The Complete Saga of Kharis the Mummy

While the 1932 film "The Mummy remains the best mummy picture ever made, it was the Universal low-budget quickies of the 1940s that actually solidified the idea of the shambling, bandage-wrapped mummy that dominates pop culture and Halloween spook houses today. This post covers those four genere-shaping films.

The Mummy's Hand (1940)
Starring: Dick Foran, Wallace Ford, Peggy Moran, George Zucco, and Tim Tyler
Director: Christy Cabanne
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A pair of hard-luck Egyptologists (Foran and Ford) discover the location of the long lost tomb of Princess Ananka. Unfortunately for them, an evil cult leader (Zucco) controls the immortal, tomb-guarding, tanna leaf-tea slurping mummy Kharis, and he's hot afraid to use him to keep the secret of the tomb.


More of an adventure flick with a heavy dose of lowbrow comedy than a horror film, "The Mummy's Hand" isn't even a proper sequel to the classy 1932 "The Mummy."

This movie (and the three sequels that follow) are completely unrelated to the original film, despite the copious use of stock footage from it. The most obvious differences are that the mummy here is named Kharis, as opposed to Imhotep, and has a different backstory. Then, there's the fact he's a mindless creature who goes around strangling people at the bidding of a pagan priest where Imhotep was very much his own man and did his killing with dark magics without ever laying a hand on his victims.

If one recognizes that this film shares nothing in common with the Boris Karloff film (except that they were both released by the same studio), "The Mummy's Hand" is a rather nice bit of fluff. It's also the first film to feature the real Universal Studios mummy, as Imhotep was an intelligent, scheming, and more-or-less natural looking man, not a mute, mind-addled, bandaged-wrapped, cripple like Kharis.


The Mummy's Tomb (1942)
Starring: Wallace Ford, Turhan Bey, John Hubbard, George Zucco, Dick Foran, Isobel Evans, and Lon Chaney Jr.
Director: Harold Young
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Thirty years after the events of "The Mummy's Hand, the High Priest of Karnak from the last film (Zucco), who, despite being shot four times and pointblank range and tumbling down a very long flight of stairs, survived to be an old man. He passes the mantle onto a younger man (Bey) and dispatches him to America with Kharis the Mummy (Chaney), who survived getting burned to a crisp at the end of the last movie, to slay those who dared loot the tomb of Princess Anankha. (Better late than never, eh?)


Take the plot of "The Mummy's Hand" (complete with a villain who has the exact same foibles as the one from the first movie), remove any sense of humor and adventure, toss in about ten minutes of recap to pad it up to about 70 minutes in length, add a climax complete with torch-weilding villagers and a mummy who is just too damn dumb to continue his undead existence, and you've got "The Mummy's Tomb."

Made with no concern for consistency (Ford's character changes names from Jenson to Hanson, the fashions worn in "The Mummy's Hand" implied it took place in the late 30s, or even in the year it was filmed, and yet "thirty years later" is clearly during World War II... and let's not even talk about how the mummy and Zucco's character survived) or originality (why write a whole new script when we can just have the bad guys do the exact same things they did last movie?), this film made with less care than the majority of B-movies.

Turhan Bey and Wallace Ford have a couple of good moments in this film, but they are surrounded by canned hash and complete junk.


The Mummy's Ghost (1944)
Starring: John Carradine, Ramsay Ames, Robert Lowery, George Zucco, and Lon Chaney Jr
Director: Reginald Le Borg
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Modern day priests of ancient Egyptian gods (Zucco and Carradine) undertake a mission to retrieve the cursed mummy of Princess Ananka from the American museum where she's been kept for the past 30 years. Unfortunately, they discover that the archeologists who stole her away from Egypt broke the spell that kept her soul trapped in the mummy and that she has been reincarnated in America as the beautiful Amina (Ames).


"The Mummy's Ghost" starts out strong. In fact, it starts so strong that, despite the fact that the priests who must be laughing stock of evil cult set were back with pretty much the exact same scheme for the third time (go to America and send Kharis the Mummy stumbling around to do stuff, that it looked like the filmmakers may have found their way back to the qualities that made "The Mummy" such a cool picture.

