Showing posts with label Four Color. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Four Color. Show all posts

Friday, April 15, 2022

Captain's Library KING OF KINGS Part 3

You may be wondering "Where's Parts 1 & 2?"...
Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus Christ
...and the answer is; we haven't run them yet!
Since it's Good Friday, we're presenting the Dell Comics adaptation of the final part of the 1961 movie, covering the period from Palm Sunday to the Resurrection.
We'll run the first part around Christmas, and the second shortly after that.
While the writer for this movie adaptation from Dell's Four Color Comics #1236 (1961) is unknown, the artist is Gerald McCann, a pulp artist who moved to comics in the early 1950s and did numerous Classics Illustrated covers and stories including "Abraham Lincoln" and "Ben-Hur".
Here's "six degrees of separation" trivia...in only five degrees!
  • John Huston, who later did a prequel movie, The Bible: In the Beginning, directed Moby Dick, using a screenplay adapted by Ray Bradbury from the Herman Melville novel.
  • Ray Bradbury wrote the voiceovers in King of Kings spoken by Orson Welles.
  • Welles' The Shadow and Mercury Theatre co-star Agnes Moorehead served as dialogue coach to  Jeffrey Hunter (Jesus Christ) in King of Kings.
  • Jeffrey Hunter later played Christopher Pike, the first captain of the Starship Enterprise in the pilot episode of Star Trek, "The Cage".
  • Star Trek did an episode, "Bread and Circuses", about a planet where parallel evolution produced a society that resembled a 20th Century version of the Roman Empire, complete with it's own Christians and Jesus Christ (who doesn't appear on-camera, but is mentioned in dialogue)!
Who says comics ain't educational?

Thursday, July 23, 2020

Confederate Comics GRAY GHOST "Point of Honor" Conclusion

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"The romance in this was is on your side!"???
I realize this was 1957, but the desegregation of Little Rock High School had occurred and the upcoming centennial of the Civil War was on many peoples' minds!
Gray Ghost avoided referencing slavery...or even showing any Black people, never referencing the reasons for the War Between the States.
In fact, CBS had co-produced the show for the Fall 1957 season.
But, to avoid potential sponsor backlash and negative publicity, they moved it to syndication rather than air it on the network.
It ran one season, but reruns continued until 1970 or so...mostly on local Southern TV stations.
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Gray Ghost
Life of Colonel John Singleton Mosby

Friday, July 17, 2020

Confederate Comics / Captain's Library REBEL "Bad Medicine" Conclusion

...well, that covers it pretty well, so let's join the action...
The TV show occasionally showed flashbacks of Johnny's Civil War days, with the second season opener "Johnny Yuma at Appomattox" placing him at General Robert E Lee's surrender to General Ulysses S Grant!
Johnny considers it an "honorable surrender" and respects the terms of the document, even stopping other ex-Confederates who haven't given up "the Lost Cause" and try to kill then-Presidential candidate Grant!
Johnny Yuma will return in August, but next week...
Disney's forgotten Confederate hero...who (no lie) had his own 1950s TV series!
Gray Ghost
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(which includes the pilot, adapted here!)

Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Confederate Comics / Captain's Library & Captain's Theatre REBEL "Bad Medicine" Part 1

Old West movies and TV shows up to the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964...
...tended to show Confederates, both during and after the Civil War, as "honorable but misunderstood"!
Written under the title "Johnny Yuma Fights Back" by Gaylord DuBois, the first part of this Mike Sekowsky-Mike Peppe tale, presented here, is an adaptation of the pilot episode, "Johnny Yuma" written by Andrew J Fenady.
The second part of the story, which you'll see Thursday at Western Comics Adventures, is apparently totally-original to comics!
Here's the actual episode for comparison...
The villainous boss is played by a pre-Bonanza Dan (Hoss Cartwright) Blocker!
Other well-known performers include John Carradine, Strother Martin, and Jeanette Nolan.
Though not stated in the comic, Johnny's home town is in Texas, a slave state, and the villains are shown to be Yankee carpetbaggers.
The TV series was co-created by Pennsylvania-born lead actor Nick Adams, whose Johnny Yuma character was promoted in publicity as a "Reconstruction-era beatnik"!
And, Adams never uses a Southern or Texas accent on the show!
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(which includes the pilot, adapted here!)

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Happy 60th Anniversary, Zorro!

Sixty years ago today...
...Walt Disney unleashed his version of the already-legendary Zorro on America, creating a phenomenon equal to Davy Crockett-mania several years earlier!
Check out his premiere in both comics and tv HERE!
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&

Monday, June 12, 2017

Captain's Library: THE DETECTIVES "Informers"

While Batman was a comic character played by Adam West on TV from 1966 to 1968...
...Adam West himself had already appeared in comic books five years earlier!
His character, Detective Sgt Steve Nelson was added to the cast for the third and final season of the police procedural The Detectives, which already featured a pair of actors who would go on to other genre shows during the 1960s...Mark Goddard on Lost in Space and Tige Andrews on The Mod Squad!
A strip based on The Detectives had several appearances in Dell's Four Color Comics anthology as tryouts for an ongoing run, but the show's cancellation ended those plans after only three issues.
West's character, Steve Nelson, appears in only one story out of the six which were published.
Written by Eric Freiwald & Robert Schaefer and illustrated by Nat Edison, this never-reprinted tale from Dell's Four Color #1219 renders Adam West with rather prominent arched eyebrows and light brown (almost sandy) hair!
BTW, if you want to see Adam West in action as Steve Nelson, sadly, you're out of luck.
The Detectives has never been issued on video, not even in the VHS days and is not currently running on any channel in the US!
I found a single episode from the third season on YouTube.
It's in four parts, and the video will guide you to the other three parts...
The series is available on a German DVD set, but it's dubbed in German and has no English subtitles!
Besides the three comic issues, there was a single novel by Norman Daniels (who did a lot of movie and TV adaptations)
R.I.P.
Adam West
1928-2017
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(no cover image available, but it is the actual 1962 paperback book, not a reprint or e-book)