Today's gem is called "The Night of the Demon", a story that first appeared in Haunted #36.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Hidden Gems: "The Night of the Demon" from Haunted #36 (Charlton, 1978)
Today's gem is called "The Night of the Demon", a story that first appeared in Haunted #36.
Friday, October 25, 2013
DC Diversions: Elvira's House of Mystery #11 (DC, 1987)
The one and only Mistress of the Dark took over DC's House of Mystery series for an eleven-issue run in 1986-87. This final issue was billed as a Giant-Sized Halloween Spectacular, and featured a beautiful cover by the late, great Dave Stevens.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Horror-Mood: On A Pale Horse (Innovation, 1991)
I can't let Halloween pass us by without a few obscure Horror gems! First up is Innovation's adaption of Piers Anthony's On A Pale Horse, from his Incarnations of Immortality series.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Mystifying Marvels: Krull #1-2 (1983)
The 1983 Sci-fi movie Krull is a guilty pleasure of mine. There's a lot for me to like about this movie even if the acting wasn't so great: Amazing cinematography, a kickass weapon called the Glaive, Rell the Cyclops, a young Liam Neeson, and the Black Fortress and it's monstrous overlord, The Beast. The soundtrack is pretty fantastic as well.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
DC Diversions: Ekko
DC Diversions is a new feature here at OTBP that will take a look at some of the more obscure characters and hidden gems among the DC universe. Today's diversion is Ekko, a story that was featured in three issues (#4, 5 and 6) of New Talent Showcase in 1984.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Spotlight: Gene Day's Black Zeppelin, Part Two
Part two of our spotlight on Gene Day's Black Zeppelin anthology continues into issue #2, beginning with a sci-fi epic called "Quiet in the Green".
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Spotlight: Gene Day's Black Zeppelin, Part One
Gene Day was one of those rare creative minds where if you blinked...you missed him. Getting his start in Canadian fanzines and Skywald magazines such as Psycho and Nightmare, Day eventually moved into his dream job -- working for Marvel primarily as an inker for Master of Kung Fu, Star Wars and many more.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Hidden Gems: Doug Moench and Bill Sienkiewicz's Godhood Continuum
Hidden Gems is another new feature which will focus on rare work and appearances by popular writers and artists in obscure or lesser known publications.
Cravin' Kirby: The U.F.O.
This is the first of a few new features planned for OTBP. Cravin' Kirby will be a weekly examination of Jack Kirby's fantastic artwork, from panels and splash pages, to concepts and interesting "King Kirby" stories.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Unusual Heroes: Captain Zilog! #1 (Zilog, 1979)
It's time for another Unusual Hero, so let me introduce you to Captain Zilog, who became the face of Zilog Inc., the microcontroller manufacturing company. It was 1979, and Zilog had just released the Z8000, a 16-bit microprocessor for computers, and wanted to come up with an eye-popping brochure for their latest product at the upcoming Wescon conference.
And from the looks of things, they found the right guys to make it. Lou Brooks wrote and designed the idea, while the legendary Joe Kubert provided the pencils, and by adding a rich amount of four-color brightness Captain Zilog was born.
The first part of the comic details the origin of Captain Zilog as we watch programmer Nick Stacey get eaten by a glowing CRT screen, where he is given a microprocessor which shall be the "beginning of a new freedom for man's imagination!"
Before we know it, Cityville is invaded by a giant spaceship inhabited by the diabolical Dr. Diabolicus, who warns the citizens that he is now the SUPREME MASTER! Nick finds a restroom to turn into Captain Zilog and the battle begins.
The Cap uses his innate knowledge of microprocessing power to trick Dr. Diabolicus into faster, more lethal moves!
It's very strange reading about the kind of technology we had way back in 1979. To see 8 megabytes of computing power as the godsend back then is a thing to behold. I mean, take a look at some of this tech!
The second part of the story focuses on Dr. Diablolicus' plans for revenge. He decides to use his miniturization process to shrink down to microscopic size, allowing him to infiltrate Captain Zilog's computer! But as you are about to see, the Z8000 is one computer not to mess with!
The Zilog Z8000 CPU went on to become one of the first true multi-user systems that could share resources before networking became common, but was soon overshadowed by Intel brand microprocessors in the early 80's.
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