At least once each month for all of 2014, Ann Miller will show up here in Shades of Gray to mark a special day. Keep checking back, or you may miss her!
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
March 20: It's the first day of Spring...
... and Ann Miller is jumping with joy! Could there be a more Picture Perfect Wednesday?
Monday, March 17, 2014
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Picture Perfect Wednesday:
The Return of the Purple Tigress!
The Return of the Purple Tigress!
In 1944, the mysterious Purple Tigress was capturing hearts and breaking heads throughout Guardian City. Who was this mysterious woman? No one knew, and when her crime-busting exploits came to an end, still no one knew. But if you click here you can learn all her secrets, as they will be revealed by Steve Miller in the soon-to-be released e-book Golden Age Oddballs.
The Purple Tigress adventures are among the six stories featured in Golden Age Oddballs. As we wait for the book to be released by NUELOW Games, here are some modern visions of the mysterious crime fighter.
(Despite what you might assume from Butch's drawing, and her striped bikini, the Purple Tigress is not a cat-themed superhero. In fact, she draws her name from the Purple Tiger Beetle of all things.)
The Purple Tigress adventures are among the six stories featured in Golden Age Oddballs. As we wait for the book to be released by NUELOW Games, here are some modern visions of the mysterious crime fighter.
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| The Purple Tigress, as seen by Terry Beatty |
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| The Purple Tigress and Friend, as seen by Butch. |
(Despite what you might assume from Butch's drawing, and her striped bikini, the Purple Tigress is not a cat-themed superhero. In fact, she draws her name from the Purple Tiger Beetle of all things.)
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Diana Danger, Space Girl!
Incarna Comics publishes several "retro" titles... and one which is in the early stages of development is Diana Danger, Space Ranger. Here are some portraits of the title character, who keeps alive the tradition of space-faring women in tight suits and fishbowl-like helmets!
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| By F. Newton Burcham |
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| By F. Newton Burcham |
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| By F. Newton Burcham |
Friday, February 14, 2014
Happy Valentine's Day!
Here's hoping no one tears through your heart the way Ann Miller has gone through the one in the picture.
Monday, February 10, 2014
'Ginger and Snap' : Coming from NUELOW Games
Early in 1948, Eastern Color Printing published the first issue of Club 16, a humor anthology series focused mostly around high-schoolers and young professionals. The quarterly title lasted four issues, and it was gone again by year's end.
From the first issue ot the last, one of the features was "Ginger and Snap." Ginger and Snap were fraternal twins and each story saw them trading places or otherwise impersonating each other. Since Ginger was a girl and Snap was a boy, all the stories feature light-hearted exploratons of gender role reversals. "Cute' is the perfect word to describe the stories by Mickey Klar Marks and the illustrations by Dave Tendlar, and not in a sarcastic way.
I immediately developed a fondness for "Ginger and Snap" when I discovered the series during one of my hunts for comics for NUELOW Games to re-publish as part of its comics/rpg hybrid line. It's not like anything else we've put out, so the Trading Places Twins are getting a book of their very own. Here's the splash page from the first story, as it will appear in NUELOW's "Ginger and Snap." (Click on the image for a larger, more readable version.)
When I made a post similar to this in a Facebook forum, announcing the plans to do a "Ginger and Snap" book, one of the commentors said,"Where the mind goes by today's standard would make a book like this a little ...,"
And he's right. If Ginger and Snap were to be fully rebooted instead of just re-issued, it would probably look something like this:
Look for Ginger and Snap, later this week from NUELOW Games. Meanwhile, click here to check out the other comics offerings... guaranteed better than 99 percent of the crap currently at your Friendly Neighborhood Comics Shop.
From the first issue ot the last, one of the features was "Ginger and Snap." Ginger and Snap were fraternal twins and each story saw them trading places or otherwise impersonating each other. Since Ginger was a girl and Snap was a boy, all the stories feature light-hearted exploratons of gender role reversals. "Cute' is the perfect word to describe the stories by Mickey Klar Marks and the illustrations by Dave Tendlar, and not in a sarcastic way.
