Friday, May 1, 2026

EMERGENCY! "Hot Cargo!" Part 1

Before He Reached Superstardom at Marvel and DC on X-Men and Superman...
...writer/illustrator John Byrne cut his artistic teeth in the mid-1970s working on projects like Charlton's Emergency! comic, based on the TV series!
To be Concluded...Next Friday!
Written by Joe Gill and illustrated (pencils and inks) by John Byrne as "Byrne Robotics", this never-reprinted, book-length story from Charlton's Emergency! #1 (1976) was part of a push by Charlton to do tv-tie-ins in both four-color comic book and b/w magazine formats!
(Besides Emergency!, they also did Six Million Dollar Man and Space: 1999 comics & magazines!)
Gill follows the TV series bible accurately in terms of characterization and Byrne is surprisingly-good at accurately-caricaturing the regular-cast!
Unlike the b/w magazine, the comic didn't adapt any aired episodes, but may have utilized plots and screenplays that weren't produced (reports vary).

Friday, April 24, 2026

ROMANCES OF NURSE HELEN GRANT "You Cannot Marry!"

 A Year Ago, We Presented the First Chapter in This Medical Soap Opera One-Shot...

Nurse Helen Grant and Doctor Brian Clark are a team in the operating room...and on the dance floor!
Together, they solve problems both professional and personal...





A series about a totally-loyal, Lovestruck Nurse obsessed with a Handsome Young Doctor whom every female who walks through the Emergency Room doors lusts after!
Unlike Nurse Mary Robin who wavered in her loyalty to her Dr Love Object, eventually ending up with a different doctor, Nurse Grant seems determined to be by Doctor Clark's side...obviously as close as possible...until Death Do Them Part!
Was that the reason there wasn't an issue #2?
We'd have to ask plotter/editor Stan Lee, inker Vince Colletta, and the likely "ghost" penciler, Matt Baker, what they had in mind after this premiere issue of Atlas' Romances of Nurse Helen Grant #1 (1957).
But since they've all passed away, we'll never know!

Saturday, April 18, 2026

Tales Twice-Told / Humor is the Best Medicine SHAM COMICS: CALLING DOCTOR SHAM "Patient in Room 405"

...specifically, Ben Casey and Dr Kildare!
Half a century later, that comic (and many others in various genres) would be the basis of a series that took comics which had fallen into public domain, and rewrote them as comedies!
In the case of this story, it ignored the "clone the hot media medico" aspect since nobody today (exept us, apparntly) would remember the old TV shows, and just went for the medical jugular, as it were!
Meet the characters in their new incarnations...
...and now, on with the re-told tale...
Writer/designer Tim Fuller (who also writes and illustrates his own strips) did a kool job of adapting the cover-featured story from Charlton's Young Doctors #3 (1963) into the cover-featured story for Source Point Press' Sham Comics: Calling Doctor Sham V2N4 (2019).
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Friday, April 17, 2026

Tales Twice-Told YOUNG DOCTORS "Star Patient"

What Do You Do When the Two Hottest Doctors on TV are Licensed to Another Comics Publisher?
Why, you put out a book about two doctors who look and sound just like them, of course!

Dr Kildare...excuse me, Dr Landon, treats his latest beautiful female patient...
Written by Joe Gil, inked by Vince Colletta, and penciled by someone whose name is, sadly, lost to the mists of time, this (sort of) never-repinted tale from Charlton's Young Doctors #3 (1963) was designed to lure unwary Ben Casey and/or Dr Kildare fans into buying what appears to be a team-up of the two incredibly-popular TV medicos!
It lasted six issues, after which Drs Landon & Burke disappeared from comics forever!
Ha!
Fooled You!
There's a reason this entry is classified "Twice Told-Tales", and you'll find out why...tomorrow!

Friday, April 10, 2026

Manga Medicine BLACK JACK "Is There a Doctor?" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

...after the spoiled-rotten son of one of the world's richest men crashes his car and lies near death, the oligarch hires the greatest surgeon in the world, Black Jack, to save the kid's life.
However, the kid needs numerous replacements for damaged organs and limbs.
So the oligarch arranges for an innocent to be convicted and sentenced to death, so his limbs and organs can be harvested!
Note: to understand this Japanese comic, you must read right-to-left instead of the usual left-to-right (like the way you're reading this text)!
Besides being a talented writer/artist, Black Jack creator Osamu Tezuka was also a licensed physician, though he stopped practicing after he became a full-time manga creator.
Black Jack has been called Tezuka's alter ego, the kind of doctor he wished he could have been.
Since this premiere appearance in Weekly Shonen Champion (Nov. 19, 1973), he's appeared in hundreds of manga tales, and (in animated form) in several TV series and feature films, plus one direct-to-video mini-series.
Unlike most other manga characters, he's never appeared in live-action form.
However, the iconoclastic sawbones did appear (in animated form) in 2010 opposite Hugh Laurie's live-action Dr House (as it's called in Japan) in magazine ads and a commercial on Japanese TV to promote the release of the 4th season of the House M.D. TV series on DVD in Japan...while plugging his own OVA mini-series!

(Both series were distributed in Japan by the same company, Geneon/Universal!)
To paraphrase the phrase used at the end of the James Bond films...
Black Jack Will Return!

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Visit Amazon and Buy...

EMERGENCY! "Hot Cargo!" Part 1

Before He Reached Superstardom at Marvel and DC on X-Men and Superman ... .. .writer/illustrator John Byrne cut his artistic teeth in the...