Despite a really obnoxious love interest for Amina (played with nails-on-a-chalkboard-level of obnoxiousness by Robert Lowery) and a complete resurrection of Kharis (boiling tannith leaves now apparently reconstitutes AND summons a mummy that was burned to ashes in a house-fire during "The Mummy's Tomb"), and a number of glaring continuity errors with the preceding films (the cult devoted to Ananka and Kharis has changed their name... perhaps because they HAD become the laughing stock among the other evil cults), the film is actually pretty good for about half its running time. The plight of and growing threat toward Amina lays a great foundation.

And then it takes a sharp nosedive into crappiness where it keeps burrowing downward in search of the bottom.

The cool idea that the film started with (Ananka's cursed soul has escaped into the body of a living person... and that person must now be destroyed to maintain the curse of the gods) withers away with yet another replay of the evil priest deciding he wants to do the horizontal mambo for all enternity with the lovely female lead. The idea is further demolished by a nonsensical ending where the curses of Egypt's ancient gods lash out in the modern world, at a very badly chosen target. I can't go into details without spoiling that ending, but it left such a bad taste in my mouth, and it's such a complete destruction of the cool set-up that started the film, that the final minute costs "The Mummy's Ghost" a full Star all by itself.



The Mummy's Curse (1944)
Starring: Peter Coe, Lon Chaney Jr, Kay Harding, Dennis Moore, Virginia Christine, and Kurt Katch
Director: Leslie Goodwins
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A construction project in Louisiana's bayou uncovers not only the mummy Kharis (Chaney), but also the cursed princess Ananka (Christine). Pagan priests from Egypt arrive to take control of both. Mummy-induced violence and mayhem in Cajun Country follow.

What happens when you make a direct sequel where no one involved cares one whit about keeping continuity with previous films? You get "The Mummy's Curse"!

For the previous entries in this series, Kharis was shambling around a New England college town, yet he's dug up in Louisiana. (He DID sink into a swamp at the end of "The Mummy's Ghost", but that swamp was hundreds of miles north of where he's found in this film.)

He also supposedly has been in the swamp for 25 years. For those keeping score, that would make this a futuristic sci-fi film with a setting of 1967, because the two previous films took place in 1942. (And that's being generous. I'm assuming "The Mummy's Hand" took place in 1912, despite the fact that all clothing and other signifiers imply late 30s early 40s.) Yet, there's nothing in the film to indicate that the filmmakers intended to make a sci-fi movie.

And then there's Ananka. Why is she back, given her fate in "The Mummy's Ghost"? There's absolutely no logical reason for it. Her resurrection scene is very creepy, as is the whole "solar battery" aspect of the character here, but it is completely inconsistent with anything that's gone before. And she's being played by a different actress--but I suppose 25 years buried in a swamp will change anyone.

There's little doubt that if anyone even bothered to glance at previous films for the series, no one cared.

Some things the film does right: It doesn't have the Egyptian priests replay exactly the same stuff they've done in previous films for the fourth time (although they are still utter idiots about how they execute their mission), it manages for the first time to actually bring some real horror to the table--Kharis manages to be scary in this film, and I've already mentioned Ananka's creep-factor--and they bring back the "mummy shuffling" music from "The Mummy's Ghost" which is actually a pretty good little theme. But the utter disregard for everything that's happened in other installments of the series overwhelm and cancel out the good parts.

"The Mummy's Curse" should not have been slapped into the "Kharis" series. If it had been made as a stand-alone horror film, it could have been a Six-Star movie. As it is, this just comes across as a shoddy bit of movie making where I can only assume that anything decent is more by accident than design.

Gangsters. Real Gangsters.

It's June Collyer vs. a love-crazed superhero!

If it's not obvious from this blog, I love old movies and I love old comic books. I also love writing silly supplements for NUELOW's "ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters".

Those three favorite things collide in "Black Kitten vs. June Collyer", a ROLF! Valentine's Day Special where actress June Collyer (star of some 30 films between the years of 1927 and 1936, including "Hangman's House" (1928), "The Drums of Jeopardy" (1931), and "A Face in the Fog" (1936)) becomes the object of a superhero's jealous rage when Black Kitten becomes convinced that June Collyer is standing between her and the object of her love, Black Cobra.

