Ernie Colon R.I.P.

Ernie Colon, the man who could draw any and every genre amazingly well... the man who did masterful work for nearly every publisher from the 1960s until just a handful of years ago has passed away at the age of 88. We have over a dozen posts here on the Diversions featuring his incredible work, mostly focusing on my favorite examples of his art--namely his work for Harvey Comics' Richie Rich and Atlas/Seaboard's Tigerman and Grim Ghost. Not nearly enough to explore the depth of the man's prodigious talent. Colan did some extremely cool issues of Marvel's Warlord of Mars that we'll have to rap about one of these days. For today, though, let's just admire his first credited work from 1967's Wham-O Giant Comics #1, "Kaleidoscope of Fear!"

(If you haven't done so already, you can see the whole mag here.)

The Diversions Turns 10 "Best of" Birthday Bash! Tigerman and Lawrence of Arabia from Thrilling Adventure Stories #1

Happy anniversary, Groove-ophiles! This coming Saturday Marks 10 years since the Diversions hit the interwebs, so Ol' Groove thought we'd celebrate by looking back at some his favorite, but least viewed, posts from our first fateful year! We'll be back new and live next Monday with a special anniversary post. Until then, enjoy these "reprints" and rap with us about 'em!

Atlas/Seaboard's Thrilling Adventure Stories made its debut in November, 1974. To make this an extra-special Thanksgiving treat, I thought I'd share not one, but two far-out features from that magnificent mag's pulse-pounding pages. See who loves ya, baby? First up is "Tigerman and the Flesh Peddlers" by John Albano and Ernie Colon!

Now dig into "Lawrence of Arabia" by Jeff Rovin and Frank Thorne!

Funny Stuff: "Cadbury Meets Servo" by ? and Colon

Check it out, Groove-ophiles! Young Groove often dipped into his kid sister's Richie Rich comics (goodness knows there was plenty of them). There was adventure and wish fulfillment galore, plus usually really good art. My favorite of RR's cast was Cadbury the Perfect Butler. He was pretty cool and very classy. A very good grown-up sidekick if there ever was one. A good example of why yers trooley always dug Cadbury so much can be found in Richie Rich Millions #58 (December 1972) when "Cadbury Meets Servo" with wonderful art by the multi-talented Ernie Colon. Enjoy!

Funny Stuff: "Wax Whacks"

Dig it, Groove-ophiles! Remember those days when you could by coverless comics wrapped in cellophane, three for twenty cents or a quarter? Ol' Groove sure does! That's pretty much how my collection grew in my early days of reading/collecting. I didn't understand that the stores who were selling those "comic paks" were "double dipping" by selling those comics they'd claimed they couldn't sell and then getting credit from the distributor in the process. All Young Groove knew was that with the same amount of spare change a single comic-with-a-cover cost, three coverless comics could be had. Yeah, you took your chances with the one in the middle, but you still usually got two comics you really, really wanted. I got several issues of the Kree/Skrull War in the Avengers, as well as some cool Kirby Fourth World mags, and even the earliest Superman Super-Spectacular. Those mags in the middle, though...sometimes they were cool Charlton spooky comics, or maybe a western or war mag. Occasionally you got a romance comic. But the weirdest mag Young Groove ever found hidden between two superhero mags was Harvey's Bunny #19 (June 1971).

Bunny looked like a hybrid of an Archie comic crossed with an ish of Millie the Model...at least at first glance, for neither Archie nor Millie ever (at least as far as my experience goes) ever extolled the virtues of hot pants painting! This was some high-powered, psychedelic "hippie" stuff to a seven year old boy! By the time I got to the end of the mag, though, my mind was truly, totally blown. (Well, again, for a seven year old kid.) The finale of this rather unique mag was a feature called Fruitman. I was too young to question the wisdom of giving a super-hero such a moniker--a chubby, pun-loving green grocer who could transform himself into pieces of fruit in order to fight crime was plenty strange enough, thank you very much!

According to Michael Eury's must-have tome, Hero-A-Go-Go, Fruitman was a regular feature in Bunny and was the creation of either Harvey publisher Alfred Harvey or his nephew Warren, with early adventures illoed by Hy Rosen (!). "Wax Whacks" was most likely written by Lennie Herman and illustrated by Ernie Colon. (A quick check of Grand Comics Database just turns up question marks, btw.) Whoever did it warped a special part of Young Groove's brain! Thanks, Harvey Comics!

Cover art by Hy Eisman

Christmas 2016: "Battlestar Galactica" by McKenzie and Colon

Merry Christmas, Groove-ophiles! Hoping your holidays (or at least your December) at finding you happy, healthy, warm, and ready to dig into some far-out comics! Today we're gonna peek in on the phenomenon that was Glen Larson's Battlestar Galactica. Conceived as a series of TV movies, but quickly morphing into a standard, hour-long weekly series beginning in September of 1978, BG set out to fill the quality sci-fi void felt between Star Wars movies. Expensive, spectacular, and ultimately cursed (the much-anticipated movie-length debut episode was interrupted by an 30-or-so minute special news broadcast--okay, it was important news, the signing of the historic Camp David Accords, but still, it signaled the tough road that lay ahead of this visionary series (it would end in April 1979). Things went a bit better for the comicbook series which also debuted in more upscale formats. It hit the ground running in Marvel Super Special #8 was published both in full-color magazine format and tabloid sized in October 1978. The standard comicbook series made its debut in December 1978 and ran for 23 issues, ending in October 1981. Soooo, that means the comic actually outlasted the TV series by a couple'a years. The first three issues of Battlestar Galactica actually reprinted the MSS #8 movie adaptation (which was also reprinted in paperback format by Ace Books) before plunging into new stories. McKenzie wrote most of the series and Walt Simonson drew the majority of the issues (and even wrote the last few), often inked by Klaus Janson. The fill-ins were by Marvel luminaries like Bill Mantlo, Steven Grant, Rich Buckler, Sal Buscema, and Jim Mooney, so it's no wonder the comicbook series outlasted the show, huh? Okay, enough rapping, let's read! Here's the first chapter of "Battlestar Galactica" from BG #1!