Funny Picture Stories #4 (1937)

Funny Picture Stories v1#4 [Grand Comics Database links: 4; Comic Book Database: 4]
(February 1937)
Comics Magazine Co., Inc.
(Version read: Will Eisner: Edge of Genius trade paperback edition (2007) [LibraryThing])

"Brothers 3" story
Credits:
Writer: Will Eisner
Penciller: Will Eisner
Inker: Will Eisner


(See Comics Index Blog entry.)

The Comics Magazine #1 (1936)

The Comics Magazine #1 [Grand Comics Database links: 1; Comic Book Database: 1]
(May 1936)
Comics Magazine Co., Inc.
(Version read: Supermen!: The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941 trade paperback edition (2009) [LibraryThing] [Amazon])

"Dr. Mystic" story
Credits:
Writer: Jerry ("Jerome") Siegel
Penciller: Joe Shuster
Inker: Joe Shuster


(See Comics Index Blog entry.)

Star Wars #81-82 (1984)

Star Wars #81-82 [Grand Comics Database 81, 82; Comic Book Database 81, 82]
(March 1984, April 1984)
Marvel Comics

(#81) "Jawas of Doom!"
Credits:
Writer: [Mary] Jo Duffy
Penciller: Ron Frenz ("breakdowns")
Inker: Tom Palmer, Tom Mandrake ("finishes")

(#82) "Diplomacy"
Credits:
Writer: [Mary] Jo Duffy
Penciller: Ron Frenz ("breakdowns")
Inker: "M. Hands" (as in, "Many Hands"; i.e., multiple, uncredited inkers) ("finishes")

(See Star Wars Blog entry.)

Star Wars Tales (stories from #15, 12, 10, and 23) (2001-2003, 2005)

Star Wars Tales #15 [Grand Comics Database 15; Comic Book Database 15, 15 (photo cover)]
(March 2003)
Dark Horse Comics

"Do Or Do Not"
Credits:
Writer: Jay Laird
Penciller: Timothy II
Inker: Timothy II

Star Wars Tales #12 [Grand Comics Database 12 (photo cover); Comic Book Database 12, 12 (photo cover)]
(June 2002)
Dark Horse Comics

"A Day in the Life"
Credits:
Writer: Brett Matthews
Penciller: Adrian Sibar
Inker: Adrian Sibar

Star Wars Tales #10 [Grand Comics Database 10; Comic Book Database 10, 10 (photo cover)]
(December 2001)
Dark Horse Comics

"Free Memory"
Credits:
Writer: Brett Matthews
Penciller: Vatche Mavlian
Inker: Vatche Mavlian


Star Wars Tales #23 [Grand Comics Database 23; Comic Book Database 23, 23 (photo cover)]
(March 2005)
Dark Horse Comics

"Lucky"
Credits:
Writer: Rob Williams
Penciller: Michel Lacombe
Inker: Serge LaPointe, Andrew Pepoy


Star Wars Tales #10 [Grand Comics Database #10; Comic Book Database 10, 10 (photo cover)]
(December 2001)
Dark Horse Comics

"A Wookie Scorned"
Credits:
Writer: Jason Hall
Penciller: Christina Chen
Inker: Christina Chen


(See Star Wars Blog entry.)

Captain America: The Great Gold Steal (1968)

Captain America: The Great Gold Steal (1968)
Ted White
([LibraryThing] [Amazon])

Introduction by Stan Lee. Second novel based on Marvel Comics characters ever published (following The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker). At the point when The Great Gold Steal first came out, the Marvel era--which began with the release of Fantastic Four #1 in August 1961 (cover dated November)--was only seven years old. To give those familiar with Marvel's publishing history an idea, STEAL has a July 1968 publishing date. According to Mike's Amazing World of DC website (the "Amazing World of Marvel" part of it), these are some of the comics that were coming out in July 1968: Amazing Spider-Man #68, Avengers #56, Captain America #106, Iron Man #6, Mighty Marvel Western #1, Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #5, Silver Surfer #2, Tales of Asgard #1, Avengers Annual #2, Incredible Hulk Annual #1, and Fantastic Four #79.

As regarding novels based on comics characters in general, there were still very few of them at this point based on comic book characters. There had been a full length Superman novel for younger readers back in 1942 (just four years after he'd first shown up in Action Comics #1). Then, over twenty years later, the "Batmania" craze produced by the 1960s BATMAN television series led to a couple TV series tie-in novels (Winston Lyon's Batman Versus Three Villains of Doom and Batman Versus the Fearsome Foursome, both 1966). And that was pretty much it before the Avengers and Captain America novels I talk about here came out in 1967 and 1968. (For more info, see Wikipedia list page I put together on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_novels_based_on_comics .)

As for The Great Gold Steal, overall, I enjoyed it. I have to say right from the start that it is a *MUCH* better novel than The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker. In that one, the author, Otto Binder, tried to emulate the then current style of the Avengers comic books in both plot and the "hip" dialogue. The end product was a novel that was at times a bit painful to get through.

