Inside Jeff Overturf's Head

You can tell it's 1954 by the next story up in Mad (THE COMIC BOOK) #15.  It's Harvey Kurtzman and Wally Wood's take on the classic Marlon Brando film "The Wild One", "Wild 1/2!".This one doesn't really stand out to me as a Wood story...something seems hurried about it.  Perhaps he wasn't interested

Sunday Funnies this week gets it's lead from a few newspaper comics sections I bought at a reasonable price off of eBay a few years ago.  This one;s from the November 13, 1948 edition of the Chicago Daily News and has some real honeys in it!Two helpings of Al Capp with "Li'l Abner" and "Abbie and Sl

Captain America Cometh!!Here with the fourth issue of Marvel Comics' "The Avengers" from 1963, ol' Stars an' Stripes finally joins the ranks alongside Iron Man, Thor, Giant Man and The Wasp, replacing the unpredictable Hulk, to take on The Sub-Mariner.Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were truly creating a ne

Ah, the Mighty Marvel Universe gets bigger and smaller with every passing issue!One of the great things about (the early days especially) the Marvel Universe that Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko were creating, was the continuity that was being introduced in the books.  Not just from book to boo

Wayyyyyyyyyy back in 1963, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had yet another hit on their hands in the pantheon of heroes in the Merry Marvel Manner!Granted this was a hit that came with a built in set of already established heroes.  Thor! Iron Man!  The Hulk!  and when Ant-Man became Giant-Man...well they ju

I don't know if you've heard or not...they're keeping it kind of hush hush and not marketing it much at all...but there's a movie coming out this week based on Marvel Comics' "The Avengers".No...seriously...I'm not making it up.  I'm not surprised you HAVEN'T heard of it.  Kind of a small indie film

Mad Monday again and time for "Mad" (THE COMIC BOOK) #15 from September of 1954.This is one of my very first memories of Mad.  I read this story (in a reprint digest in the '60's) long before I was ever exposed to the newspaper comic strip that it parodies."Gasoline Alley" (is it still running?) beg

Happy Sunday and time for part 3 of 3 of "Featuring the Funnies" from The Library of Congress.This week featuring glimpses at "Child's Play" (Ray Billingsly, Charles Schulz), "WorkingWomen" (Martin Micheal Branner, Dale Messick, Alfred E. Hayward), "Crime Pays" (Alex Raymond, Chester Gould, Charles

Now HERE's a REAL comic book treat, kiddoes.  Harvey Kurtzman and Russ Heath's "Plastic Sam!" from "Mad" (THE COMIC BOOK) #14 from August 1954.A take on Jack Cole's wonderful "Plastic Man" comic book feature over at Quality Comics, which was a sometimes fall down funny comic on it's own, and certain