MODNIKS "Noel Talent: the Most Unkindest Cut"

By the early 1970s, Jack Davis was an established, successful, and busy, commercial artist...

...so when was this weird filler short, published in 1970, created?

Written by Gary Poole and illustrated by Davis, this one-off tale appeared in the second (and final) issue of Gold Key's Modniks in 1970.

But here's the weird part...

The previous issue of this title appeared three years earlier...in 1967!

That's a loooonnng time between issues!

Plus, Davis had never done any work for Gold Key, and it had been years since Jack had done any work for Dell (which Gold Key split-off from years earlier)!

And, Poole didn't start working in comics until the mid-1960s, after GK had split from Dell, so this wasn't leftover inventory from that period!

Did Davis know Poole (who had been a radio/tv writer for years before coming to comics) and illustrated this as a favor for a friend entering the field?

We'll never know...

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Jack Davis

Drawing American Pop Culture: a Career Retrospective
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LAND OF THE GIANTS "Operation Mini-Surgeon" Part 2 A Life in their Hands

We Have Already Seen...

...the teenage member of the tiny humans, Barry, is ill and their first aid antibiotics have had no effect on the disease.

 Captain Steve Burton and engineer/businessman passenger Mark Wilson find giant MD Doctor Rains and hope to force him to treat Barry....

Written by Dick Wood, penciled by Ted Galindo, and inked by Tom Gill, this was the final issue of the series, published just as the second (and final) season of the show began airing.

The five comics, the five prose novels, and the fifty-one episode TV series ever showed the cosmic castaways returning home...

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The Complete Comic Book Series

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LAND OF THE GIANTS "Operation Mini-Surgeon" Part 1 Doctor's Dilemma

 In 1968-70, when the TV series this comic is based on ran on ABC...

...microsurgery, as we know it today, was in its' infancy!

To be Concluded Next Friday!

The 1968-70 series, created by Irwin Allen (Lost in Space/Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea/Time Tunnel) was set in 1983, when sub-orbital shuttles would be used for trans-Atlantic travel...

Trivia: the trailer narrator was William Woodson, who usually voiced intros and title sequences for Quinn Martin TV series like 12 O'Clock High, The FBI, and The Invaders!

This tale from Gold Key's Land of the Giants #5 (1969) was scripted by Dick Wood, penciled by Ted Galindo, and inked by Tom Gill, and followed the TV series bible (which detailed the premise and characters) pretty closely.
Sadly, it was also the final issue, and it was cancelled before the second (and last) season of the show aired!

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Media Medicine BEN CASEY FILM STORIES "Operation Tycoon" Part 1

Medical-Themed Shows Have Always Been Popular on TV...

One of the hottest shows on the air was Ben Casey, starring Vince Edwards as a handsome, but surly rule-breaking surgeon whose abrasive manner got under peoples' skins...but produced almost miraculous results!

The show was so popular that it produced two different comics from two different publishers: a regular-format comic book from Dell and this fumetti comic-sized magazine from Gold Key using photos from two episodes to re-tell the TV tales in "photonovel" format!
Remember, there was no internet and streaming services, no videotape/DVD/BluRay, or any other way to see TV series when you wished!
BTW, the show was filmed in black and white, so the b/w pix aren't a cost-saving measure by the publisher!
Most TV shows were filmed this way until the mid-1960s!

Let's begin our story, based on the first season episode "An Expensive Glass of Water"...

Will Ben Casey Buckle to the Will of Type-A Tycoon Walter Tyson?

Will Tyson Turn Chicken?

(Sorry, couldn't resist!)

Tune in NOW at Secret Sanctum of Captain Video to learn the Astounding Answer!

Besides the regular cast members: Sam Jaffee as Dr David Zorba, Bettye Ackerman as Dr Maggie Graham, Harry Anders as Dr Ted Hoffman, and Jeanne Bates as Nurse Wills, the guest cast included Chester Morris as Walter Tyson, and Neva Patterson as Miss Warren.

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(Which includes the episode the comic/fumetti adapts!)

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CITY SURGEON "Plague"

With RFK Jr about to become the Surgeon General of the US...

...we want to look at an example of how graphic fiction portrayed pandemics such as anti-vaxxer Kennedy seems to want to happen!

So the theme of this never-reprinted tale from Gold Key's City Surgeon #1 (1963)  shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone!

Tell the truth, Nurse Lake seems to be brains of the operation!

She's the one who figures out one of the two missing crewmen might already be deceased, and her quick thinking immobilizes the other when he shows up at the office!

In the early 1960s, one of the most-popular genres in pop culture was "medical drama"!

Spearheaded on TV by hunky prime-time physicians Dr Kildare and Ben Casey along with the related series The Nurses as well as daytime soap operas with hospital settings and paperback romance novels with covers featuring "studs in scrubs" with swooning nurses, comics hopped on the medical bandwagon!

DC and Marvel simply ran more medical-themed tales in their existing romance books.

But the smaller publishers were another matter...

Charlton launched numerous series featuring doctors and nurses in separate titles including Cynthia Doyle: Nurse in Love, Dr Tom Brent: Young Intern, Nurse Betsy Crane, Young Interns, and Sue & Sally Smith: Flying Nurses.

(Oddly, there were never any cross-over stories between the various books!)

Archie Comics published a short-lived series about Young Dr Masters!

Dell had popular comics based on Dr Kildare. as well as their own Nurse Linda Lark!

Gold Key published two different Ben Casey comics (including one done "fumetti" style using photos of the TV actors with captions and word balloons) and created their own doctor in City Surgeon!

Unfortunately, artist Jack Sparling's illustrations weren't consistent, showing Dr Blake Harper as young and virile in one panel and middle-aged in the next on the same page!

Plus there was no romantic element to the book!

For whatever reason, there was never a second issue of the title and Dr Harper never made another house call...

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Benign Humor Medical Cartoons

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