Vintage Comic Throwdowns | Cavalcade of Awesome

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2019: Cavalcade Comics #16 – Jesse James Meets The Frankenstein Monster

Posted in AWESOME-tober-fest, Blog Series, comic books, Halloween, holiday, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2019, Cavalcade Comics, Frankenstein, gunfighters, Halloween, holiday, monsters, Vintage Comic Throwdowns on October 25, 2019 by Paxton

It’s Friday! The final Friday of AWESOME-tober-fest 2019, to be exact. I’m still going strong with some Fangoria, but I thought I’d break with the Fangoria coverage for today and do a new Vintage Comic Throwdown cover. And today’s matchup features another gunfighter vs a classic monster like in the very first issue. Take a look at Jesse James Meets The Frankenstein Monster!

This particular cover has an interesting history. It was actually the second cover I made when I started doing this feature, which means it was created back in 2016. There were a few things I didn’t love about the logo I was using so I sat on it. The very first original concept of these covers was to do all “gunfighters vs monsters” concepts. So Billy the Kid vs Dracula was first, then this one would have gone, then I’d do something with Wild Bill Hickock, and then eventually return to Billy the Kid. But then other pop culture properties sort of caught my attention and then you get things like my Godzilla vs Shogun Warriors and A-Team Meets Chuck Norris covers. I must love Frankenstein because I’ve used him a few times. He also popped up fighting athletes in the Winter Olympics!

But I still enjoy doing these and I may get back to the roots of this concept and return to “gunfighters vs monsters” soon. I definitely want to revisit Billy the Kid in these covers. That’s it for this week, stay tuned, next week is Halloween and I’ll have several more Fangoria articles for you then!

If you want to see the previous 15 covers of Cavalcade Comics then check out the archive here.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

AWESOME-tober-fest 2017: Cavalcade Comics #15 – The Headless Horseman vs Ghost Rider

Posted in books, Classic literature, comic books, Halloween, holiday, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, Awesome-tober-fest 2017, Cavalcade Comics, Ghost Rider, ghosts, Halloween, holiday, monsters, Vintage Comic Throwdowns on October 19, 2017 by Paxton

Normally I do my new Cavalcade Comics cover reveal in the “Greatest Hits” section of AWESOME-tober-fest but the cover I have for today fits the ghostly theme perfectly.

Today, the appropriately themed cover I have features The Headless Horseman vs Ghost Rider.

I love this battle. Undead flaming skull vs undead flaming skull. Here are the covers that mostly make up the above.

Headless Horseman Ghost Rider

The Headless Horseman comes from Marvel anthology series Supernatural Thrillers, issue #6, 1973. As a matter of fact, this is the same anthology series that birthed The Living Mummy in issue #5, which I talked about last year. Ghost Rider comes from his own title, issue #5, 1974. April, 1974, to be precise, which means this very issue of Ghost Rider *could* have been on store shelves the day I was born in early May 1974. But it just as likely could have been issue #6 that was on shelves.

Check back tomorrow for a ghostly movie review and the final “ghost” related article of the month!

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

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Cavalcade Comics #14 – Kamandi and Thundarr the Barbarian

Posted in cartoons, comic books, nostalgia, pop culture, TV shows with tags cartoons, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, comic covers, Photoshop, TV show, Vintage Comic Throwdowns on August 14, 2017 by Paxton

I’m in full on prep mode for AWESOME-tober-fest 2017 right now. It’ll be my 10th year doing it and I’ll be talking about Ghosts!

I have a full slate of stuff lined up; books, movies, comics, and cartoons. It should be a lot of fun. I also have, as usual, a monster/Halloween themed Cavalcade Comics cover ready to go. But before we get there, my friends, I have a completely different Cavalcade Comics cover for you.

My good friend and Hellbent for Letterbox co-host Michael May started up a Thundarr the Barbarian podcast called Thundarr Road where they are following the journeys of our favorite barbarian as he traverses his way through the apocalyptic wasteland of future Earth. However, they aren’t doing it in episode order, they are following his journey geographically as if he actually made the journey from future Manhat all the way across the country west. It’s an interesting journey and it’s been fun so far. In the very first episode they had mentioned the similarities to an old 70s Jack Kirby comic called Kamandi and I thought that was a great comparison and it would have been awesome to see these two characters together. And it’s kismet as Jack Kirby actually did early character designs on the Thundarr cartoon.

So, without further ado, here is the team up between the Jack Kirby Thundarr and Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth.

