Fleener Fun & Games

My head may yet be scattered outside my skull, but at least this time i know that a week has passed, and it's once again time for

We're going to stick with the only thing that's managed to catch my focus for any length of time this week - more Mary Fleener, featuring her Destiny Tattoo Game-

To many players, the rules may seem obvious and easily inferred. To others, the board may seem quite obtuse. Fortunately, we have some pages that may help -

Oops! Wrong Game.
Hang on a moment...

Ah! Here we go -

...and a good time is had by all!

pages by Mary Fleener from Fleener #1 and Weirdo #21 (1996 & 1987)

He-Man Pre He-Man

As mentioned last time, or next time if you're from the future and reading in reverse chronological order, Ziff-Davis published He-Man way back in 1952, long before that Masters Of The Universe guy showed up. I referenced the cover at right, saying that He-Man guy on the cover had his own book.

That was ... let's call it a "quantum truth", eh?
Has anyone tried covering their bullshit with that term yet? You see, that statement was both true and untrue - while He-Man did indeed have his own book, that's not him on the cover.

Well, it is and it isn't.
Here's the cover to He-Man #1:

Looks nothing like the other guy, right? That's because they are indeed different people. There is no "He-Man" character, only He-Man character types. The stories feature a Bullfighter...

...Gladiators...

...Fighters...

...and single page tales of Mountain Men...

...and Attila the Hun:

And, as promised last time, they also bring us the story of The He-est He-Man Of The All!

They couldn't darn his socks. That was the obvious reason they couldn't 'marry' with him.
Yeah. Brutally obvious.

Even the adverts were He-Man ads-

...well, maybe not this one-

But they've got a creepy cowboy ventriliquist dummy who smoke cigarettes.
I'm gonna give it a pass.

By the way - that Tops In Adventure at the top of the page reprints the entire issue, including ads (except covers), as well as three other comics The Hawk #3, Crusader From Mars #2 and Football Thrills. You can save yourself a bit of hunting by finding that one issue.

pages from He-Man #1 from Ziff-Davis (1952)

Pondering Painted Promotional Presentation Preferences

One thing of which i've always been fond is painted covers on comic books.

I believe it started with some old Gold Key covers in the 60s. They always seemed like a bonus on the comic, and the infrequent use in general made them little treasures to be found. Warren embraced the painted covers for their black & white newsstand magazines, and even when they were running old Frazetta paintings we'd seen before, they were still pretty cool. The new paintings they used drew me in and made me a regular reader on a lot of titles that were pretty hard to find in newsstand desert of SmallTown, USA, and even harder on the air base or naval post where we'd go to buy books & magazines from back home when living overseas. They became choice targets on hunts through dealers' rooms when conventions started sprouting up on a semi-regular basis. It didn't hurt that i'd moved to California by then, with Los Angeles and San Diego within easy travel distance.

Warren produced so many fine painted covers that i've started different piles for just the covers from different titles. I'm not sure how soon we'll start really digging into those, or the remarkable number of big name creators who seemed to work in the shadows at Warren, unseen by the average comic reader of the day. And then, of course, there's Joe Guy, America's Foremost Hero...

Anyway-  Today, we're going to jump back further, to the decade before i first developed my fondness for such covers. Not the earliest examples out there, but Ziff-Davis routinely used painted covers, often going for a more lavish book/magazine look to their comics.

Here are a dozen covers from the early 50s. After looking at the first cover again, i've decided to refrain from further comment at this time.

Oddly enough, that guy He-Man on the cover of Tops In Adventure had his own solo title decades before that Masters Of The Universe guy showed up using the name.

Y'know - I think that'll make a fine topic for a follow-up post.
Join us next time for He-Man #1 from 1952, and the He-est He-Man of them all.

covers from the self-indicated titles from Ziff-Davis (1950-51-52)

Musings Past

While digging through spaces internal and external, i stumbled across a couple personal favorites of my old poems. It's been a few years, at least, since last composing verse. I'm not sure what would come out these days. Possibly something borderline dadaist. Likely with a side scribble of nihilism.

But these come from a time past (passed?) when i was quite in touch with some of my selves. One draws on recurring dreams, the other on recurring lives. Both were probably composed within a year of each other, but i'd be hard pressed to nail down when that year was. I'm not certain, but i think they're from late last century.

This one is accompanied by a returning urge to paint a series of plates, one for each verse, following the one whose viewpoint the poem presents -

A point to ponder-

If one has memories of a life or lives before the current one, say that of a soldier (Assyrian?) chewing leather thongs before binding armor protections, does that actually offer any sort of proof of reincarnated lives? Or could it be a product of racial memory? Or of some RNA fragments passing data beyond our current understanding?  Tapping a greater pooled consciousness? Dreamwalking through time? Exploiting aspects of the universe we cannot yet begin to fathom?

How can we ever really understand what we know without being able to gain an objective external overview?

poesy by -3- (a while back. I'd have to hunt through a lot of data disks to find the copyright dates)

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)