Before I introduce today's golden age comics, I'd like to let everybody know about the great rundown of the 2008 Golden Age Revivial by Tony Z over at the goldenageheroes
If you haven't checked out Tony's blog, and you are a fan of Golden Age comics, man you are in for a treat!
I'd also like to point readers to the newly established: My Opinion Doesn't Matter, where you can find a nice write up of Malibu's use of the Public Domain characters in the 90's in The Protectors.
Okay, about today's free comics... I was looking for the golden age Wonder Man and found these instead, which apparently Wikipedia never heard of, so I'm sort of at a loss to tell you what the connection is here. Anybody want to help a brother out today?
I will say this, these comics contain The Grim Reaper (who is featured on the cover) and a great robot character called Makano! Check 'em out!
I don't believe there's any connection between the two series. The original came out in 1939, as I'm sure you know, under the hand of Will Eisner at the direction of Victor Fox, who was deliberately trying to ape Superman. The title lasted two issues before changing to Wonderworld Comics.
ReplyDeleteThe second series came out in 1944 under Ned Pines' comic publishing house, Nedor. That series lasted 20 issues and, from what I can tell, was largely indistinguishable from most other hero comics of the time.
Interestingly, Pines' version also featured a character called Wonderman in some issues, although he seems to bear no similarity to Fox's version. I believe this character debuted in Nedor's Mystery Comics #1 under the talented hand of Alex Schomburg before migrating to Wonder Comics under Bob Oskner.
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=4040&zoom=4
Thank you Sean! - I knew there must be a simple answer, but I didn't know about the Wonderworld bit.
ReplyDeleteHey I have a question about the public domain comics. Are the actual comics public domain or just the characters. I was wondering if I'd get into any trouble, legally that is, if I re-worked the text and posted it on my blog. Do you know if that would be legal? Nice site by the way!
ReplyDelete@Alex L - If you rework the text on public domain comics you should be fine. Heck, you might even be covered by parody laws if you make the reworked text funny.
ReplyDeleteYeah thats what I thought, thanks for the help!
ReplyDeleteNeato. Did you find digital copies online, or did you buy them? If only you had Wonder Comics #2 ... I'd be eternally grateful. In a cheap, passive, leaching sort of way. ;-)
ReplyDelete