June Collyer

"Black Kitten vs. June Collyer" was written by Steve Miller and L.L. Hundal and features artwork by Darrel Miller. It has game stats for obscure Golden Age comic book heroes Black Cobra and Black Kitten, actress June Collyer, and Communist Zombies; rules that expand upon the material presented in the core ROLF! game; and three battle scenarios.

Click here to get a copy of the NUELOW Games Valentine's Day special for just $0.50! It will be just like spending the holiday with June Collyer, superheroes, and me, your kind host. (And it will also let you understand why I never get any second dates.)

If you've never played ROLF! before, you can use this to get a copy for $1, thanks to a special link for a special discount available only for Shades of Gray readers.

More Paul Gulacy: Promo art for 'Sabre'

It's Black History Month, so I am throwing out a couple questions for the assemblage: Was the Don McGregor scripted and Paul Gulacy/Billy Graham illustrated series "Sabre" the first American sci-fi comic book to feature a Black headliner?

And while it wasn't the first series to feature an inter-racial relationship--I believe that honor goes to Marvel's "Iron Fist"--was the first to have an inter-racial couple with children?

Picture Perfect Wednesday with Paul Gulacy

Although I think the poor ladies might disagree about this being a perfect day....

Cover pic for the next NUELOW Games release

"ROLF!: The Grim Reaper vs. the Fertility Goddess" will be released late today or early tomorrow via my online outlet at RPGNow.com, but in the meantime, here is the cover illo.

Tintin in the Land of the Soviets

Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (Little-Brown 2007)
Writing and Art: Hergé
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Tintin, a young Belgian reporter, travels to the Soviet Union during the late 1920s to report on the socialist government of Joseph Stalin. He uncovers vast corruption in the "workers' paradise" and becomes marked for death by Stalin's secret police, prompting a string of adventures as he escapes back to Belgium.

"Tintin in the Land of the Soviets" was the first tale of the intrepid "boy reporter" and his dog Snowy that Herge wrote and drew. It is different in tone and style than all works that followed, and it is clearly the product of an artist still mastering his craft, not to mention finding the proper tone for the series that became his most celebrated.

Originally serialized in magazine from in 1929 and 1930, and published in book form shortly after completing its magazine run, Herge later a low opinion of this work. It's the only one of the 23 completed Tintin adventures that Hergé did not subsequently redraw in a color edition and/or update with more modern panels and references as the years went by. In fact, for decades, Herge blocked any efforts to republish "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets," and it wasn't until 1989 that he allowed an English translation of the book.

The style of story-telling "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets" is very different than the later stories that almost all saw some degree of revision by Herge over the years. It's closest in tone to "Tintin in the Congo" and "Tintin in America," which, if you read those three early works back-to-back, you can see the evolution of Tintin, even though Herge revised the two latter ones for later editions.

And, the art here is also far cruder than anything else I've ever read by Herge--it is barely recognizable, in fact. That said, I've never seen the original "Tintin in the Congo" nor "Tintin in America", but only the revised color versions. (And it's been 35 or so years since I read "Tintin in the Congo... and I'm not likely to get my hands on a copy again any time soon, as the hystrionics of the politically correct crowd and over-sensitive cry-babies successfully blocked its paperback re-issue back in 2008.)

The overall style is also more in line with newspaper comic strips of the 1920s and 1930s rather than the action-adventure of later Tintin stories. While there are some serious matters addressed--such as the portrayal of the Soviet government as murderous, corrupt, and predatory toward the people they were supposedly protecting and serving, portrayals which history has shown to be mild when compared to reality--the over-the-top cartoon action is what is most memorable about the book... and which is not found on this level in later works. Scenes where Tintin builds a plane over night or is frozen solid after wet from a river into the cold Russian night are almost without equal in Hergé later Tintin efforts, with the possible exception of the major city being built overnight or some of Tintin's interactions with Indians in "Tintin in America."

Still... if you like Tintin, you're bound to like this book. I don't think Hergé ever told a bad Tintin story.

DeStorm & Epic Meal Time: No fakin'... just bacon!

DeStorm, Harley, and Mike Diva (l to r). Keeping it Real. With Bacon.

I'd never heard of DeStorm (a YouTube channel for an up-and-coming musician/comedian) or Epic Meal Time (a YouTube gonzo cooking channel with a bacon focus) before I stumbled across this video where these these two YouTube Channel owners teamed up for an Epic Rap Bacon Crossover. However, I have to delve deeper into their respective works, because this rap song and video is a lot of fun. Not to mention very arty, what with it being in black and white and all. :)



(The video was directed and produced by Mike Diva.)

