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First mention of POW! comics?
Posted: 17 Jun 2015, 06:53
by suebutcher
I'm currently drawing something in a Dan Decarlo style so I have all my tatty Archie comics out for reference. I thought you guys might be amused by this, the cover of Jughead #134, July 1966, published a year before Pow or Zap comics actually existed.
Re: First mention of POW! comics?
Posted: 17 Jun 2015, 09:24
by philcom55
It's particularly appropriate that the Shield was created by Irv Novick - the same artist whose panel in All-American Men of War #89 became the main inspiration for Roy Lichtenstein's Famous Pop Art painting 'Whaam!'
Re: First mention of POW! comics?
Posted: 17 Jun 2015, 14:48
by suebutcher
And I suppose that's the painting WHAM! comic got its name from?
Re: First mention of POW! comics?
Posted: 18 Jun 2015, 00:37
by Digifiend
Adam West Batman was on air before the Power Comics launched. If anything, the names of Pow and Wham came from either that or American comic books like the one that show was based on. Comic book sound effects. They did always feature superheroes after all (well, until Smash's 1969 relaunch anyway).
Re: First mention of POW! comics?
Posted: 18 Jun 2015, 04:05
by suebutcher
Not WHAM! though, which started in 1964, two years before Batman got to TV.
Re: First mention of POW! comics?
Posted: 18 Jun 2015, 08:02
by Lew Stringer
Digifiend wrote:Adam West Batman was on air before the Power Comics launched. If anything, the names of Pow and Wham came from either that or American comic books like the one that show was based on. Comic book sound effects. They did always feature superheroes after all (well, until Smash's 1969 relaunch anyway).
They didn't feature superheroes until the Hulk reprints started in Smash No.16 in May 1966. Wham had been around since June 1964 with no superhero content, and didn't carry any until August 1966 when the Fantastic Four reprints started.
Much as I dislike Lichtenstein for not crediting the artists he based his work on it's most likely his 'Whaam!' painting in 1963 that inspired the comic title Wham! in 1964. Then Odhams simply followed up with Smash! and Pow! because they wanted similar titles.
Re: First mention of POW! comics?
Posted: 19 Jun 2015, 12:15
by suebutcher
"Whaam!" is pretty good, but most of Lichtenstein's early comic-based paintings are dreadful! The comics he swiped from were very much better. But it was just a move in a kind of modern art game, I don't know that he actually liked comics much. They were brightly coloured, all-American, and flat, and that's what counted at the time.