CoronaVirus Comics REAL HEROES "Plague Vanquished"

Not all comic book heroes wear capes...

..as this tale of Edward Jenner, the doctor who saved us from smallpox, proves!

Who says comics ain't educational?

Not me, kiddo!

This never-reprinted story from Parent Magazines' Real Heroes #15 (1946) was one of several graphic dramatizations of Dr Jenner's achievement which has saved countless lives since its' introduction!

Depending on how long the Covid-19 lockdown continues, we may have time to run all of them!

Sadly, both writer and illustrator(s) are unknown!

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Rabbit and Cat's CoronaVirus Jokes for Such a Time as This

Volume One

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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Cornered

Benign Humor Medical Cartoons

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Halloween Hospital Horrors SCIENCE COMICS "Dr Doom's Diabolical Disease"

No, not this well-known Marvel villain...

...but his totally-unrelated Golden Age predecessor who had his own strip in Fox's Science Comics!

In a future when Mankind has colonized the Solar System, a somewhat-stereotypical Mad Scientist constantly threatens all civilized life due to unspecified "injustices" allegedly-done to him!

Opposing this nutcase are heroic square-jawed aviator Jan Swift and his co-pilot/girlfriend Wanda.

And that's all you really need to know...

In the early days, few comics were about just one character.

(Even books which were titled after a lead strip, like Superman, had backup stories about other characters to fill out 52 to 68 pages in each issue!)

Most comics of the era were anthologies, with up to a half-dozen strips ranging through every genre you could think of!

Many titles had an ongoing feature about a villain...who lost almost all the time!

And even if he (Or "she"! Comics were equal-opportunity when it came to evil!) was captured, they would escape to plot evil once more!

This never-reprinted tale by "Richard Crater" (a pen-name) from Fox Feature's Science Comics #6 (1940) was typical of those "villain strips"
Trivia: Dr Doom appeared in all eight issues of Science Comics, with a couple of already-prepared tales appearing in the back of other Fox comics after Science's cancellation.
None of his stories has ever been reprinted!
Unlike later Science Comics series from other publishers, Fox Feature's version had absolutely no educational material!

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Illustrated History of Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics Volume 3
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Countdown to Halloween 2024

CoronaVirus Comics MAD "Look at Modern-Day Bacteria"

Think our concerns about diseases and a possible plague are something new?

This never-reprinted feature from MAD Magazine #153 (1972) combines humor with medicine and then-current politics!

Among those whom writers Max Brandel & Frank Jacobs and artist Bob Clarke skewer are President Richard Nixon (R), Vice-President Spiro Agnew (R), conservative Presidential candidate George Wallace (I), and the radical liberal Students for a Democratic Society!

(Google them if you're too young to remember!)

OUT OF THIS WORLD "Plague!"

Even when (believe it or not) created for benevolent purposes...

...a deliberately-contagious virus unleashed on the world is no laughing matter!

OK, how can we read other peoples' thoughts in our own dreams, as happens on pages 2 and 3?

Beyond that deliberately-deceptive plot element, this tale from Charlton's Out of This World #6 (1957) written by Charlton mainstay Joe Gill and illustrated by future Spider-Man and Dr Strange co-creator Steve Ditko hangs together fairly well!

Would someone deliberately-conceive and implement a biological weapon (whether for good or evil) today?

Some Reich-wingers believe the recent (and possibly retiurning) coronavirus epidemic was deliberately-engineered by Communist China!

What do you think, dear reader?

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Steve Ditko Archives Volume 3

Mysterious Traveler

(which reprints this tale!)
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CoronaVirus Comics "Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Protagonists, Julie and Todd...

...following the CDC's guidelines for assembling an emergency preparedness kit and listening on the radio for instructions about where the nearest designated safe zone is...

It was all a dream???

Here I was, congratulating the CDC on a job well-done and they have to pull the ultimate cliche out of their butts?
And how can someone dream about simultaneous events in other locations (like CDC headquarters) involving people he/she has never met?
I'll let it go since it does serve the purpose of informing the public in an entertaining manner!
But if this were an episode of Walking Dead...

At this point, I'd link you to the CDC's page providing related materials...except it no longer exists...on the CDC website!

However...the legendary Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive did preserve the now-deleted section of the site!

So...

Visit the CDC Website via the Wayback Machine!

...to read up on how to prepare for any pandemic (and download some kool stuff!)

CoronaVirus Comics "Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic" Part 2

We Have Already Seen...

...it's a pandemic that causes the infected to become zombies!

Do we really have to explain that?

It's not like zombies haven't become pop culture mainstays or anything like that!

But fear not!

Snark aside, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are on the case...

Mind you, the CDC does not advise you to drive recklessly, but, under the circumstances, it'll be forgiven!
Will our unnamed couple survive the zombie apocalypse due to being prepared by following CDC guidelines?

To Be Concluded

Sunday!