Christmas Covers - December 25

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.

Today's cover is a scene of the nativity from 1946's Treasure Chest vol. 2 #9, by an unknown artist.

Christmas is finally here, so that'll do it for our Comic Cover Advent Calendar for this year. I'll be back next December, as there are plenty of good covers left, and each year brings even more holiday-themed covers to add to the mix.

(You can find more comic cover Advent calendars at Polite Dissent and Raw Feed.)

Christmas Covers - December 24

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.



Today's cover is 1943's Captain Marvel Adventures #19. Legendary artist C. C. Beck shows The Big Red Cheese and Mary Marvel helping Santa on his rounds while the reindeer are grounded.



Just 1 more 'get-up' until Santa!



(You can find more comic cover Advent calendars at Polite Dissent and Raw Feed.)

CBLDF Goal Achieved!

We've now reached our goal of 10 first-time donors for the CBLDF fund drive!



Right after I finish this post, I'll be heading on over to the CBLDF Website to make my $250 donation.



Big thanks to the following donors for making our goal possible:



David Welsh of Precocious Curmudgeon

Jeremy of The Pickytarian

Gordon of Blog, THIS, Pal!

Marc, the Howling Curmudgeon

Guy from Comic Book Commentary

Kevin of BeaucoupKevin

Will Pfeifer of X-Ray Spex

Steve Pheley, the Gutterninja

Michael of Riverside, CT (no blog)

Nevin Steindam from Ohio (also no blog)



But it's not over yet...



Nevin, our tenth and final donor, has generously offered to match any more $25 donations between now and tomorrow, the 24th (up to a limit of 10). Forward your email confirmation from CBLDF to me and I'll pass the info on to Nevin.



Also, a big YACB thank you to everyone who linked here to spread the word. We couldn't have reached our goal without you!



Have a happy holiday!

Quick Holiday Comic Reviews

The Punisher: Red X-Mas

by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, & Mark Texeira

Punisher kills bob bosses. Mob bosses wives hire assassin to eliminate Punisher. Punisher defeats assassin, takes revenge on wives. Sounds like just about every boring Punisher story you've ever read, right? The only thing that makes this an X-mas story is the fact that Frank is posing as a sidewalk Santa in the opening scene. Yes, it's nice to see art by Texeira, but there's really no good reason for this comic to exist.

Rating: 1.5 (of 5)




X-Men #165

by Chris Claremont, Salvador Larroca & Danny Miki

It's Christmas at Xavier's, and Claremont uses the opportunity to check in with just about everyone who is currently affiliated with the X-Men. It's not so much a story as it is a series of vignettes, but this is the sort of thing that Claremont is good at, and he does it well. Larroca's art is great as always, and I particularly enjoyed the entry of The Beast dressed as Santa Claus. I'm feeling the Christmas love.

Rating: 3 (of 5)




Jingle Belle #2

by Paul Dini, Jose Garibaldi, & J. Bone

The main story features a mystery writer who--haunted by a brief encounter in his childhood--puts off writing his next best-seller to research a book about Santa's ellusive daughter. Dini's story works wonderfully, giving a sense of depth and history to a character who is often presented as flighty. Garibaldi's art works very well, especially the WWII flashback sequence. Dini's back-up story about Christmas in Mutant, Texas is senseless fluff, but it doesn't distract from the strength of the lead story.

Rating: 3.5 (of 5)




Sabrina, the Teenage Witch #63

by Tania Del Rio & Jim Amash

It's not really a holiday story, but "Cabin Fever" features a winter-time story with the gang and Aunt Hilda (as chaperone) taking a vacation to a cabin in the woods. Harvey and Shinji get trapped in a blizzard, and I'll be darned if Del Rio isn't making an effort to actualyl move the characters forward. There's a tendency with Archie comics to keep things status quo, but hopefully the manga influence that Del Rio is bringing to this series will break out of that mold.

Rating: 3 (of 5)

Christmas Covers - December 23

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.

Today's cover is 1998's Impulse #34. This cover by Craig Rousseau & Wayne Faucher shows Bart living up to his super-hero name on Christmas morning.

Just 2 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

(You can find more comic cover Advent calendars at Polite Dissent and Raw Feed.)

Quick Christmas GN Reviews

Archie's Classic Christmas Stories, vol. 1

by ?????

This volume reprints selected holiday stories from various Archie comics of the 1950s & early 60s. The stories are all just a few pages long (typically six to ten pages) and read remarkably well given their age. Sure they may be a bit dated in their outlook, but all of the stories are told without narrative captions or thought balloons, just like most modern comics. However, they eschew the decompressed style that is prevalent in many comics today, taking just a few pages to tell a complete story. Most of the stories revolve around either Archie tryig to please Veronica's father, or around kissing, with mistletoe being a primary factor in more than one tale. The biggest disappointment is the utter lack of any creative credits for the stories; while I know that Archie was never really big on crediting creators and that records for old stories may be hard to come by, I would think that with a little effort at least some of this information could have been tracked down and included.

Rating: 3 (of 5)




The Vampire's Christmas

by Joseph Michael Linsner & Mike Dubisch

It's Christmas Eve, and Esque the Vampire is cranky. He'd rather sleep through the holiday, but having been awoken by a bell-ringing Santa he now needs blood. But Christmas is a horrible time for hunting, and Esque is frustrated at every turn. Linsner tells a story that is consistant with the whole Goth-Vampire ethos in which this story resides, yet still manages to tell a somewhat heart-warming tale, relatively speaking. The art by Dubisch is painted over Linsner's pencils, and it tells the story well while maintaining the proper mood. I was surprised to find myself liking this more than I thought I would.

Rating: 3 (of 5)

Christmas Covers - December 22

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.



Today's cover is 1958's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer #9. This cover by an unknown artist proves that nothing says Christmas like Santa & Rudolph on a rocket ship.



Just 3 more 'get-ups' until Santa!



(You can find more comic cover Advent calendars at Polite Dissent and Raw Feed.)