(Weird) Sunday Funnies: Howard the Duck

WAUGH! We all know the story (or at least we all should know the story) of how Howard the Duck just sort of appeared in the middle of a Man-Thing adventure (Fear #19, August, 1973) courtesy the warped imaginations of creators Steve Gerber and Val Mayerick. What you may not know is the Howard immediately caught fandom's attention and was scheduled to appear as a solo strip in Monsters Unleashed. Those plans were changed after two solo Howard strips (both with monster/horror themed plots) were completed. Marvel was never a company to waste anything (especially far-out characters and strips), so the finished strips (with art by the more-than-awesome Frank Brunner) saw print as back-up strips in Giant-Size Man-Thing (issues 4 and 5).

With that info in mind, it is Ol' Groove's pleasure to present his favorite of the two strips, Howard's battle with that bovine blood-sucker, Hellcow! Story by Gerber, pencils by Brunner, and inks by Tomb of Dracula inker supreme Tom Palmer from G.S. Man-Thing #5 (May, 1975) and brought to you by...

The Groovy Agent's Birthday Comics, Part 6

Okay, dudes and dudettes, let's light the candles and partayyyyyyy! It's time to take one last look at Teen Groove's comicbook birthday picks!

1978: Yeah, Teen Groove was a member of the KISS Army, so there was no way he was gonna pass up Marvel Super Special #5 featuring Gene, Paul, Peter, and Ace at their wackiest. While not as over-the-top trippy as the first printed-in-KISS-blood issue (Marvel Super Special #1, written by Steve Gerber), this mag was tons o'fun in its own right. Written by Ralph Maccio (the Marvel Comics writer/editor, not the Karate Kid, y'spaz) with art by a young John Romita, Jr., our favorite kabuki make-up wearing rockers actually entered the Land of Khyscz (from which they received their powers) and fought wizards and all kinds of fantasy-style characters. The coolest thing was that Macchio picked up a long dangling plot thread (from Steve Gerber's Defenders run) about a homicidal elf with a gun and put that twisted little guy right into the thick of the story. Ah, the days when Marvel actually knew how to use continuity for fun!

Okay, now for the biggie. The one you've been waiting for...1979! Teen Groove turned 16, disco seemed to dominate everything (even TV shows added a disco-beat to their themes!), and I must'a got a pocket fulla money that year, 'cause let me tell ya, I flat-out splurged! Check it out:





I was still true blue to standard color comics, but man was I ever diggin' those oversized comic mags! At the time, I actually thought they were the wave of the future, that most comics would evolve into a similar format. Too bad they didn't. But hey, can't end on a downer note when you've got gems by Doug Moench, John Buscema, Peter Ledger, Roy Thomas, Tony DeZuniga, Sal Buscema, Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan, and Bill Mantlo, now can we? Heck no! This might've been the last birthday of the Groovy Age, but man, did it ever go out with a BANG!