Johnny Weissmuller was his boyhood hero) and the winner of the Mr.Canada bodybuilding title before becoming a professional wrestler. The latter was pure "kayfabe". There is no record of him winning the Mr. Canada championship. There have been any number of well - built pro wrestlers who billed themselves as Mr. America or Mr. Universe without having won those titles. Or even having competed in those contests.

There was a sequel to KING OF THE JUNGLE, TARZAN AND THE BROWN PRINCE (1972) that had a similar plot to the Jock Mahoney movie TARZAN'S THREE CHALLENGES (1963). Hawkes played the lead in this flick and his co- star from the first movie Kitty Swan returned as well. 

 

Swan had starred in a jungle movie of her own as GUNGALA, VIRGIN OF THE JUNGLE (1967). An accident on the set of TARZAN AND THE BROWN PRINCE left Hawkes and Swan both horribly burned when they were tied down for a scene and a fire got out of control. A lion on the set who was trained to free the actors from their bonds for the scene actually saved them.Hawkes would relocate to Loxahatchee, Florida where he opened an animal sanctuary. News services of course wrote him up as a real life Tarzan. But in 2012 he was arrested and his animals confiscated for "non regulatory compliance in regards to animal permits".