Saturday 27 May 2017

HEY, DON'T BE FLY, MAN! (WINNER OF THE MOST CONTRIVED BLOG TITLE OF THE MONTH AWARD)...


Images copyright relevant owner

An acquaintance recently gave me these two RED CIRCLE COMICS issues of The FLY (#s 1 & 2), which have nifty front covers drawn by JIM STERANKO, so I thought I'd show them off here.  The two back covers are by RICH BUCKLER and RUDY NEBRES respectively.  Don't they look nice?  If the rumours are true, The AMAZING SPIDER-MAN was based on The Fly, so without the first, we may not have had the second.



26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kid, you haven't told us what you think of the latest Dr. Who episodes. I've just been reading SFX magazine and they are full of praise for the new episodes - I haven't seen any of them but I might watch one now.

Kid said...

I've commented on The Glass Walking-Stick, CJ, and other places. The first few were pleasantly entertaining, last week's (by Steven Moffat) resorted to his old trick of telling the story out of sequence to try and make it seem more interesting and intriguing than it actually was. He seems to think it's clever, whereas it's just tedious.

Anonymous said...

According to SFX the new companion is a lesbian so I assume you're delighted with that :D but at least the Doctor isn't a woman...yet.

Kid said...

Well, it's part of the usual 'artistic/luvvie' community's agenda to abolish society's traditional perceived differences between genders/races/sexual preferences, which is what leads people to say that the Doctor could be a woman, Bond could be black/bisexual, etc. It's all a lot of p*sh in my opinion, foisted on us by militants with a chip on their shoulder who want to reshape society in their own image. The Doctor should always be a man, and Bond should always be white (and straight) - in the same way that Modesty Blaise should always be a woman and Shaft should always be black. The creators' original intentions should be respected.

John Pitt said...

I only bought the one issue of the Fly, or "Fly-Man" has they had recently made him and I wasn't all that impressed, but I can across the earlier incarnation many times in Alan Class reprints and in those early tales weren't too bad, a little similar to 60's Batman, complete with their very own Police Commissioner "Gordon-alike"! Without checking, I think these stories may have been the work of Rascally Roy?

Kid said...

If by 'these stories' you mean the ones in the two issues shown here, JP, it was Jack C. Harris who wrote The Fly tales, with Rich Buckler writing (and drawing) The Shield back-up strip in issue #1. If you're talking about the stories YOU read, then no idea I'm afraid.

Truthsayer said...

Hey Kid regarding your comment about sexual preferences, a study has found that people who display homophobic tendencies are more likely to be gay.Teams at the University of Rochester in New York, the University of California and the University of Essex found that individuals who identify as straight, often showed a strong attraction to the same sex in psychological tests.

It was Netta Weinstein, a lecturer at the University of Essex and the study’s lead author who found this out and she said that these individuals “may be threatened by gays and lesbians because homosexuals remind them of similar tendencies within themselves”.

Kid said...

Oh, no - the tosser's back. (You've tried to submit comments before under that name.) 'Truthsayer', eh? Then why conceal your identity? That's not very truthful, is it? I think these tests very often give the results that the people conducting them want them to give, and there's nothing new in their assertion. It's an old myth that anyone who doesn't approve of, or has reservations about, gay culture must be gay themselves. It was designed to silence criticism or opposition from those with a dissenting view on homosexuality, as they'd be unlikely to become involved in the debate for fear of having to defend themselves against insinuations that weren't true. I'm sure there must be a small minority who might have gay tendencies who are opposed to homosexuality, but if you (or anyone) is saying that every single person in the world opposed to gay culture on religious, cultural, or moral grounds, or just a natural aversion to it, is gay, then it's so unlikely that it's ridiculous. "You're only against poofs because you're a poof yourself" is such a cop-out, but your insinuation wasn't lost on me. However, it fails to score on the simple grounds that I'm not a homophobe. It does seem to be a subject in which YOU'RE interested to an inordinate degree though. Why else go to all this bother?

TC said...

IMHO, the university studies, including Netta Weinstein's, are at best inconclusive. IIRC, Weinstein admitted that the study had a very small data base, since the participants were all college students, and it did not include pre-college-age kids, or adult college graduates. (And, IMO, even that would be too narrow a focus, since it would not include people who followed other career paths, e.g., blue collar/working class people who went to trade school instead of college.)

And, yeah, I suspect that the "homophobes are repressed homosexuals themselves" mantra is at least partly a "so's your old man" or "it takes one to know one" defense.

And "homophobe," "racist," "sexist," and "Islamophobe" have lost all meaning, because of over-use. Those terms now mean, "Anyone who disagrees with me about anything."

Re: Fly-Man, that was Archie Comics' slightly revamped revival of The Fly sometime around 1965. It was written by Jerry Siegal (yes, the co-creator or Superman) and drawn by Paul Reinman, with occasional fill-ins by Mike Sekowski. When the Batman TV series became a big hit, the comic seemed to be trying to imitate the camp comedy style. Then the camp fad passed, and the Mighty Comics (Archie superheroes) line sort of faded away with it.

