Shadows = $$$$!!

Like Halloween, the 1960s was a golden time for comic book ads. The level of ad-shystery had risen to a level beyond the preposterous with the promises of missile-firing Polaris Submarines and live six foot Monsters delivered to your door for a mere dollar. (Okay, the Submarine was 5.98...)
This one really takes the cake though... seems eerily like the basis of an early Leave It To Beaver episode. (click to enlarge --Haw!)


All you need is a flashlight-- or a candle? Room for hundreds? Damn, sister --sign me up!
How are some of these crazy contortions even possible? If you compare the "Nixon" hands to the artist's conception of Tricky Dick's shadow there's a lot of room for interpretation. How many amputated hands make up that "Dinosaur" anyway? (...And who can't do an effin' bird!)
If this is just the ad -- the book must've been really nutty.

Aheh ...anybody got a copy?

Jack Kirby meets Vincent Price?

Growing up I saw The Abombinable Dr. Phibes and it's sequel Dr. Phibes Rises Again several times on the CBS Late Movie (probably on Friday Night). In both films Vincent Price plays a "dead" man avenging the surgical team that lost his wife on the operating table. Nine doctors in all (one of them a nurse) are treated to nine of the most innovative, creative, outlandish deaths imaginable.


The American International movie was released in May of 1971. Which makes this piece of concept art currently up fpr grabs on eBay all the more curious. Jolly Jack's take on a little character called ...The Sinister Dr. Phibes.



According to the seller (Jack's Grandson Jeremy) this piece conceptual art was drawn up (and inked, too) by Jack during the period when he was considering making the move from Marvel to DC.
Hmmmm... I ain't got my calculator, but wouldn't that make this piece sorta... pre-date the film version by a year or so? Even if it was supposed to be a comic version/tie-in with the first movie, it's still pretty freaking bizarre, I tell ya whut...
...And if the concept piece was somehow the inspiration for the movies --even weirder.
(I wonder if Jack had anything to do with that crazy Kirby-lookin' organ ol' Phibes played in the movies?)



Thanks and a tip of the fedora for this post go out to Jeremy Kirby, John Miller, The estates of Jack Kirby and Vincent Price and American International Pictures.