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

Yesterday, We Presented a Tale from a Comic Book That Utilized Near-Duplicates of Then-Popular TV Doctors...

...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).

Support Medical Comics and Stories

Visit Amazon and Buy...

Complete Shamnibus

Volume 1

Complete Shamnibus

Volume 2

Paid Links

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!

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!

Support Medical Comics & Stories

Visit Amazon and Buy...

Black Jack
The Movie
Paid Link

Manga Medicine BLACK JACK "Is There a Doctor?" Part 1

You're about to step into the world of Japanese comics, aka manga...

...and meet one of the strangest doctors in pop culture!

Note: unlike Western comics, manga is read right-to-left, not left-to-right!

Will Black Jack kill Davy and harvest his organs?

Be Here Next Friday for the Astounding Conclusion!

Black Jack was created and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka, aka "The Walt Disney of Japan", whose best known characters in America are Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion,

Besides being a writer/artist, Osamu Tezuka was also a licensed physician, and created numerous one-shot manga tales with medical themes and physician protagonists.

Black Jack has been called Tezuka's alter ego, the kind of doctor he wished he could have been.

Support Medical Comics & Stories
Visit Amazon and Buy...
Black Jack
The Movie
Paid Link