Thursday, March 27, 2014

The Last Hurrah: Charlton's Final days, part four

November 1985, and it's month 3 of the Charlton rebirth.
This month's offerings are back to just 4 titles,again with two of them humor books.






Along the way, Steve Ditko had been putting together some highly detailed and very attractive promo ads. It was clear that he was thrilled to be back at Charlton, where he had complete and total artistic freedom, and was telling the world to not miss the bus this time around.


First up is ATOMIC MOUSE #11, with a cover reprint of Atomic Mouse (1953 series)#25, and interior stories taken from Atomic Mouse #5,20 and Timmy The Timid Ghost #5 (1956 series), among others.




Next up, DR. GRAVES #74, featuring an all new cover by Tom Christopher! Reprints inside are from The Many Ghosts Of Dr Graves #'s 12 and 17, and Ghostly Tales #'s 56 and 58.




Then it's TIMMY THE TIMID GHOST #25, reprinting the cover to Timmy The Timid Ghost #6 (1956 series), with reprint stories from Timmy The Timid Ghost #'s 9 and 12.
 
   The final title for the month is YANG #16, reprinting the cover and interior of Yang #2.


The real treasures here are the Ditko promo ads, and the exquisite poster he delivered. Sadly, the poster was never distributed, but there may yet be some copies hiding away in some warehouse waiting to be rediscovered!

 STATIC color and b/w promos.

Clever self portrait of Ditko engulfed in a whirlpool of past publishers,characters etc, and basically saying he's coming back to where he began: Charlton.



 The promo poster that was announced, but never released:

And finally a wonderful (and playful) promo telling fandom that Charlton is back, and "the only thing that's missing is YOU"!
A nice treat to see Ditko's humor side, and his renderings of Charlton characters he had not drawn before, such as Atomic Mouse!


Next time, it's month 4 of the Charlton relaunch, and the beginning of the end.



 




2 comments:

  1. Ditko was really on a roll! Spectacular art and imaginitve designs. It's too bad Charlton didn't get off the ground this go around.

    ReplyDelete
  2. you could Tell Ditko was very much wanting this to work out...the amount of detail he put into those promos was extraordinary!
    Sadly, just 5 months, and it all fell apart.

    ReplyDelete

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