Black and White Wednesday: "The Mummy's Victory" by McKenzie and Corben

Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! Football! Horror! Mummies! They go together like...well...okay, so they usually don't go together! Good thing Roger McKenzie and Rich Corben didn't know that when they produced "The Mummy's Victory" for Creepy #84 (September 1976)! Dig it, baby!

Black and White Wednesday: "Speed Demon" by Ernie Colon

Check it out, Groove-ophiles! During Atlas/Seaboard's short but oh-so-memorable life, writer/artist Ernie Colon not only worked on Tiger-Man and The Grim Ghost, but he also found time to write and draw this short shocker for the first ish of Weird Tales of the Macabre (cover-dated January 1975)! Can you dig "Speed Demon", race fans?

Black and White Wednesday: "Swords in the World Series" by Gale, Starlin, and Rubenstein

Dig it, Groove-ophiles! Barbarians! Time-traveling wizards! Baseball! That's what writer Ken ('Nuff Said! Radio/Defiant Comics) Gale had on his mind when he wrote his first pro scripting job for Warren's Creepy #106 (February 1979)! Leave it to the exceptional art team of Jim Starlin and Joe Rubenstein to bring said tale to black and white life! Are you ready for..."Swords in the World Series"?

Random Reads: "The Enchanted Bat" by Simon and Grandenetti

Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! Summertime! Baseball season! Of course, if you're a comix fan during the Groovy Age, your combination of sports and sequential art are gonna have'ta include some sort of element of the fantastic. Ya know, something like "The Enchanted Bat" by Joe Simon and Jerry Grandenetti from Champion Sports #2 (September 1973). Dig it!

The Boys from Derby: Super Bowl Special! 1969 Super Bowl in Comics Form by Tony Tallarico

It's Super Bowl Sunday, Groove-ophiles! Bet you're wonderin', "What's that got to do with comicbooks?" Well, back in the winter of 1969/1970, Charlton Comics produced the first (and only) issue of Charlton Sports Library-Professional Football. While most of it's 68 pages (written and drawn by Charlton mainstay Tony Tallarico) was pretty much a pen-and-ink version of your garden variety sports almanac (pic of a player, stats, team logo--the usual stuff), what really made this comic unique (as if it needed anything else to do that!) was it's recap of the 1969 Superbowl in comicbook form! It's the Colts vs. the Jets! Namath vs. Unitas! It's Superbowl III! So before you start scarfing down the buffalo wings and nachos, check out this rare piece of comicbook--and Superbowl--history!

Sports Sunday: The Justice League and Friends (and Enemies) in "The Great Super-Star Game"

One of the things Ol' Groove loves so much about the Groovy Age of comics is the free-wheeling experimentation. DC was always considered the "safe" or "square" company, but truth to tell, they did quite a bit of experimentation at the House That Superman Built. One of their greatest experimental titles was the not-very-originally titled DC Super-Stars. Each issue would feature a different hero, villain, or theme. Sometimes an issue might be nothing but reprints. Sometimes all-new material. Other times it might be a mix of new and old. You never knew what the folks at DC were gonna toss at us from issue to issue, but we knew it would at least be interesting. One of the wildest issues was DC Super-Stars #10 (September 1976) with its Strange Sports Stories theme (and Ernie Chua--aka Chan--cover). This time, instead of an anthology of sports themed sci fi and fantasy stories, editor Julie Schwartz assigned writer Bob Rozakis and artists Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin (the regular JLA art team) to create a story about a super-All-Star Game. The story is quite whimsical and more than a little silly, but it's more fun than any dozen "mega-events", can you dig it? Like, who wouldn't wanna read about a super-powered baseball game that pit the team of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Robin, Kid Flash, Plastic Man, Green Arrow, Black Canary, and the (original) Huntress, against the team of Lex Luthor, the Joker, Chronos, Weather Wizard, Dr. Polaris, Matter Master, Felix Faust, Tattooed Man, and Sportsmaster--with Uncle Sam and Amazo as umpires? Just for giggles, I'm tossing in the the play-by-play feature from the letters page. Batter up!