I immediately developed a fondness for "Ginger and Snap" when I discovered the series during one of my hunts for comics for NUELOW Games to re-publish as part of its comics/rpg hybrid line. It's not like anything else we've put out, so the Trading Places Twins are getting a book of their very own. Here's the splash page from the first story, as it will appear in NUELOW's "Ginger and Snap." (Click on the image for a larger, more readable version.)
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| The first appearance of Ginger and Snap. |
When I made a post similar to this in a Facebook forum, announcing the plans to do a "Ginger and Snap" book, one of the commentors said,"Where the mind goes by today's standard would make a book like this a little ...,"
And he's right. If Ginger and Snap were to be fully rebooted instead of just re-issued, it would probably look something like this:
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| Joke ad for Ginger and Snap, by Karl M. |
Look for Ginger and Snap, later this week from NUELOW Games. Meanwhile, click here to check out the other comics offerings... guaranteed better than 99 percent of the crap currently at your Friendly Neighborhood Comics Shop.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Coming Soon: Judy of the Jungle
I'm editing a projected series of three pdf e-books for NUELOW Games reprinting the "Judy of the Jungle" series from 1947 - 1949 issues of Nedor's Exciting Comics. The series is a great example of the Jungle Girl adventure comic genre that thrived during the 1940s; Judy didn't exactly break new ground, but the art and writing has weathered the passage of time better than most of her contemporaries.
You can take a look at the possible covers here. (And while you're visiting the NUELOW Games blog, this post may be of interest if you're a gamer, as it has some RPG rules inspired in part by Judy.
With most of these series, there's invariably a panel or sequence of panels that I notice become funny if taken out of context. With Judy, it's an entire page. The page that introduces her, in fact. But I'm not sure if it's funny or creepy.
First off, Judy seems to be wearing make-up and a cocktail dress... in a hut that she shares with her father in the deepest, darkest African jungle. That's a bit weird--but not as weird as the fact that she wears that dress for most of the series. (It becomes tattered as time goes on.)
But there's nothing weirder (or more disturbing) than the vibe that Panel Three excudes. No wonder Judy's dad thinks he's made a mistake and it's time for his daughter to go somewhere else, where there are other men. (Click on the image of a more readable version, one that will show you that the text does not make the drawing any less skin-crawlingly disturbing as I thought it might when I read it.)
I should say a little about the process by which we select the comics that get revived in NUELOW Games editions -- just because the comment about thinking Panel Three might be less disturbing when I read it might make more sense.
Step One: My partner (L.L Hundal) or I suggest a character or comic strip to the other that we like. The other person takes a quick glance at a couple sample stories --and sometimes even just a couple of pages. At this point, we just look at the art, because when it comes to comics, it the art isn't appealing, you lose readers right then and there. If we agree the art is good, the we put the material on the "Maybe." (In the case of "Judy of the Jungle," the title alone made it a "Maybe" and insured her a place in at least one ROLF! product.
Step Two: I do research to determine that the series in question is in the Public Domain. If there are trademark complications (such as with Black Cat), I make a note of it to make sure Hundal knows to be careful about presentation if I end up not being directly involved in a project for whatever reason when it comes to deciding what title it should be published under. (For example, we will never be able to just do a book called "Black Cat," even if we can publish Black Cat stories and fiction to our heart's content. As can be seen in numerous of our products.
Step Three: I either read the entire series (if it's one of the very short-lived ones that we favor due to their obscurity), or I read the first installment, followed by a random selection of one or two later chapters. If the writing appeals to me, we note the series for future use in one of our comics/rpg projects. (Sometimes, this approach backfires on us. I completely misjudged "Rocket Man" and "Lady Satan" because of this. The art for the most part remains high quality on both strips, but the writing is absolutely horrid on many stories after the first few. For this reason, I'll be writing new "Rocket Man" scripts for future issues of Science Sleuths.)
Step Four: We process the comics pages, assemble books, write new material, edit, publish... and hope that some folks out there think the stuff is as cool as we do.
(And then there's Step Three-Point-Five... where I make posts like this. Hundal doesn't like it when I sometimes poke fun at the comics were:) )
If you've read this far, maybe you'll also like to take a look at NUELOW Games's comics selections. Questions, comments, or reviews -- feel free to leave them here or at DriveThruComics in the comments section.
