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| Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito |
They just don't make comics like this anymore!
Masked cowboy hero vs gunslinger riding a pterodactyl...and a bright
magenta pterodactyl at that!
It's
the sort of concept a nine-year old would come up with while playing
with his (or her) newly-unwrapped action figures under the Christmas
tree, mixing the dinosaurs with superheroes and cowboys!
Why not?
That's what makes it so
KOOL!
It's so darn silly, yet fun, you just
have to look at it and think "what the--?"
That's
exactly the sense of wonder we at
Atomic Kommie Comics™ still feel!
We
want to live in a world where
anything can, and
does, happen!
In pop culture, we call this sort of tale "cross-genre", where a story draws elements from disparate categories of fiction.
(BTW, you can read the tale behind the cover
HERE!)
Sometimes there's a certain logic to it.
One of my favorite books involves fiction's greatest detective dealing with the first alien invasion!
Since he lived in London at the time the invasion took place, it seems only (dare I say it) elementary, that
Sherlock Holmes would witness and
analyze the
Martian invasion of 1898!
That's the basis of the superb pastiche,
Sherlock Holmes' War of the Worlds
by Manly Wade Wellman & Wade Wellman!
That novel, to me,
defines KOOL!
(The fact the story
also includes
another of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic characters;
Professor Challenger from
The Lost World
and other sci-fi novels, is a cross-genre bonus!)
Track down a copy.
If you're a
Holmes
,
Challenger
, and/or
War of the Worlds
fan (I'm a fan of all three), it's well worth the effort!
Sometimes there's
no real logic to it except--"why not?"
That's the category where something like
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians goes!
And that's where the cover shown above goes.
This particular design was
so cross-genre we put it in
two wildly-different sections--
Dinosaurs!, and
Masked Western Heroes, because, hey, it fits
both categories, so--"why not?"
Keep the Sense of Wonder alive!
Give a Christmas gift that keeps inspiring the imaginations of both the young and the young-at-heart!
