Reviewing the current issue of the adaptation, which shipped 06/16.

Click here to read Broken Frontier’s review of WOT #3.

GREAT new book out there by Megan Prelinger. A big oversized paperback featuring hundreds of images of advertising art from the dawn of the Space Age. I recall many of these ads from the hours spent staring holes in them on the pages of magazines. These images fueled and informed endless hours of imagination as I dreamed of space staions, Mars rockets, and moon settlements. The book captures the challenges, dreams and pride of an America on the threshold of a new era. It’s a visual treat and a tribute to American exceptionalism.

I’m psyched for the Thor movie!!

The recent devastating floods in Tennessee have taken an enormous toll on the area including the state’s millions of pets. Folks have become separated from their beloved furry friends and still more are homeless and ownerless. Rick Frogge’s organized an Ebay charity auction and asked comic book artists to contribute. I sent him a few pieces including this guy below. Check this and the other auctions out and see if you’d like to help a great cause.

http://cgi.ebay.com/GI-JOE-SNAKE-EYES-Sketch-CHUCK-DIXON-/180515500885?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a078ff355

Not surprisingly, Jackson Guice’s opinions concerning art were formed early.

Marvel is continuing its series of hardcover restorations of its forgotten Atlas era of the 1950s and each entry is a dream-come-true for comic fans. The mots recent one I’ve devoured is a ten-issue reprint of Lorna the Jungle Girl; part of a mini-trend in the 50s for hot babes swinging through the jungles of Africa in search of adventure and justice.

These issues are consistently fun and earnestly silly. The premise is familiar enough; Lorna is dedicated to protecting the jungle from anyone who would exploit the native people or critters. Her allies are Mtuba, a local chief and Mikki her cowardly and crafty monkey companion. Sharing her trials is Greg Knight; a safari guide and hunter who thinks a woman’s place is in the kitchen not the rain forest.

Lorna saves Greg’s bacon on a regular basis but always in a way that the Great White Hunter’s manhood is left unsullied. Many stories have Lorna using her wilderness wiles to keep Greg safe as he unwittingly blunders from danger to danger. Without her, he’d have been lunch for a croc or lion a hundred times over. All of this is presented in a light manner and the stories move along briskly.

And the series has a sure Marvel touch as giant monsters show up in the form of hybrid creatures and a recurring gargantuan ape that’s a pal of Lorna’s.

All of the scripts are by Don Rico and each Lorna story is penciled and inked by Werner Roth. The Greg Knight solo stories are drawn by John Buscema, Jim Mooney and Jimmy Infantino. Finding out that Carmine had a brother named Jimmy is like learning that there was a Tex Sinatra.

Werner Roth has never been an artist I’ve thought much about. He drew a lot of forgettable X-men stories and shows up here and there throughout Marvel in the 60s and 70s.  But after reading this book I have a lot more regard for him. He joins that class of artists who were better at every other genre than superheroes. Like Don Heck, George Tuska, Johnny Craig and Frank Springer, Roth was clearly bored by superheroes and drawing them only for the paycheck.

He brings far more to these Lorna stories. Comics set in the jungle are an anathema to most artists. So many leaves and plants! But Roth seems to have relished this genre and draws a great variety of believable jungle settings with a vast array of trees, plants, flowers and other vegetation. The action takes place on treacherous cliff trails, roaring waterfalls and creepy caves. He is equally adept at all of the fauna and his animals are convincing and animated.

And his storytelling is superb. Don Rico was a competent scripter with a firm hand on character and plotting. But the difference between the Lorna leads and the Greg Knight back-ups is remarkable. Buscema and Mooney are no slouches but their art is pedestrian here and do little to bring the stories to life.

Roth, on the other hand, attacks the stories with everything he has. In addition to the attention to backgrounds and animals, he utilizes a vibrant cinematic storytelling style. He works hard to present action and movement in as fluid a manner as possible. Particularly admirable are vertical panel tiers that set-up and pay-off action or humor gags. I strongly suspect that Roth was freely riffing on Rico’s scripts to amp them up visually as nothing like this level of interest and craft occurs in any of the stories not drawn by Roth.

Solid, fun entertainment. I hope Marvel continues to include their jungle output in the rotation as they mine this rich vein of comic book gold.