Vintage Comic Throwdowns | Cavalcade of Awesome

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Cavalcade Comics #11 – The Frankenstein Monster vs The Winter Olympics

Posted in comic books, Frankenstein, monsters, nostalgia, pop culture with tags Cavalcade Comics, comic books, comic covers, Frankenstein, monsters, Photoshop, Vintage Comic Throwdowns on December 16, 2015 by Paxton

I’m temporarily sticking my head out from where I’m hibernating during the winter to post up this newest cover in my Vintage Comic Throwdown series.

This month’s cover isn’t necessarily holiday themed, as I don’t really have a “Christmas” themed cover in my back log. But I do have a “winter-y” themed cover I can use. Peep your ‘balls on The Frankenstein Monster vs The Winter Olympics.

I’m sort of in love with the concept as well as the execution of this cover. It was birthed almost entirely out of one awesome Marvel Treasury front cover as well as the back cover pin-up. Check out that cover’s double sided awesomeness right here (click to see BIGGER).

This is Marvel Treasury Edition #25 from June 1980. The front cover was drawn by Al Milgrom and Jack Abel. The back cover “pin-up” was drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz and Bruce Patterson. So much action-y goodness that I couldn’t pass up using the majority of the elements in this layout. You can see all of them in the cover. The skiers, the snow, the broken light pole, the building in the background with the crowd. All re-purposed for my Frankenstein gone amok cover.

An element that I didn’t use from the Marvel cover is the Frankenstein monster himself, which comes from Marvel’s The Frankenstein Monster #7 from Nov 1973. Drawn by the great John Buscema.

Frankenstein Monster 07

I love doing these monster mashups. I have another Frankenstein monster mashup stashed away as well as a return for Ghost Rider! But is it the old gunslinger Ghost Rider or the Hell Cycle ridin’ demon? You’ll have to wait to find out.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2015: The Dell Comics Monster Squad

Posted in comic books, Dracula, Frankenstein, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, werewolf with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2015, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, Dell Monsters, Dracula, Halloween, holiday, monsters, vintage, Vintage Comic Throwdowns, werewolf, Wolf Man on October 27, 2015 by Paxton

Yesterday, with my review of Dell’s Frankenstein, I finally completed all three infamous 60s Dell superhero monster comics reviews (Here’s Dracula and Werewolf). I love all three of these zany re-imagining of the classic monsters. And as I mentioned in my reviews, the only thing that was missing was a team up. We did see Frankenstein pop up briefly in a one panel cameo in Dracula, but other than that, no other crossover ever happened. It’s time I rectify this situation.

So, issue #10 of Cavalcade Comics features the debut of the Dell monster super heroes in a team up. Finally we get the Dell Comics Monster Squad.

How did this never happen? I’ll tell you how, the comics never sold. It’s why we only got three issues of each title. I would love to see these characters come back in a cool retro reboot. I don’t even know who owns the license to them anymore, but with the right writer and tone, they could be fantastic.

I had only three covers of each of the three heroes to try to make work, but I luckily found Marvel’s Where Monsters Dwell #3 (1970) which works as a really nice base image for this cover.

where-monsters-dwell

I love all those 70s horror comics from Marvel. Such good cover artwork and great to use as a base for these types of Photoshop projects.

The Dell Monster Squad logo was going to be a re-interpretation of some awesome original art by Nathan Milliner.

Nathan created these awesome EC-style vintage comic covers I just love. I really wanted to use that logo, but no matter how I manipulated it, it didn’t fit in the 60-70s vintage comic cover I was trying to create, so I sadly had to abandon it. I then went back to the original Where Monsters Dwell logo and just created the new logo off those letters and I think it turned out pretty good. I’m happy with it.

As for the monster heroes themselves; Dracula comes from Dell Dracula #4, Frankenstein comes from Dell Frankenstein #2 and Werewolf from Dell Werewolf #1.

I also had to change the background a bit and add the night sky with the full moon which I believe I got from Marvel’s Werewolf by Night #11.

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

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Cavalcade Comics #9 – Uncle Sam The Ultimate Ninja vs Bionic Hitler

Posted in comic books, holiday, nostalgia, pop culture with tags Cavalcade Comics, comic books, comic covers, Vintage Comic Throwdowns on July 2, 2015 by Paxton

Issue #9 of the Cavalcade Comics’ Vintage Comic Throwdown is a very special 4th of July issue! This month we have a lot of characters featured in a very special memorial issue. But the main character we are focusing on is Uncle Sam: The Ultimate Ninja!

Trained in the dark arts of ninjitsu, Sam uses his deadly abilities to stop the forces of evil, namely Nazi Gorillas and Bionic Hitler. And he does it with a little help from Elvira! Tell me that’s not a special celebratory line up of awesome characters! You can’t, because it is.

