This is one of my favorite comics, ever.

Dick Dillin was the artist, with John Calnan inks.

Dillin’s barrel chested, solid-as-a-rock men remind me very much of Alex Ross’s aesthetic, only Dillin also created impossibly beautiful women whose hair always looked as if it was made of plastic. It just never really got messed up.

This issue was the first I read and I loved it, even though I now acknowledge that it is as ridiculous as an issue of Prez.

Dillin is the first artist I noticed who made a point of trying to give characters individual faces. When he got bad ink jobs it was hard to see, but he got a terrific ink job on this comic. Young Clark and Young Bruce are both dead handsome, and most artists wouldn’t bother to try to vary their facial shapes or noses, but Dillin did here, and that made me sit up and go, “Hey! What a great idea! People should have different faces!”

Duh.

Clark had a younger, smoother face with a little nose like Dean Cain and Bruce was more chiseled and patrician.

Even Dillin’s gorgeous women got attention as some had little button noses and some aquiline. I know this sounds like a dopey minor point, but it set the gears to rolling in my noggin since individualizing women’s faces was something a lot of artists weren’t doing.

This Super Sons adventure was howlingly goofy. Bruce and Clark are out for a jaunt like the hip young guys they are and they run across a gorgeous woman working in a blacksmith shop, hurling a hammer and anvil.

That’s so not normal.

Bruce (who is a sexist pig) bounces up to help the glamorous chick with the hot tongs and the anvil, and she reacts with fury.

Clark (who has better manners) admonishes Bruce to move along and get over rejection, so off they go, driving their studmobile into town…a town populated entirely by gorgeous women!

Jackpot!

While Bruce tries to get over his case of Tourette’s Syndrome (he cannot seem to utter two sentences together without calling someone “babe” or “chick”), Clark plays peacemaker.

But none of the glamorous gals are having any of it! No sirree! Despite the fact that Clark and Bruce look like young Greek Gods, these women will have nothing to do with them and try to run them out of town!

What, are they lesbians or something?

No, worse!

They’re FEMINISTS!

That’s right, they have decided to live in a World Without Men! And yet, none of them look like Andrea Dworkin, they all look like Charlie’s Angels! They wear mini-skirts, makeup, and they have perfect hair.

OK, maybe they are lesbians, but one thing’s for sure, if a town full of gorgeous women won’t have anything to do with Bruce Wayne, then something must be wrong with them!

And women are mysteriously disappearing in the Southern swampy swamp! What could it be?!?

YIKES! It’s an alien invasion! An alien with a feminist agenda!

This big lizard alien thing has an enormous eye and is really ugly. I am not giving away any big scene spoilers because the retards who edited this book show you the damned thing right there on the cover.

Anyway, the alien hates beautiful women! Because, see, she’s really ugly and has been rejected by everyone! One ponders – but only for a moment – exactly why a big scaly one-eyed alien would even begin to consider American chicks the pinnacle of beauty – even if they are Southern – but that’s the plot, so there you go.

And to take revenge, she has lured all the most beautiful women to her town to create a World Without Men so she can manipulate them, make them call each other “Sister”, force them to wear spiked heels and false eyelashes even when they are working in a smithy, and then kill them one by one! It’s a diabolical plot indeed!

But it is stopped by our noble Super Sons, of course.

The loutish Bruce Wayne JR, then encourages the gorgeous gals – now free of alien influences by big scaly aliens who read too much Gloria Steinem – to line up for their dose of smootch medicine from the Doctor of Love, for they must have been fretting having to be away from hunkalicious guys like the Brucester for so long!

Clark Kent remains in background looking exasperated. What a Boy Scout.

This is one of the best bad comics ever.

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From the old blog, regular Donna noted in the comments: “I guess I have to be the one that points out that there is a BIG ONE EYED MONSTER on the cover of this comic. I mean seriously people, did no one else spot that yet?”

I have had that comic for years, and I never noticed it. Now that Donna has pointed it out, I can’t see anything else.

For more fun and games with classic, goofy comics, Check out Allan Harvey’s blog Gorilladaze. Enjoy this PREZ flashback.

Here’s another classic: Superman plays Witch Doctor Priest at the wedding of Jimmy Olsen and a gorilla.

Jimmy even has to rub a body part with his bride during the honeymoon. Good Lord.