Year of the Dragon

Happy Chinese New Year!

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Justabuncha Skirts!

"The Three Dancers" by Neil Folberg. Click here to see more of his work.

Sketches by Don Hudson

Here's a small sampling of work by artist Don Hudson.

Somebody's Watching Thriller

While grabbing YouTube videos for my job application for the Department of Homeland Security, I came across this mostly black-and-white and occasionally clever video for a mash-up of classic 1980s pop tunes "Thriller" and "Somebody's Watching Me".

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Anita Garvin

Anita Garvin is a nearly forgotten comedienne who was a frequent co-star of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in silent movies during the late 1920s before they were a formal comedy team. She made a successful transition from the silent era to the talkies, but but by the late 1930s, she was ready to quit acting to raise a family.

Stan Laurel convinced her to delay her retirement long enough to join him in remaking one of their last silent films together, "From Soup to Nuts", as a segment in the 1940 film "A Chump at Oxford", with Oliver Hardy joining them in reprising the roles they had originally performed in 1928.

In her day, Garvin as a queen of slapstick comedy who could give any of her more famous male co-stars a run for their money in just about any area. Hers is a face and body that any fan of classic comedies is sure to admire if they keep an eye out for her.

Garvin passed away in July of 1994 at the age of 88.

'A Chump at Oxford' is funny but infuriating

A Chump at Oxford (1940)
Starring: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson, Anita Garvin, Forrest Harvey, Eddie Borden, Wilfred Lucas, and Peter Cushing
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A pair of down-on-their-luck laborers (Laurel and Hardy) receive a scholarship to Oxford as a reward for foiling a bank robbery. They are greeted with cruelty by the snobbish student body until one of them is revealed to be the long-lost Lord Paddington.

"A Chump at Oxford" is the first Laurel and Hardy film I've seen where I remember being irritated. I wanted the collection of entitled, self-important jerks who decide to make their lives Hell when the arrive at Oxford to get what they dished out ten-fold, yet they never seem to be adequately punished to my mind. While Stanley beating them up after he regains his memories as Lord Paddington is a good start, but nowhere near enough--I wanted to see them tossed out of the school, not just out a window.

The rest of the film more than makes up for it though. From the pair's attempt to work as domestics at a fancy mansion through the various bits at Oxford--even if they were mostly brought on by mean tricks--are all very funny. An added bonus for Peter Cushing fans is that you can see him in an early role as one of the cruel students... it's not a big part, but he's there. And he's the only one who doesn't get to wear a silly mustache when the gang is passing themselves of as professors to Stan and Ollie.

An interesting note about this film is that it was originally intended to be released in two versions--a 40-some minute version for the American market an a 60-some minute version for Europe. The first part of the film--where Laurel and Hardy work as servants at a fancy party--was to have been omitted in the American release.

Picture Perfect Special: Welcome to 2012!

The New Year can be as impatient as she wants, but, while time keeps slipping into the future, the images of Myrna Loy stays here forever.

Out with the Old, and In With the New (or visa-versa?)

It's a new year in Krazy Kat's "heppy land, furfur away"! (Click on the cartoon for a larger, more legible version.)

Puttin' on the Ritz!

It's almost 2012, but here at Shades of Gray, we're gonna party like it's 1929! :)

Here are some party tips from Clark Gable


And Harry Richman has a little advice/demonstation ready for us as well.

Celebrating Wonder Woman, Part Four

A few more images of the Amazing Amazon, as the year of her 70th birthday comes to a close.

By Mike Sell

By Brandon Peterson

By Chris Samnee

By Geoff Isherwood

By Al Rio

Two careers cross in 'King of the Underworld'

King of the Underworld (1939)
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Kay Francis, James Stephenson, Jessie Busley, John Eldridge, and Raymond Brown
Director: Lewis Seiler
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

When her husband (Eldridge) is killed in a raid on a gangster hide-out and is revealed to have been their physician of choice, Dr. Carole Nelson (Francis) has her reputation tarnished and career destroyed when no one believes she was ignorant of his activities. When she discovers the gang is hiding in a small town, she relocates there as well, in the hopes of finding the means to clear her name. When Carole discovers the megalomaniac gang-leader (Bogart) has kidnapped writer Bill Forrest (Stephenson) to force him to write his biography, she knows that more is now at stake than just her reputation and livelihood--the gangster is not going to let Bill live once the book is finished.

