Black and White Wednesday: "Have You Ever Seen the Black Rain?" by Hewetson and Xirinius

HoOOOw's it shakin', Groove-ophiles! Ready to shiver (and not from the cold)? Here's a Horror-Mood masterpiece of the macabre as only Archaic Al Hewetson could deliver (complete with a CCR song-title reference). "Have You Ever Seen the Black Rain?" from Psycho #8 (cover-dated September 1972) was illustrated by the multi-talented Spanish artist Xirinius (aka Jaime Juez Castella), who, at the time this story was published, had already notched nearly fifty years of published art experience under his belt!

Second Smash Issue: "The Sirens of 7th Avenue!" by Conway, Chaykin, and Chiarmonte

Greetings, Groove-ophiles! It's the second day of the New Year, so it's time for yet another Groove City tradition: celebrating the second smash ish of a fave Groovy Age comic! "Waitaminnit, Groove," you say, "no wonder you don't teach math anymore! That's Amazing Adventure #19 you're dishin' out--not ish #2!" Well, I know that, Irving, but it is the second smash issue featuring Marvel's War of the Worlds/Killraven! (You can read all about the series and the first story in ish 18 right here, by the way.) "Sirens of Seventh Avenue!" is kind of a confusing title since the "Sirens" don't last for three whole pages, but this second WotW/Killraven adventure does introduce two very important members of KR's cast of characters: M'Shulla and Hawk (who looks and acts very different in his debut). It also gives us a first look at what a Martian really looks like (blecch!) and gives us plenty of action and wild Howard Chaykin style costumes! From April 1973, under a Herb Trimpe/ Mike Esposito cover--can you hear 'em? It's those blamed Sirens...

Famous Firsts: "The Sandman vs. General Electric" by Simon and Kirby

Happy New Year, Groove-ophiles! 2018?! Where does the time go? Well, at least we still have our own time machines here in Groove City--comicbooks, baby! Let's kick off the new year with one of the wildest comics of the Groovy Age: Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's Sandman #1! DC kicked off 1974 with the re-teaming of one of the most famous and prolific writer/artist teams of all time: Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Both men had been working at DC on separate projects, then someone finally realized that they had one of the Dream Teams of the Golden Age under their Decidedly Creative roof and put 'em back together for, it seemed, a one-shot. Due to a major winter storm on the East Coast, a lot of comics didn't make it to the stores for a few weeks, which helped that wild and wacky first ish of Sandman sell enough copies to make DC wanna bring it back--exactly one year later. When Sandman returned to the spinner racks in January 1975, neither Simon nor Kirby returned with it, instead Spectre writer Michael Fleischer and penciler Ernie Chan (then "Chua") took over the creative chores, joined by inker Royer. While Chan did his best to ape Kirby, he only completed two issues before Kirby himself returned to team with Fleischer and Royer to complete the series (inked by Wally Wood in the last ish, number 6, September 1975). An unpublished Sandman story stayed "in the editor's drawer" for a few years (You can read all about it right here). Okay, that's your history lesson--now here come da comics!