You Deserve This Crown, Tantri...

Thrice have we visited with Birbal. But, if modern politics shows us anything it's that we're more likely to find evil clowns running the show. So let's look at another figure from Indian comics who's less Birbal and more Black Adder - a court adviser named Tantri The Mantri. Mantri means a Sage (one who thinks and says, from the Sanskrit), for those of you who might be wondering.

Tantri The Mantri was a long running feature in Tinkle, the comic magazine for children at which we've glanced previously. The earliest strip i've seen is from around #50, but i'll have to do some deep digging to try to find when he debuted. I've yet to find a good database that covers comics published in India. For example, the Grand Comics Database has indexed 11 out of 530 issues.

Today we'll look a little later in the run. These strips were scattered between #209 to #289...

I'll go hunting for that first one i saw with the mechanical flying elephant for next time...

page art by Ajit Vasaikar, Asit, Shayam Desai, and Seema Mande for Tinkle #s 209, 254, 275, 283 & 289 (1990, 1992, 1993, 1994)

Skipping Rope In The Nude

It all started in the letters page.

One of the downsides to knowing that you're a comic book character - you could get drafted to answer your own fan mail. Eventually, that led to this remark from Jennifer...

Well, she wasn't wrong...

Of course, she tried to kill that idea real quick...

But, the very next issue...

And so...

Ah, the magic of illusion.

For an extra punchline to the joke, on the very next page...

Some days writing She-Hulk was easier than others. Let's see them try to adapt that scene to the movies, eh?

page art by John Byrne for Sensational She-Hulk #40 (1992)

He Knows

9

Hulk knows...

Wolverine knows...

How about you?
Are you getting your present shopping done?

You wouldn't want to piss off you-know-who...

He knows if you've been shopping...

page art by Sal Buscema, Tom Morgan and Pop Mhan from Marvel Holiday Special 1992 & 1994 and Santa The Barbarian #1 (1992, 1994, 1996)

Blue Mary Finale

Welcome back to our Blue Monday celebration of Mary Fleener's work - step right in!

Before we take a look at some of her covers, let's take a quick peek at a few comics.
This one seems right at home with Fleener's visual style-

NOTE: The following 2 pages, and much of Mary's artwork below,

 contains nudity and has been moved to our back room for adult content.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive
of the original post to view the artwork.

How's your Lawrence?

Confused?
The Swiss publication, Das Magazin, has a feature entitled Werke der Weltliteratur (Works Of World Literature) in which they ask artists to translate a classic novel into a single comic page. As might be expected with such an endeavor, it helps tremendously if you're familiar with the original material.

Here's a couple more from Mary:

Yes, she does use words! (In case you were starting to wonder)
Of course, she may incorporate said words into the art...

Mary's works are as uniquely personal expressions as her artwork might suggest. The source material is often her own life and surroundings, and the events shaping her world. So, it might help a bit to know a little about her, eh?
Let's let her tell it:

I can relate. Creating my artwork is my best therapy. (I sure hope we get that system fully functional soon so i can resume therapy)

You were promised Covers with you Comics, so let's view some now.
Here are 10 covers from Mary Fleener -

Mary is the kind of Twisted Sister i quite enjoy. We'll look more at some of her longer comics on another day - we've already got a pretty full post with three cubed pics.
So let's wrap with a just few more bits & pieces of Fleener flair -

I'm so feeling the Coppertone.
I may have to use that last piece as a colouring book page and have fun with it.

While i'm doing that, you can learn more about, and see more from, Mary Fleener at her website. Perhaps more importantly, you buy some of her original paintings, too.

all artwork by Mary Fleener for various, mostly shown above (1987-1997)