'Tis The Season for Sub-Zero!

Here are two stories featuring Novelty Press' Sub-Zero, from "Blue Bolt Comics" volume 2 issues 3 & 4 (August & September 1941). My holiday-related ramblings follow the stories, so you don't have to read what I think about anything if you don't want.

Now that December is almost finally here, it's time for me to really get geared-up for Christmas. That means trying to get all the Xmas shopping done some time before December 25th. It also means dusting-off all of the old Holiday video favorites. Here are mine (in no order what-so-ever):

A Christmas Carol: There's two versions of this movie I like, one with George C. Scott and the other one with Alastair Sim. I usually watch them back-to-back because there are a few scenes in each movie that the other one doesn't have.

A Christmas Story: I know it gets played for 24 straight hours on Xmas Day, but that's not the only day I want to watch it.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas: The original cartoon narrated by Boris Karloff.

'twas the night before Christmas: Produced by Rankin/Bass, I watched this every year ... probably since it first came out (holy crap, I'm old!).

Speaking Rankin/Bass ... Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, Frosty The Snowman and The Little Drummer Boy are all must-watch shows for me. I'll admit, though, that Little Drummer Boy can get pretty boring at points.

Yes, It's A Wonderful Life is on the list, too. Problem I have with this is that it seems like every year, I misplace the video after I watch it, so I have to tear the house apart to find it the next year. I don't know why this happens, as I'm usually not so careless about my DVDs & video tapes. Even if things look chaotic in my video collection, I can usually find whatever I want within five minutes (even if it gets burried in a pile), but when it comes to "It's a Wonderful Life", every year it seems like I have to spend about a week trying to figure-out what I did with it.

South Park: Mr Hanky, The Christmas Poo: I'm not a huge fan of South Park anymore as they just seem to be "shocking" for the sake of being "shocking", but way back when, South Park used to be shocking & funny.

A Charlie Brown Christmas: "Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you're the Charlie-Browniest". Sometimes I'm not in the mood for the cartoon itself and end-up just listening to the music (which I happen to have on cd). I also have "It's Christmas Time Again, Charlie Brown" on VHS, but after I tried watching it once, I was so disappointed by it that I simply don't bother with it now.

Year Without A Santa Claus: The Miser Brothers are the main reason I watch this every year.

Simpsons Roasting On An Open Fire aka Simpsons Christmas Special: It's crude in comparison to later seasons of the show, but it's still fun to watch at least once a year.

Almost forgot ... MST3K's version of Santa Claus Conquers The Martians: The song ("Hooray for Santa Claus") usually gets stuck in my head for a few days.

Free Comics!

While surfing the 'net, killing time, I found a place that has comic files people can download for free: www.mydigitalcomics.com. I've seen other sites that claim to have free downloads, but you have to register an account or jump through some hoops to get the "free comics". Not with "mydigitalcomics". You just go there, click the "free products" link on the left-hand side, and flip through 8 pages of free stuff, mostly comics but some magazines, too.

http://comics.drivethrustuff.com is site where you have to register an account in order to get the free stuff, but it kind of seems worth that little bit of effort because they have a pretty good selection of free books.

www.ninjaturtles.com ain't what it used to be. Since being acquired by Nickelodeon, the site has dropped all the free comics it had online. The site looks to be going through a little bit of updating, so maybe the free books will be back one of these days.

www.elfquest.com is still free, so if you're an ElfQuest fan or just want to see what it's all about, this is the only place you need to go.

Maybe I'm missing something, but "marvel.com" is just lousy with the free comics anymore. From what I can tell, they have ONE BOOK available for free. How many thousands of comics have they published since 1939, and they can't anything close to a decent selection of free books?

Over at http://captainconfederacy.blogspot.com/, the creators (Will Shetterly & Vince Stone) have made their series, "Captain Confederacy" available to read online or off (check their links).

So there you go, a few sites where you can grab comic files or read comics for free.

Nightmare & Sgt Spook

From Hillman's Clue Comics # 12 (February 1947) comes Nightmare & Sleepy. This story features Nightmare in his second costume, which first appeared in issue 7 of Clue Comics.

Sergeant Spook by Malcolm Kildale appears today with a two-part tale that ran in issues 4 & 5 of Blue Bolt Comics volume 2 (September & October 1941).

Some More Comic Files

I've spent the last few days scanning & editing quite a few books, including a nice group of issues from Charlton's Atomic Mouse series, Hillman's Clue Comics 12, Crime and Punishement 38, Ned Pines' Supermouse 29 and other assorted odds & ends. Check-out "My Golden Age Comic Book Files" page for all the "NEW" links to the files.

Taking the easy way out for today's post, I'm showcasing the back covers to a few issues of "Atomic Mouse". At least half of the run had pin-ups on the back covers. This radioactive rodent's series ran for 54 issues, from 1953 until 1963. Charlton published the character again from 1984 to 1986. One-shots have appeared from A-Plus Comics in 1990, Shanda Fantasy Arts in 2001 and finally from Avalon Communications in 2002.

Sgt Spook & The Daughters of Doom!!!

I've stated before that I'm not a huge fan of horror comics, but I simply can't ignore the horrifying fact that it was in October 1968 that Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones & John Bonham first performed as "Led Zeppelin", and then, on October 22, 1969, the fearsome foursome released "Led Zeppelin II" to the general public, causing mass hysteria. To commemorate those events, I'm presenting some Scary Stories From The Past!!!

From Novelty Press' Blue Bolt Comics volume 2 issue 10 comes Sgt Spook. The Daughters of Doom comes from The Beyond # 8, published by Ace Magazines Inc in 1952.