I had most of the early 1980's issues, with Steve Ditko art. Their Blue Ribbon anthology title also reprinted some of the Simon & Kirby stuff from the late 1950's.

Kid said...

Always good to read a sensible comment, TC, and you never disappoint. In fact, now I feel bad about reminding you ('cos I'm sure you knew) that Jerry Siegel wrote Fly-Man, not Jerry Siegal. (I just can't suppress my pedantic tendencies, I'm so ashamed of myself.) I can't remember if I've ever read any of the Fly-Man stories, but I'm bound to say that the whole concept seems a bit silly. Spider-Man I can accept, but The Fly (or Fly-Man) just seems daft - especially the origin.

TC said...

Who perfected the keyboard? Nxbody.

Back in what we now call the Silver Age, the premise of Tommy Troy finding the magic ring and getting Fly powers didn't seem any sillier to me than Don Blake finding the magic hammer and getting thunder god powers. Or Bruce Banner getting exposed to a nuclear explosion and turning into the Hulk instead of being blown to bits. Or the radiation exposure or other accidents that gave various other heroes (Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Metamorpho, Doom Patrol) their powers. I was pretty credulous when I was eight.

Kid said...

Maybe it's the name, TC, but there's just something about the character and concept that seems even more juvenile than other superheroes around at the time. Had I read them as a kid though, I might not have thought that. But hey, c'mon - Fly-Man (snigger).

TC said...

Well, it was the mid-1960's.

"Da-da da-da, da-da da-da, Fly-Man!"

Or, "Fly-Man, Fly-Man, does whatever an insect can..."

Kid said...

H'mm...

Nah!

Truthsayer said...

Sweet deflection but it only proves her point. For example you don't like to see gays kissing, so that's a phobia. Homophobia.

(Case closed, exits stage left.)

Kid said...

I really shouldn't indulge you 'cos you're clearly a dick. Actually, her tenuous case says it only suggests that SOME people are in that bracket, so you clearly haven't read the piece properly. And I see you've completely ignored TC's pertinent points. Also, as long as it's not in a show that kids watch, I'm actually quite partial to seeing two hot lesbians kissing (lesbians are gay, aren't they?), so that's your 'case' blown out of the water. (Incidentally, not liking something doesn't necessarily equate as a phobia.) Like I said, what a dick you are. Now, toddle off and try and find something constructive to do with your time.

John Pitt said...

TC, if you want to see the humble keyboard at its finest, you need look no further than some of my old cimments on herw!

Kid said...

Yis, you'ra ths wurld'a wirst, HP. Ypu nwvir ser me makong hypos.

John Pitt said...

Did my other comment get through, Kid ( about the Fly? )
If not, I'll repost tomorrow!

Kid said...

Nope, if it was a new comment different from your earlier one (near the top of this page), 'fraid not, JP. It would've been published at the same time as your other one if it had.

John Pitt said...

That's strange, anyway what I was on about, in response to your and TC's comments about The Fly's name, I agreed that it just didn't sound "fearsome" enough, when compared to a bat or a spider. I just couldn't see villains shaking in their boots at the thought of facing a fly. Having said all that, those early Simon & Kirby stories from The Adventures Of The Fly, which I read reprinted in Alan Class comics could hold their own against any DC or Marvel sixties strip for a kid of the sixties! Unlike Archie's Mighty imprint, where he was re-Christened Fly-Man in the mid sixties. Even as a kid, I found these stories and those of other revamped golden age heroes, truly dreadful, which was such a pity, as the artwork was good and these characters had such potential if only they had a half-decent story writer!
All that aside, this post has renewed my interest in the character and I have enjoyed trawling the net for examples of those early strips and found some on Kirby blogs and even found out about some short stories in Pep comic and The Double Life Of Private Strong Archie comics!

Kid said...

See? This blog IS educational! I keep telling folks and nobody believes me, JP. Spread the word.

John Pitt said...

Well, I don't know if it's the same for any of the other readers, but quite often one of your posts kind of ignites a mental spark and I go off on a mini project, delving through your archives and googling all kinds of things. I even do some "research projects", as I refer to them to the missus, more than once! - Some of my favourite subjects come round in cycles!
Tell me I'm not sad!
( and MEAN it! )

Kid said...

Nothing sad about being inspired by my posts, JP.

Al B said...

"You don't like to see gays kissing, so that's a phobia. Homophobia." That's a huge stretch by any standards. I don't like to see anyone urinating in the street, or spitting, but I don't have a phobia about them. Nor do I like to see animals being maltreated, but that's not a phobia. I don't like sports, but does that qualify as a phobia? No. I'm also against murder, so by the skewed logic of "Truthsayer" (a.k.a. Bullshitter) I'm more likely to be a murderer. Some bitter, small-minded people seem intent on trying to wind you up Kid. If you're annoying them, all I can say is you must be doing something right.

Kid said...

Yes, I take great pleasure in annoying bitter, small-minded people, AB. I know I'm good at it.



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