These guys would totally be post-apocalyptic besties. You could almost imagine that they would have met except Kamandi’s post-apocalyptic world was ruled by hyper intelligent animals and Thundarr’s world is ruled by wizards.

For the Thundarr, Ookla and Princess Ariel in the cover I used one of Kirby’s Thundarr drawings.

Kirby Thundarr

As I said, Kirby was brought on in like 1979-1980 to do character designs for the show. There are several of these drawings out there. As you see I had to find an appropriate Sun Sword and add it to Thundarr’s hand.

Kamandi actually comes from Kamandi – The Last Boy on Earth #2 (1973).

Kamandi 02

If you look in the background of my cover, some of that stuff comes from Kamandi #1 (1972) as well as Kamandi #2 (1973).

So I hope you enjoyed this cover as much as I enjoyed making it. And go check out Michael May’s Thundarr Road podcast. It’s a lot of fun. And stay tuned for the 10th annual AWESOME-tober-fest Halloween celebration in like a month!

AWESOME-tober-fest 2016: Cavalcade Comics #13 Halloween Edition!!

Posted in comic books, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, vampires, werewolf, werewolves with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2016, Halloween, holiday, Vintage Comic Throwdowns on October 24, 2016 by Paxton

Here we are, the final week of AWESOME-tober-fest. It’s this week the last few years that I’ve started a tradition to diverge from my overall theme to do a sort of “greatest hits” of my previous topics. So instead of more mummies, I’m happily going to be doing other things like vampires, werewolves and movie maniacs.

Another sort of tradition I’ve started to debut during this week is a brand new Cavalcade Comics vintage throwdown cover. Last year I did the Dell Monster Squad featuring three of Dell Comics’ monster superheroes. I was actually pretty proud of that cover.

This year, I’m going a little bit more generic but still featuring 2 of those monsters in the form of Werewolf vs A Planet of Vampires!

It’s poetic that I’m debuting issue #13 of these covers during my Halloween celebration. I love that it worked out like that (no, I didn’t plan it that way). Also, this particular cover was actually developed very early on when I started this feature. It was probably the fourth or fifth cover I actually did but for some reason I just sat on it until I decided now is the time to reveal it.

The werewolf part of this cover in the background is taken from Werewolf by Night #19 (1974). One of my favorite covers from that series. The vampire and his victim in the foreground are from Atlas Comics’ Planet of Vampires #2 (1975). However, the Planet of Vampires logo is actually from issue #3.

I still have several other covers done that I haven’t released yet. One of them is actually the second cover I ever did and just never released it. We’ll see when, or if, that one ever comes up.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

Fourth of July Showdown: Uncle Sam vs Captain America

Posted in comic books, holiday, nostalgia, pop culture with tags Captain America, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, comic covers, holiday, Photoshop, Uncle Sam, vintage, Vintage Comic Throwdowns on July 1, 2016 by Paxton

Happy 4th of July! To celebrate today I’m back with a quick holiday themed Cavalcade Comics cover. If you remember, July 4th last year, I showed you Uncle Sam: The Ultimate Ninja. Well, I thought it was time to bring Uncle Sam back. But instead of my Ultimate Ninja version, I’m bringing you a more traditional version of the character. And he has a few words for Captain America.

Yikes, Sam, that’s gonna leave a mark. I thought this idea was too perfect to pass up on this, the celebration of America’s Independence Day. And I thought labeling it Civil War II was appropriate since Marvel is actually doing Civil War II right now.

So, where did I get the images? I found Uncle Sam from the cover of Freedom Fighters #8, June 1977. The cover was done by Rich Buckler.

Captain America was taken from his own title, issue #124 from 1968. It was drawn by Marie Severin.

CA_124_87

I had to jockey around a few things but for the most part the images fit together nicely. Now, the background. I’ll admit, I had the HARDEST time finding a background that worked. I originally wanted the background from Freedom Fighters but it was a generic city street. I wanted something more “Washington DC”, like the White House or Capitol Building. I was close to using The Flash #200 from 1970 as it had the dome in the background. But then I happened upon another Cap issue, #444 from 1995. And I decided to roll with that.

ICO000423_1._SX640_QL80_TTD_

As you can see, it’s got the nice government building in the background and I thought it would be great to have Cap and Sam slugging it out on the steps of that building. I had to change the perspective a little and use layers upon layers to hide Cap’s shield, but I think it turned out nicely.

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