Stephanie Maxwell will replace Peter Daut on WSOC's (Channel 9) morning newscasts beginning in January, news director Julie Szulczewski announced Tuesday.
Maxwell, a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, has spent the last five years at the ABC affiliate in Jackson, Miss. Earlier in her career, she was an anchor and reporter in Greenville, S.C., and New Bern. Maxwell is a native of Cincinnati and grew up in Atlanta.
Hermes Press has begun the task of reprinting, in chronological order, the comic book tales of The Phantom. With two volumes of Gold Key issues, and a volume of King issues already released, we come to the first of several Charlton volumes.
This volume , The Charlton Years: Volume One, contains art mostly by Jim Aparo, but also includes a story each by Frank McLaughlin, Pat Boyette, and Bill Lignante. The scripts are largely written by Dick Wood, with an exception of a tale by Bill Harris.There is also an introduction by Christopher Irving, while providing some nice background information, it doesn't really expound on much more than any Charlton/Phantom fan would already know.
A few discrepancies occur within the book,most notably the attribution of Steve Skeates as the writer for the story "The Phantom's Death" in issue #33. I personally asked Steve about this story not long ago and he had this to say: "My name has somehow been connected with The Phantom for some time now! The thing is, I never did write a Phantom story!....much as I would have liked to!". Perhaps this is an oversight that Hermes Press can correct with later pressings.
The book itself is a sturdy hardcover, with a dust sleeve. The full color cover of the actual book is the same image as the jacket (the cover of issue #38)--a nice touch that's a bit different than many other collections that tend to leave the binding a single color with just the title printed on it.The pages are printed on a nice slick/glossy paper stock.
Weighing in at a hefty 224 pages, the volume covers Charlton's first foray into the adventures of The Phantom, reprinting their first issue (#30) and continues up to issue #38, for a total of nine issues (sans any text stories and non-Phantom back up stories.)
The cover reproductions have been modified to omit the Charlton logo,price boxes, comics code, and any other extraneous items, leaving just the art and Phantom logo.
As with many reprint volumes of this type, digital color corrections have been made, and depending on your view of such things it either deters or adds to the reprint. In this case, the corrections can be jarring (although not entirely unwelcome) at times due to the original printings on Charlton's sub-par presses. An example:
There is very little in the way of "extras" in this book, but there are 10 pages of original art reproduced, and that's always a plus.
With a cover price of $49.99, the book seems a bit expensive, but with a little digging around you can find a new copy for much less. I was able to find a new/mint copy for around $25 on Amazon--a price much better suited to my wallet.
These are on my radar, but money limitations make me wince when I see them. Alas, eventually perhaps.
sadly, due to the digital corrections some of the nuances that made Charlton, well..Charlton, are gone. I would have much preferred a reproduction approach similar to Craig Yoes's Ditko reprints, but still it's worth seeking out. The next two volumes are on pre-order for under 20 dollars, and that is definitely something I can get behind.
Have them all and they are awesome. Also, there is no reason to pay the listed price. They can be found for as little as 50% quite easily.
Well, I've been away for quite some time, so I figured this update better be be worth the wait--and as you can (hopefully) see, it'...
THE THING #12 February 1954 cover: Steve Ditko Cinderella: Pencils and inks: Steve Ditko Melvin Comes Home: Pencils and inks: ...
Fightin' Five were basically Charlton's version of the Blackhawks, although with better character developement, and way sexier (in...
HAUNTED LOVE #1 April 1973 cover: pencils and ink: Tom Sutton Eternal Teacher: pencils and inks: Joe Staton A Kiss to Save Him from the ...
Number 2258: Beneath the sea with Chuck Hardy and his gal - Years ago I read about comic artist Frank Thomas, that his comic book career was only four years, from 1939 to 1943. It was likely he was drafted or joine...
Veteran’s Day Thanks - Sincere thanks and a digital smoosh to the roughly 20 million U.S. veterans who’ve served—often at great risk and sacrifice. Transcript: SCENE: Young w...
Man Who Wasn't / Bored to Death - It's been an uncanny month and a half of posts, but today's double whammy of ultra bored, fog bound, Men of Meh marks the end of our *Atlas Fest 2018*, bec...
If You Blinked You Missed: Super Cops by Channing, Morrow, Pino, Alcazar, and Thorne - Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! Here's one of those weird one-shots that popped up from time to time during the Groovy Age. Two real-life policemen, Dave Gr...
Happy 91 - November 2, 1927, Steve Ditko born Couldn't quite get up to 91 publications there for the photo (I guess if I stretched things a bit I could), I'm hoping...
Supermarionation - The shows are all great, but while watch Captain Scarlet the people look more like dolls, because they look too good.
Now an eBook--The Best of Booksteve's Library - As of today, THE BEST OF BOOKSTEVE'S LIBRARY is available as an eBook at $15.01 less than the actual book. 100 of the best pieces--essays, reviews, memo...
Toys & Comics & Golden & Hama & Me at Terrificon - The “Toys and Comics: G.I. Joe, Micronauts, He-Man and Super-Powers” Panel with Michael Golden, Larry Hama, and myself, moderated by Michael Zapcic at th...
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction: The 1950's - Here's some classic 1950's covers for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. They are all for sale in my eBay store. February 1952, cover art by Che...
Super Goof! - *Super Goof* was Goofy (one of my personal heroes) with super powers, acquired by eating super goobers (peanuts) he grew in his garden. Here’s a short, 4-p...
As We Head into 2017 - An End-of-Year Update - 2016... oh what a crazy year you've been. While it will no doubt go down as a year full of tragedy and turmoil in the world, on a personal level, 2016 has...
Live, From Secaucus, It's...The Charlton Comics: Past, Present & Future Panel! - Due to the peculiarities of Blogspot, it's a pain-in-the-tuchus to post audio files, so I've put up the audio of the *Charlton Comics Past, Present, and Fu...
Moving to a New Blog!! - *I've moved on to my keen new sketchbook blog here...* http://unclejeffyssketchbook.blogspot.com/ *I really enjoyed doing Inside Jeff Overturf's Head, but ...
#024 - In which Danny Boy is all wet - MYSTERY MEN COMICS #13 (August 1940) gives us our first mention of vitamin 2-X, the formula which enhances the Beetle's strength. V2X was first mentioned ...
ANCHORS AWAY! - Whew....the wind has sure been at our backs the last few months! We sold out of ZOMBIE SUB-920 issue#1, and had to order a second printing. We had ZOMBIE...
Bowsky Gag Drawing - For ages I have been trying to definitively tack down Willard Bowsky's Popeye animation. It's a tough call and I refrain from doing so in many cases becaus...
**all images presented here are believed public domain,have been used by permission,and/or are in accordance with US Title 17 code 107 Fair Use** Text and editorial content is copyright control Mark Ferguson