The Great Gold Steal, however, is written by science fiction author, Ted White. By the time Steal came out, White had already had published seven or eight other novels, so he was much more experienced than Binder (which wasn't really a novel writer; he came primarily out of the comic book writing field, I believe). White wrote Steal as a much more "adult" novel (for instance, people--police and bank security officers mostly, but also some of the crooks--actually get shot and killed in this one). The plot deals with Captain America uncovering a plot to steal billions of dollars' worth of gold from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. White starts the novel off with just enough of the main plot to get you hooked, then jumps back in time for a few short chapters to World War II to introduce new readers to Captain America's origins, before returning again to the gold stealing plot.

The Captain America we read about here is a *bit* different from the one in the comic books (the World War II experiment that gave him his powers in the novel also included steel reinforced bones and the ability to completely control his body's various processes, like slowing down his own heartbeat or channeling all of his energies into healing from wounds faster), but not so much as to be a distraction for those familiar with the comics, I don't think. There is still that "fish out of water" element here--1940s Captain America adjusting to his new life in the 1960s; the Avengers are discussed but are all away so we don't see them--prevalent in the Captain America comics of the time.

The first two thirds or so of the novel (getting us into the plot and seeing Cap's origins) is better than the last part. Once it is time for the novel's climax, it starts to be a bit more predictable what's going to happen next. Still, I found it to be a pretty enjoyable novel. Enough so that at some point I might try to hunt up some of White's science fiction novels..)

The Great Gold Steal would turn out to be the last Marvel based novel for ten years. It wouldn't be followed by another Marvel novel until 1978's The Amazing Spider-Man: Mayhem in Manhattan by Len Wein and Marv Wolfman (which was the start of an eleven book series of Marvel books--ten novels and one short story collection--published by Pocket Books from 1978 to 1979). (Finished reading 4/16/10)

Siegel and Shuster: Dateline 1930's #1-2 (1984-1985)

Siegel and Shuster: Dateline 1930's #1-2 [Grand Comics Database links 1, 2; Comic Book Database: 1]
(November 1984, [no month] 1985)
Eclipse Comics

Credits:
Writer: Jerry Siegel
Penciller: Joe Shuster
Inker: Joe Shuster

(See Comics Index Blog entry.)

How Few Remain (1997)

How Few Remain (1997)
Harry Turtledove
([LibraryThing] [Amazon])

Finished reading How Few Remain today. It took me a while but that wasn't because I wasn't enjoying it. Quite the contrary. This is the second of Harry Turtledove's alternate history novels that I've read (the first also being Civil War based, The Guns of the South) and I love just how historically authentic feeling Turtledove is able to make the various characters and period settings while at the same time spinning them off into completely different directions from what actually occured in "real life".

How Few Remain is about (another) alternate history in which the Confederate States won the Civil War. The "point of divergence" (as alternate history fans call the exact historical point at which the work diverges from actual history) is covered briefly in the book's prelude, which shows a Confederate courier *not* accidentally losing General Robert E. Lee's Special Order 191 which detailed Lee's plans for the invasion of the North. In reality, this order was recovered by Union forces allowing them to defeat the Army of Northern Virginia at the Battle of Antietam. In How Few, the order is not compromised and Lee's forces succeed in capturing Philadelphia, which convinces Britain and France to side with the Confederate States and effectively ended the war.

Aside from the prelude (which takes place in 1862), the novel takes place entirely in 1881. After nearly twenty years of having to share the North American continent with the Confederate States of America (and also twenty years of Democratic presidents following Abraham Lincoln's electoral defeat in 1864), the United States of America, at the order of Republican President James G. Blaine, launches a second war with the CSA after the Confederate States purchase from Mexico two key territories (Sonora and Chihuahua) which expands the CSA's overall territory all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Turtledove's novels are especially rich in the amount of characters he includes. In this one we have Lincoln, much older than he lived in real life and now a man general disdained or outright hated by most as the man largely responsible for the USA's losing the "War of Secession". Lincoln by this point has turned the focus of his attention to crusading for the working man against the powers of big business.

Military figures include U.S. Lt. General George Armstrong Custer, Confederate General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (head of the Confederate General Staff), General John Pope (commander of U.S. forces in Utah), Confederate General James Ewell "Jeb" Stuart, and a young Theodore Roosevelt, who leads a U.S. volunteer cavalry unit (Roosevelt and Samuel Clemens are especially fun characters in this novel).

Other key characters include the President of the Confederate States James Longstreet, Frederick Douglass, Geronimo (who first works with Jeb Stuart's forces to ambush U.S. troops in Mexico but after which Stuart must somehow keep from waging war with the local Mexican people in what is now Confederate territory), Colonel Alfred von Schlieffen (here, the German military attache to the U.S.), Mormon leader John Taylor (the Mormons decide to take advantage of the war between the USA and CSA to attempt to break away from the U.S.; Custer and his men are sent into Utah to put down the Mormon rebellion), and Samuel Clemens (who never went on to write under the pen name, Mark Twain; instead, Clemens is a San Francisco newspaper editor).

How Few Remain is a stand alone novel but it establishes what fans have come to refer to as the "Timeline-191" series, of which Turtledove went on to write nine more novels (three separate trilogies) in. Following How Few Remain is The Great War: American Front, which picks up in 1914 and the start of World War I (which, in this timeline, will include the additional plot element of there still being *two* American nations in existence: the United States of America and the Confederate States of America). (Finished reading 4/11/2010)