Favorite Halloween Stories: Dennis The Menace All Year Round

I already mentioned this in an older post about Halloween comics, but I thought this time I’d dust off and scan my copy of the excellent Fawcett comic “Dennis The Menace: All Year Round”, a seasonal special comic featuring that mischievous Hank Ketcham character that has been a favorite of mine for as long as I can remember!

  This 1967 Giant Dennis the Menace Special was divided into 12 chapters, one for each month, and its respective holidays, New Years, Groundhog Day, Easter, Mother’s day. Thanksgiving and Christmas each had its own tales to tell, but of course the one that I loved most was the chapter for October which focused on HALLOWEEN!
 The story of how Dennis and his pals “trick” grouchy old neighbor Mr. Wilson when he won’t “treat” them may not be recommended to impressionable youths to follow, but this story’s rustic, homey feel and good old 1950’s imagery totally captures the “feeling” of being a child and running around trick or treating with your friends in the crisp autumn evenings of October and whenever I read it I’m instantly filled with the nostalgic memories of my childhood!

The Crying Babies of Gil Kane

Gil Kane is one of the GREATS of the Marvel Silver Age of comics, but judging by his covers, it might not have been too thrilling to be a child in the world of his illustrations as most of them ended up abandoned and crying on the ground as the heroes duked it out!

The Authority, Vol.1-3

 The series that reinstated my belief that comics COULD be good again! By the time my friend Gerg handed me The Authority, I was already a bitter, jaded comic book reader who thought that most of the new comics stuff was mere flash written by high schoolers, but WOW this series just blew me the HELL away!

Best Of Neal Adams: Eerie #125

My friends and I started collection comics around 1978, starting with friendly titles like Star Wars and Godzilla, by 1979 we were totally into superhero genre titles like X-Men, Avengers and the like, and by 1981, we were card carrying frothing at the mouth rabid fans of everything comics related, and  one of our HUGE favorite artists was the incredible Neal Adams! 
 We loved both his Marvel and DC work, from X-Men to Avengers, to Green Lantern/Green Arrow and his Deadman series, and I guess there was a general buzz in the air that year, for that summer EERIE magazine released a special BEST OF NEAL ADAMS issue which ALL of us grabbed!
MAN, this issue BLEW US AWAY- For one thing, not only was the Neal Adams art superb, he used so many different techniques for his story depiction- (from straight pencils, to charcoal, to painting and washes, no two stories looked the same) and Two: Holy COW, the STORIES THEMSELVES were so freaking GREAT! Samples from some faves:

" The Curse of the Undead"

Always been a huge fan of Neal Adams ladies, and we start things off right with this story where a man has fallen in love with a beautiful countess whom the town believe is cursed to awake as one of the undead. Look at that pic of the woman sleeping, man what awesome artwork!

“Goddess from The Sea"

Oooooh, MAN, how I lusted after the illustrations in this story! This story tells the tale of a man who meets a lusciously curvy blue-skinned woman who claims she is from the lost undersea world of Atlantis and needs his help protecting her from warriors who want to take her back. What’s a poor boy to do!!!

“Thrill Kill”

Two Police Investigators try and find the motive behind ayoung lad’s seemingly senseless shooting spree in the middle of town. Though the crime seems at first to be no more than a frivoulus and callous attack, the more they delve, the more they feel the boy may have had other reasons…

 

“The Terror Beyond Time"

What, a myserious cave that goes to deep into the earth and comes out in a lush, prehistoric apradise where dinosaurs roam free? Where have I seen this story before? Oh Yeah., in Neal Adams’ X-eMen stories where the gang goes to the Savage Land! LOL, Neal sure does love drawing those Pterosaurs…

 

“A Curse Of Claws”

And I’ve been putting out fire with gasoline! Sorry, I’ve had David Bwoie’s “Cat people” song gojg through my mind as I re=read this tale of a safari man who crosses paths with a sultry feline- a woman part human and part cat! Makes me wondeer what it would have looked like if Neal had illustrated Hellcat!

“Fair Exchange”

I love this one because out of all of these stories, it’s the most like those traditional ‘spooky Comics” like House of Mystery, etc, and Neal's art is more like his Marvel work. The tale of a rich old man who trades his body for a young, healthy one is a tale oft trodden, in fact, I have another similar story in GHOSTS that Neal illustrated as well! Of course, these body-switching things never seem to work out…

Man,,all of these stories were so captivating, we read and re-read these over and over! And the Neal Adams renaissance continued when DC shortly released a  "Best of GHOSTS" comic in their DC Digests format, which gave us even MORE new Neal Adams art and more freaking  terrific stories! I'll have to dig THAT one out and scans some of THOSE as well!

Journey To Tomorrowland

When a movie comes out and the general public doesn’t like it, my interests are so quirky, there’s also a 50% chance I’ll LOVE it! True, the movie may indeed suck and i'll agree that it's bad,  but I find that when my co-workers all grouse about how boring and understand a film was, more than likely, it will be a flick RIGHT UP MY ALLEY!