When "King of the Underworld" was made, Humphrey Bogart's star was on the rise, and Kay Francis' was quickly falling and burning out. Some sources indicate that this film was cast as it was because Warner Bros. executives were trying to force her to abandon her contract because of the non-glamorous nature of the part, and because she was given second billing to an actor with a far lesser stature than she had obtained. But, like the character she portrays in this movie, and like the strong women she had built her career on playing during the 1930s, Francis kept plugging on against the odds and in defiance of those who would bring her down. Despite the best efforts of studio suits, Francis still comes across as every bit the movie star that she was.

Part of the reason that Francis comes off looking so great in this movie is that Bogart's character, Joe Gurney. is a stereotypical, brutish and socipathic gangland thug with the mildly interesting character quirk of being obsessed with Napoleon Bonaparte, and considers himself the French general's modern-day intellectual counterpart. Of course, Joe doesn't really understand half of what Napoleon did during his lifetime and some houseplants are smarter than him, but what he lacks in intelligence he more than makes up for in animal cunning and brutality. Joe's gang isn't much smarter or classier than he; at least "Scarface" had George Raft playing a gangster possessing an air of class and intelligence... Joe Gurney's gang seems is a collection of dim bulbs with Joe merely being the smartest and toughest guy in a collection of idiots. He is so dumb that I kept expecting one of the other gang members to shoot him and take over when it became apparent their hideout had been compromised.

As a launching pad for stardom, this was not the greatest of choices... but, for Bogart, "High Sierra" and "The Maltese Falcon" were just around the corner, and with them finally came the great parts he'd been begging for.

Francis, on the other hand, portrays a character whose only flaw is that she is a little too trusting of the people close to her. She is brilliant, sensitive, and possessed with an unwavering sense of personal honor... and a sharp mind married with a drive to succeed with her honor intact that the likes of Joe Gurney wished he had. These traits not only let her outsmart petty "community leaders" in the little town she relocates to, but also outsmart Joe and gang in a clever, if mildly far-fetched way.

The best part of this movie, in fact, is the interaction between Joe and Carole. These are very tense and suspenseful scenes, because both Bogart and Francis were great acting talents and they both conveyed their characters so strongly that viewers have a sense throughout those scenes that this could all end very badly for Carole at any moment.

Francis' Carole is so stubborn that her drive to clear her name won't be stopped. Bogart's Joe is such a vicious monster that when he is being gregarious it feels forced and that he would rather kill someone than walk across a room. Each scene they have together feels like the unstoppable force is about to collide with the unmovable object with all the disaster that would follow such an event.

These two great screen talents are what makes this movie worth seeing, as it emerges as proof of the fact that great actors can transcend the material they are working with. It features Francis' last great role at Warner Bros. even though it was intended to be a bad part, and Bogart takes a bad part and makes it spectacular.


This review is part of Forever Classic's Humphrey Bogart Blogathon (Bogarthon?). Click here to see links to other entries.

Celebrating the birth of Jesus with song...

... and a parody of "Hotel California".

Celebrating Wonder Woman, Part Three

Continuing our month-long celebration of Wonder Woman, with some of the best black-and-white illustrations of her ever digitized.

By Leonard Kirk

By Thomas Yates

By June Brigman

By Carlos Anda

By Al Rio

By Ben Dunn

Eduardo Barreto & Sinbad's Unfinished Voyage

When the criminally under-appreciated artist Eduardo Barreto passed away last Thursday (December 15) 1 at the all-too-young an age of 57, one of the unfinished projects he left behind was "Sinbad and the Coils of the Serpent", a graphic novel he was pitching to publishers in colaboration with writer Christopher Mills.

Here are some character designs he created for that project. They show more clearly than any words I could write that another great talent has left us.

And here is a neat portrait of three famous characters from the comic book publisher Barreto was perhaps most closely associated with in the minds of those who loved his art.

