Black and White Wednesday: "First House: Earth!" by Englehart and Gan

Y'know, Groove-ophiles, sometimes yers trooly has to wonder where his head is. I've done several posts about Star-Lord and how much I loved that character/feature. I've posted a few of his later tales and about his greatest moment at the hands of Christ Claremont/John Byrne/Terry Austin, but I have yet to share his debut with ya! How nutso can ya get? Well, today is the day Ol' Groove makes up for that outrageous oversight!

Star-Lord, created by one of my all-time heroes, Steve Englehart (based on the name created by then-editor Marv Wolfman), was intended to be the headliner of his own b&w sci-fi mag. I know this 'cause it was mentioned in the Bullpen Bulletins at the time, and Star-Lord even showed up on the list of subscriptions in Marvel's ads during early 1975. Stan and the higher-ups decided to nix that idea (Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction was on its last legs, after all, and Star Wars still was a couple of years away), so the origin story, with art by Steve Gan (with assists by Bob McLeod), would eventually make its debut in their b&w try-out mag Marvel Preview #4 (October 1975).  Now, I'm not gonna try to expound on how Stainless Steve created seemingly psychotic Peter Jason Quill and his star-spanning alter-ego; he does a fine job of  that on his own in the mag's intro, so I'm including that with the story itself. I just wanna tell you that Englehart's Star-Lord changed the way Young Groove would look at comics from that point on. It shed light on what guys like Steranko and Eisner had been saying for a while: comics could be SO MUCH MORE than super-heroes. See for yourself...

Cover art by Gray Morrow

Random Reads: "The Sorcerer's Castle" by Uslan, Newton, and Adkins

What it is, Groove-ophiles! Today we're gonna get down with a minor masterpiece of mischief and mayhem (it's got vikings, fer cryin' out loud!) from the talented trio of Michael Uslan, Don Newton, and Dan Adkins. It's House of Mystery #272's (June 1979) cover-feature (with a far-out cover by the great Joe Orlando, don'cha know)..."The Sorcerer's Castle"! Can you dig it?

The Boys from Derby: "Bridal Night" by Wally Wood

Yeah, Groove-ophiles, Wally Wood isn't typically who you'd think of as one of the Boys from Derby, is he? Still, if you found him drawing pretty girls and evil barons in Ghost Manor #8 (August 1972) like Ol' Groove did, you'd wanna find an excuse to share that terror-tale, too! Wouldn't ya? Yeah, that's what I thought...

Making a Splash: Kamandi Part One by Kirby and Royer

Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! Over in the DotGK Facebook group (click the link to the right and join, ya silly!), Groove-ophile Reuben P. suggested a gallery of Kirby Kamandi splashes. Well, Ol' Groove thought that was a capital idea so here's the first in a series!

Yeah, a series! Kirby did so many splashes (and double-pages splashes) during his 40 ish run that there's no way to fit 'em into just one post. So today we're doing the single-page splashes from the beginning (Kamandi #1, July 1972) to the end of Mike Royer's run as inker (Kamandi #16, January 1974)--which was co-inked by the incoming D. Bruce Berry.

We'll be Kamandi-ing this space quite often, baby, so keep your eyes peeled for splashes from issues 17-40--not to mention the double page splashes! Enjoy!