You can take a look at the possible covers here. (And while you're visiting the NUELOW Games blog, this post may be of interest if you're a gamer, as it has some RPG rules inspired in part by Judy.
With most of these series, there's invariably a panel or sequence of panels that I notice become funny if taken out of context. With Judy, it's an entire page. The page that introduces her, in fact. But I'm not sure if it's funny or creepy.
First off, Judy seems to be wearing make-up and a cocktail dress... in a hut that she shares with her father in the deepest, darkest African jungle. That's a bit weird--but not as weird as the fact that she wears that dress for most of the series. (It becomes tattered as time goes on.)
But there's nothing weirder (or more disturbing) than the vibe that Panel Three excudes. No wonder Judy's dad thinks he's made a mistake and it's time for his daughter to go somewhere else, where there are other men. (Click on the image of a more readable version, one that will show you that the text does not make the drawing any less skin-crawlingly disturbing as I thought it might when I read it.)
I should say a little about the process by which we select the comics that get revived in NUELOW Games editions -- just because the comment about thinking Panel Three might be less disturbing when I read it might make more sense.
Step One: My partner (L.L Hundal) or I suggest a character or comic strip to the other that we like. The other person takes a quick glance at a couple sample stories --and sometimes even just a couple of pages. At this point, we just look at the art, because when it comes to comics, it the art isn't appealing, you lose readers right then and there. If we agree the art is good, the we put the material on the "Maybe." (In the case of "Judy of the Jungle," the title alone made it a "Maybe" and insured her a place in at least one ROLF! product.
Step Two: I do research to determine that the series in question is in the Public Domain. If there are trademark complications (such as with Black Cat), I make a note of it to make sure Hundal knows to be careful about presentation if I end up not being directly involved in a project for whatever reason when it comes to deciding what title it should be published under. (For example, we will never be able to just do a book called "Black Cat," even if we can publish Black Cat stories and fiction to our heart's content. As can be seen in numerous of our products.
Step Three: I either read the entire series (if it's one of the very short-lived ones that we favor due to their obscurity), or I read the first installment, followed by a random selection of one or two later chapters. If the writing appeals to me, we note the series for future use in one of our comics/rpg projects. (Sometimes, this approach backfires on us. I completely misjudged "Rocket Man" and "Lady Satan" because of this. The art for the most part remains high quality on both strips, but the writing is absolutely horrid on many stories after the first few. For this reason, I'll be writing new "Rocket Man" scripts for future issues of Science Sleuths.)
Step Four: We process the comics pages, assemble books, write new material, edit, publish... and hope that some folks out there think the stuff is as cool as we do.
(And then there's Step Three-Point-Five... where I make posts like this. Hundal doesn't like it when I sometimes poke fun at the comics were:) )
If you've read this far, maybe you'll also like to take a look at NUELOW Games's comics selections. Questions, comments, or reviews -- feel free to leave them here or at DriveThruComics in the comments section.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
New from NUELOW Games: 'Real American No. 1'!
The latest project I've completed for NUELOW Games is one I think it more worthy of attention than most of the ones I've done. It's a little book collecting episodes from Dick Briefer's ahead-of-its-time superhero series "Real American No. 1."
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| Comic Books: Making Fun of Bigots Since 1941 |
"Real American No. 1" premiered in Daredevil Comics #2 and ran as a back-up feature there until #11. Starring the Bronze Terror (who secretly is Jeff Dixon, a "full-blooded Indian" and successful attorney devoted to fighting for justice inside and outside the courtroom), "Real American No. 1" drew heavily on troubles facing Native Americans in the modern era for its background and conflicts. There wouldn't be another series like it again until the 1970s, with the arrival of characters like Marvel's Red Wolf.
NUELOW Games' Real American No. 1 contains the four best of Briefer's Bronze Terror stories (as selected by yours truly) and a roleplaying game presentation of Jeff Dixon and his girlfriend Lilly Weaver for use with ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game. By way of a preview, here are the splash pages for the included stories; I hope you'll check it out.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Picture Perfect Wednesday: Raquel Torres
Raquel Torres and Shades of Gray proudly present "How to Safely Peel an Onion."
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
As 2014 gets underway...
... we turn to Kay Francis for a refresher on the unifying theme of this blog.
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