Forgotten Comics: Jake Thrash

Jack Thrash (Malibu Graphics 1989)
Writer: Barry Blair
Artist: Dave Cooper
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

During the 1980s, Barry Blair and Aircel Comics were front and center for the "black-and-white boom"... and Blair rode the wave as the "black and white bust" crashed onto the shores of comics publishing during the 1990s and ended a very exciting and creativity-filled time in the North American comic book industry... a time of such creativity and comics in such a spread of genres that had not been seen since, perhaps, the 1940s. And at the rate things have been doing in the years since, i don't think we'll ever see it again.

Writer/Artist Barry Blair

Aircel Comics published some of my favorite comics of that period, and Blair created, wrote, and/or drew many of them. I eagerly awaited the arrival of each new isssue of "Samurai", "Elf Lord" and "Dragon Ring"/"Dragon Force" when those titles were at their height, either as black-and-white comics, or, for a time, color. In fact, I first became interested in game design as possible income source when an idea for an RPG (which was my main vocation from 1993 to 2003, and which continues to be a strong sideline) that could be serialized in the back of "Elf Lord" struck me... and Eiwin Mark, editor at Aircel, seemed interested in the proposal.

The idea ultimately came to nothing as Aircel hit a rough patch during 1988 during the first signs of trouble in the booming alternative comic book market, was acquired by Malibu Graphics, and everything changed. Such is life. (Echoes of that approach to publishing an RPG have been present in NUELOW Games' recent "ROLF!" game line that I've been producing, and it may become fully manifested in a possible new product we are looking into developing... time will tell.)

The notion of an "Elf Lord" RPG wasn't the only thing that fell by the wayside during Aircel's transition. There was the extremely interesting three-issue mini-series "Jake Thrash", a cyberpunkish dark future story about a drifter squaring off against a group of man-eating mutants to save the lives of some young thrill-seekers too dumb to stay out of the bad parts of a war- and toxic-waste scarred urban sprawl. The overall tone of the series, and personality of the title character, was as if the main character from "For a Few Dollars More" had been transplanted from the grimy wild west to an even grimier and wilder dark future.

Two full-color issues of "Jake Thrash" were published in 1987, then sky-rocketing printing costs forced Aircel Comics to convert their titles back to the black-and-white they had started as, the operation was acquired by Malibu Graphics... but the third chapter in the tale of "Jake Thrash" never appeared, an apparent victim of changing market conditions and business decisions.

But in 1989, Malibu Graphics published a "Jake Thrash" graphic novel that collected a six-page teaser that had appeared in several of Aircel's titles prior to the debut of the aborted mini-series, the two issues that had seen print, and the lost third issue between two covers. It was a handsomely designed book that mostly did the material proud. Some of the gray-scale art is a bit muddled, but in general what had been intended to be elaborately colored pages--Aircel's color comics were amazing for what was industry standard at the time--comes across nicely. Dave Cooper's unusual line-art almost looks better this way, so, in the end, a black-and-white Jake Thrash might be been best after all.

Like is so often the case when revisiting something we loved when we were young, I found that reading "Jake Thrash" again 20+ years later, it's not quite as perfect as I remembered it, but it's still much, much better than many modern comics I've had the misfortune of flipping through in bookstores of late. Barry Blair's dialogue is clunky in many spots, and there are times when Dave Cooper's presentation of a fight scene or chase scene is a little hard to follow, but these are minor flaws in what is, generally speaking, a pretty intense reading experience. Blair and Cooper are far more effective and clear in their story-telling techniques than many modern artists and writers and it's a shame that I have to list this book under the "Forgotten Comics" heading.

I find it to be doubly a shame, because, even though I now see the imperfections in Blair and Cooper's work, the scene I remembered the clearest from the book was exactly as I recalled it, and I still consider it one of the greatest comic book moments I've ever read:

Barry Blair passed away in 2010 after spending his last few years drawing comics that can generously be described as "adult comics" or "erotica." His output declined steadily in quality from the mid-1990s on, and Cooper has left the comic book field in favor of children's book illustrations, but during the 1980s, both men produced some excellent material. I will have to revisit more of it in this forum.

Princesses of Mars, Part Seventeen

We return once again to that far-away and long-ago world where Martian princesses battle creatures while nearly naked.

By Sanjulian

By Buzz

By Mike Hoffman