Athena and Frank

Frank (Thomas Robinson) and Athena (Raffey Cassidy)

So I was excited to see the new George Clooney Disney flick “Tomorrowland”, but was bummed when it came out and began generating mediocre reviews. Then it occurred to me that HEY! There's a good chance that this might be one of those films that everyone pans but I end up liking!

Casey (Britt Robertson)

So I just got  finished watching it, and Oh My GOSH, it was so freaking GREAT! Terrific characters that you really like right off the bat and a storyline that keeps you guessing about where its heading-General Consensus be damned, this was JUST what I looked for in a movie! SO entertaining!

Athena and Casey

Casey and Frank (George Clooney)

As the movie ended and I sat there with a big smile on my face, totally satisfied, it faded to black, and then the words came up: “Directed By Brad Bird”. WHOAA! I’d completely forgotten he was attached to this movie! Once I saw his name, I was all like, "Man! No WONDEWR this movie hit me right in the feels- this is BRAD BIRD!" I’ve loved so many movies from Brad Bird, (Iron Giant, Incredibles) and it looks like with Tomorrowland, he’s STILL one of my favorite directors!!!

What I'm Collecting Now...

I'm still riding that rejuvenated comic-collecting high and the name of the game is still IMAGE! Yes, out of the four Monthly Titles I'm subscribing to and the four Trade Paperbacks i'm collecting, all eight of them are from the imaginative minds of Image comics! The four Monthly Titles I'm picking up are Saga, They're Not Like Us, Injection and the newly-launched "Paper Girls".

The four titles that I wait and buy when they collect and release them in trade paperbacks are The Fuse, Lazarus, Outcast, and the huge compendium series of THE WALKING DEAD, which happily JUST released Volume 3!

Paper Girls #1

If you've ever gone shopping with my friends at Best Buy, you'll know that they can spend hours just browsing the electronics, checking out the cameras, fussing with the phone accessories, etc. without ever looking up once, I, on the other hand, always know exactly what I want and purchase it right away, and so it was that I ended up in the car waiting in the Best buy parking Lot for them to finish one day, with nothing to occupy myself!
Then I remembered that the comic store Other Realms had moved out of Ward Warehouse and right into the building behind Best Buy! I ran over, knowing I could find something to read there!!!
What I was figuring on was buying some trade paperback or something, but instead, what I saw right on the new release rack was a brand-spanking new Image comics series called PAPER GIRLS, and it was written by Brian K Vaughan, no less! I immediately snatched that one up and for the next half hour or so sat in the car taking in the new adventures of four rambunctious newspaper carrier girls in the mid-eighties who have a brush with what can only be time travelers from another era...or aliens from another dimension!
WHOO, what a timely find- I would have been ahppy to read ANYTHING to kill my boredom, instead I got what has become yet another great series to subscribe to!!!

Memories of Uncanny X-Men #111

The first time I laid eyes on the Chris Claremont/John Byrne classic UNCANNY X-MEN #111 was at the house of my friends Larry and James., and this was a beautiful new mint copy, as well!!Featuring the hypnosis mutant MESMERO, this issue was key in starting a globe-trotting epic story that would conclude years later in X-Men 121! 

Oh, how I gushed about their new aquisition, wishing I had a copy of it, but at the same time lucky I was able to read their copy so I’d at least know the story- but my jealousy only grew when my friend Herbert got a copy of X-Men 111 shortly thereafter from a classmate at school, too!

To be fair, Herb’s copy was really beat-up, but hey, he got it for free from his friend, and I would have done anything to have it as well!! Luckily for me, fate would soon step in when Me, Herbert and our friend Jas went to the local swap meet that weekend at the Waialae Drive-In. I didn't expect to see anything I liked, so I didn't bring any money with me...

So when we got there, there was a guy selling a copy of X-Men 111 for three dollars, and it was in great condition, too! Desperately, I asked Herb if I could borrow the three dollars and pay him back when we got home. He looked at that perfect condition copy and then thought of his beat up copy at home, and said, I'll make a deal with you- I'LL buy this one, and then I'll sell you MY copy for 3 dollars.  

WELL, that was better than nothing, and at least I would have a copy of my own, even though it was a beat-up copy!

Next day at school I gushed  to my classmates about how I scored my very own copy of X-Men 111, and when Larry and James heard about it, James came up to me and said, “Hey, can I come over to your house and see your copy?” I was like “SURE!!!”, proud to show it off!

He came over after school and I brought it out for him, but after only glancing at it for a minute, told me I could put it away.

We later met up with Larry and he nodded to James as if to say, “Well?” to which James shook his head, “Nope.” Ehhh? what was THAT all about?

Turns out that Larry and James had misplaced their copy of X-Men 111 and, upon hearing that I somehow got my hands on a copy, came to the conclusion that I must have STOLEN theirs!

Larry had ordered James: “Go to Z’s house and see if he has our X-Men 111”. Of course, when James saw that sad , beat-up copy of mine, he knew instantly that it wasn’t their near mint one! This was one time having a poor copy saved me! 

Funny thing is, in the years that have gone by, both Lar and Herb have long since sold off all their X-Men comics and have lost interest in comic collecting in general, and I'm the ONLY ONE who still has his copy and cherishes it like the day I first got it! Man, I should have been the one to get the nice condition one!