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Made of Wrong…Filipino Batman movies.

This is obviously not an officially licensed work. Sometime between the late 1960′s and early 1970′s, several Batman features were filmed.

Here we have a bunch of Amazons menacing a young woman. Fear not, the Dynamic Duo will appear any moment!

Despite the fact that these young women are all scantily dressed, there’s not a lot to see. They have the figures of young boys. If you stacked them up, their combined breast measurement wouldn’t match Mamie Van Doren’s.

If these were officially licensed, the foreign rights department at DC should have been lined up and shot en masse.

Utterly, mind-bendingly bad Alyas Batman and Robin below! Gird your loins!

Wait! Where did that coconut come from?

Batman asks: “Would you like Bat-tea? Or Bat-coffee? Or Bat-milk? Bat-juice?”

And in this hideous, and yet oh-so-memorable clip, The Joker and The Penguin do a song and dance number in front of the Smith and Wesson Dollar Exchange.

Is there such a thing as a Smith and Wesson Dollar Exchange?

Hey, babe. He’s Mr. Joker!

The Penguin character’s name in Tagalog is, apparently, a reference to oral sex.

This is what happens when you do not jealously guard your intellectual property rights. The Penguin blows.

Yeah, baby, that’s what I’m talkin’ about.

As many of you know, Element Lad is my favorite Legionnaire.

I swear it about broke my heart when I was talking to the gang up at DC Comics last week and almost no one could even remember I had ever done superhero comics, much less The Legion of Superheroes. My glorious Legion!

How could anyone forget my devotion!

The march of time…it is so cruel.

I am going to track down whoever the hell is the editor of the Legion these days and camp out on his doorstep until they let me draw it again.

In the meantime, I am still sick as a dog, and it is another day in bed for me.

And I don’t know what is in these meds…but DAYUM.

I can’t quite recall who this commission was for because I am medicated, but I know the recipient was happy to get it.

I did another large Element Lad/Shvaughn Erin piece which is really nice, but when I got home from the show, I realized I had not followed the instructions of the person who ordered it, and did the wrong size and medium. Oops. Guess I will have to sell it to someone else. I will post that art later, and I know someone will find it adorable enough to buy it.

Have you seen the Legion Omnicom? Great Legion fan website.

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I first met Neil Gaiman back in 1989. I had received a grant from the Delphi Institute to study American pop culture with cartoonists from around the world. The group traveled across the USA visiting various companies and museums.

One of our stops was DC Comics. Since I already worked there, it didn’t strike me as a particularly unique experience. So, while the others got a lecture from Archie Goodwin, I wandered off to scare up some gigs and meet people. One of the people I met was the not-yet-famous Neil Gaiman who was hanging out in Karen Berger’s office.

I didn’t know who he was. After leaving the office and getting halfway down the hall, I suddenly realized he was that Neil Gaiman, author of the comic I thought was keen, but the rest of the world had yet to discover. After my double take, I ran back to the office and shouted “You’re that Neil Gaiman! Sandman!”

We did the mutual admiration thing. He told me he enjoyed A Distant Soil, a revelation which made me all tingly. He said would like to work with me sometime, which made me tingle even more.

It was rather comical to watch I am sure, because as I recall, we both burbled a lot.

Sandman was on the ropes, alas. To stave off cancellation, DC decided to try publishing a special edition of issue #8 as a freebie and introduction to retailers.

He gave me one of those promo Sandman #8′s which wasn’t in stores yet. In it he left his name, address and phone. Don’t you wish you had one of those?

Later I began receiving a series of charming postcards – all the way from England – written in Neil’s own dainty hand.

I considered donating these to a charity auction. By golly, they are just too cool. I’ve decided to keep them.

And with Neil’s kind permission, I am posting the first of them here, the one where he asks if I would work on Sandman sometime. A little bit of comics history.

This is original art from the Sandman 20th anniversary exhibit. Pencil on 500 ply Strathmore, 11″x14″. Morpheus holds the head of his son Orpheus on a lyre.

Alas, the original sale fell through as the buyer had me hold this, and later found himself bitten by the economy. So, the piece is back up for sale. Please inquire.

I was going to take all my art off the market for the next year, but one piece won’t kill my schedule!

This piece is now sold. Thank you for your interest! And thank you for your support!

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