I love how this came together. I tried to pattern this cover after some Golden Age anthology titles which featured some main action or character on the right with secondary characters/villains in a sidebar on the left.

Uncle Sam Ultimate Ninja is actually based on the cover for Marvel’s Nth Man The Ultimate Ninja #2 from 1989. I just had to mock up some striped pants, hat and chin beard. Elvira is from Elvira’s House of Mystery #8 from 1986.

The Nazi Gorillas were actually from DC’s Weird War Tales #89 (1980) and I cobbled together Bionic Hitler from a few different places all of which I can’t be bothered to remember right now. But I love him so expect Bionic Hitler to return at some point. And Uncle Sam. And possibly even Elvira.

This weekend is 4th of July. Hope everyone has a safe holiday.

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Cavalcade Comics #8 – Kool-Aid Man gets some NAHTZEE scalps!

Posted in comic books, Kool Aid, nostalgia, pop culture with tags Cavalcade Comics, comic covers, Kool Aid, vintage, Vintage Comic Throwdowns on May 26, 2015 by Paxton

I mentioned last issue that I had a few holiday issues coming up. This was the first one. This is the Memorial Day issue of Cavalcade Comics Vintage Comic Throwdown! And in honor of all the men fighting in our armed forces, I have created this cover featuring Kool-Aid Man doing all he can for the war effort by conquering all those damn NAH-tzees.

Back in the Golden Age, it seemed like EVERY super hero got into scraps with the bad guys. It’s time Kool-Aid Man got in a few shots of his own. Last issue with Magnus, I went for a more serious, hard sci-fi cover. This is a little bit more of a goofy, Golden Age cover. And I love it because of that.

Again, like my double Ghost Rider issue, I have a variant cover for you.

This was the original cover concept when I began. Kool-Aid Man jumping out of a time machine ready to kick some ass. And I do love this cover, but I decided to use more of the original Nazi cover from The Victor 1971 Summer Special. Going that route though was a lot more work because I had to take out the soldier from the window and recreate all the breaking window glass. I also had to recreate several sections of the wall due to logo coverage. But honestly, I think it was worth it.

Below are the covers I mashed up. On the left is the aforementioned The Victor Summer Special. On the right is The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man #2. You can see the time machine concept and Kool-Aid’s body came from the latter issue. Surprisingly, I didn’t create Kool-Aid’s frown in my Nazi cover. That actually comes from The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man #4 where he’s scowling at the villain, Scorch.

Victor Summer Special - 1971-0001 [RobotArchie] kool_aid_man_002-001

I do have one other “holiday issue”. It’ll be for the 4th of July. So that’s when you can expect the next issue. Happy Memorial Day week everyone!

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Cavalcade Comics #7 – Magnus Robot Fighter on Skull Island

Posted in comic books, nostalgia, pop culture with tags Cavalcade Comics, comic books, comic covers, Vintage Comic Throwdowns on April 6, 2015 by Paxton

Here we are at issue #7 of Cavalcade Comics’ Vintage Comic Throwdown! This month I’m taking on a different type of comic cover…the painted cover. These types of covers were very prominent in the 60s and 70s. Plus, I used this opportunity to give the logo and the corner box a bit of an overhaul. I may go back to the older version, but I like this new one too.

For the actual cover battle, I decided to use one of my favorite absurd characters from back in the day. He’s just one of those kooky, high concept characters that could have only been created in the 60s. So, without further ado, here’s Magnus Robot Fighter. And he’s trapped on the infamous Skull Island.

In case you didn’t know, Magnus is from the future. He’s from a future where robots have enslaved humanity. He is taught by a robot how to fight other robots and also how to harden his hands to punch and slice through metal. So, Magnus goes on a robot killing rampage to free the future human race. I thought it would be interesting to take this character that’s so identified with fighting robots and place him in a place where there are NO robots. Hello, Magnus, have you met…Skull Island?

Magnus Robot Fighter vs Dinosaurs seemed like a winning concept to me. Plus, I love the tagline I created at the bottom, “Trapped!…In a Land Without Robots!” It was one of the first things that popped into my head and I couldn’t get it out until I finished this cover.

Behind the scenes…I used several different covers to bring this masterpiece to life. Magnus himself comes from Russ Manning’s Magnus Robot Fighter #7 (1963).

As you can see I took pretty much only Magnus from this cover and the laser blast on his back I converted to the fist burst for his punch. The rest of the comic was pieced together from several different issues of Turok Son of Stone with most of the elements coming from issues #35 and #90.

turoksonofstone90 turoksonofstone35

I may have also taken a stray Pterodactyl and a volcano from some other nameless Turok issues. I can’t remember, it all sort of blended together at the end there.

I still have at least three of these covers stashed away for future use. One of those covers is a very special holiday issue. Either Memorial Day or July 4th. I haven’t decided which just yet.

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