Monster of the Day #2033

Updated on November 26, 2019 By Ken Begg 23 Comments

This is probably a repeat, but what a great cover. Man, I REALLY love those deep colors they had on these olds covers. That rich orange–also seen on The Thing over on the FF covers–is just spectacular.

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  • I’m one of those weirdos who hated when the inside pages of comics went from pulp to slicks. I felt like it completely destroyed any subtlety of color and shade in the artwork. That was also about when the cost jumped to “I can have comics or gas, guess I choose transportation” prices, so that was the end of my life as a comic book nerd.

  • Beckoning Chasm

    I keep looking at the guy in the maroon suit (middle of the left edge), jumping over the castle wall. Where the heck is he jumping from?

    Or did It fling him up there?

  • I’m more bothered by the little turret thing in the center – the one with the man in green in the window, and the man in blue on the top. There’s some serious Depth of Field problems with the monster’s arm going on there….

  • Gamera977

    Yeah maroon guy looks like either IT threw him up there or else he’s jumping off onto the monster’s back.
    And I agree, the perspective with the center turret is just weird. I guess IT is reaching between it and the castle with his hand behind the talking guy. But it still looks off to me.

  • Gamera977

    Yesterday’s cover is a repeat but I don’t remember seeing this one before. And a beauty it is.

  • Beckoning Chasm

    I would guess that the turret in front of IT’s arm was probably cut out of another drawing and pasted on. (Using actual razors and paste.) The rampart where professor Greenbalding is standing looks out of place, and maybe the turret was originally where he was. My understanding is that this was not an uncommon practice back in the day.

  • Ken_Begg

    I was using a subscription service back in the 80s because I was buying so much stuff. I think I got 40% off by accepting a once a month shipment. I was just buying everything. I finally quit because I was spending well over $200 a month just on comics, even with the discount. This is when the minimum wage was barely over $3.00. I will say the interior printing in the ’80s was often atrocious.

  • Mike Weller

    Oh, yeah. I had to loose my pull at The Laughing Ogre. Good gang there, but I just gotta pay bills first.

  • Mike Weller

    “Bob, did you get that art to the printers yet? Crap on a stick man…”
    “Huh…oh, yeah…hey, did ya know happy hour started early today at The Billy Goat?”

  • Marsden

    I agree! It’s strange how in almost every metric that comics are better today but I much prefer the “old inferior” comics.

    Nice paper and whatever don’t compare to great stories. How would kids buy them now, anyway, the little ^&$*#& probably don’t bother with their smart phones glued in their hands.

  • Eric Hinkle

    The increasingly shrill tone of way too many stories was something that convinced me it was time to get out of being a serious comics geek. That and the constant ‘all humanity is scum’ attitude from Marvel in the late 80’s onwards.

    Though it’s nothing new. I’ve been reading some Marvel Essentials books (local used bookstore got a whole estate’s worth recently, dumped because Disney is redoing them all in color) and even back in the Lee-Kirby days you got some hamfisted lectures in the books.

    But they seemed to be lacking a certain, I don’t know, nasty childishness in more recent material?

  • Eric Hinkle

    Oh, I’ve got an odd question: has anyone here seen this ‘Hazbin Hotel’ animation that’s apparently on YouTube? People are raving both for and against it and I was wondering if anyone here could say yeah or nay about it.

  • While hamfisted, at least the Lee-Kirby lectures deemed rooted in an optimistic belief in the basic decency of man, the old “if we’d just stop a minute and listen to one another, then we could all get along” thing. The new stuff is based in a shrill hatred of half the human race and dismissal of them as somehow inhuman for not being in lockstep with the current groupthink.

  • And they commit the even greater sin of just plain not being fun. I’ll put up with a fair amount of hamfisted lecturing if you will just make sure that you entertain me along the way.

  • Oh, I will grant that print quality varied from quite good to, are you sure these blobs on a page are supposed to actually be something? But I loved the softer colors and when they were done well they just looked ‘right’ in a way the slicks never did to me.

  • Ken_Begg

    Plus, you know, people like Kirby literally fought Nazis. Real ones. So you have to give those lectures a little more weight.

  • Eric Hinkle

    Though that doesn’t stop some people from posting online about how Kirby’s work on Black Panther was ‘racist’ for showing ‘primitive’ Africans.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I’ve been reading some of the Marvel Essential collections and I have indeed noticed a difference between when Stan and Jack got a trifle ranty, and when some of the later 70s’-early 80’s writers cut loose. The later often came off as far more vicious and hateful.

  • Eric Hinkle

    Yes. Reminds me of a line attributed to Louis B. Mayer: “If you want to Send A Message, use Western Union and not my movies.”

  • joeybot

    It doesn’t matter, it’s libtard elites telling us what to do!

  • joeybot

    I hate anything that might make me think.

  • Ken_Begg

    Clearly.

  • joeybot

    Don’t you have a million word essay to write about some shitty movie where you can bag on it containing political commentary while you constantly add your political commentary? Or have you retired?