The Johnny Bacardi Show

Whilst perusing this fun post over at I'm Learning to Share about Millie the Model comics in the 1960's, I was gobsmacked, as our Brit friends like to say (or so we Yanks are told) to see the signature on this cover- none other than Ogden Whitney, illustrator of all things Herbie.

He also did the previous two, and some interior stories as well- or so I read in the Wikipedia entry bearing his name.

It was enjoyable looking at a lot of those Millie covers; as Marvel progressed through the early to mid '60s, of course many of the same people worked on their non-superhero offerings, and the covers (and I'm assuming all of the Millie spinoffs as well, like Patsy Walker) have a similar look and feel- mostly due to the placement of the blurbs, with lettering by (looks to me, anyway) Sam Rosen. A good example is at right (not by WHitney, by the way); with the spy theme and the floating heads, this could have been a cover for Strange Tales featuring Nick Fury and Dr. Strange.

The above Millie cover was the last one before they started imitating Archie comics; guess they felt like that was the way to go to keep sales at a certain level but it's kind of a shame.

Continuing the theme from yesterday, I've been spending some time lately looking at old Marvel comics covers from 1963 till 1968 (when I was ages 3 to 8) or so; those covers make me feel very nostalgic for a time and a place I can only remember in bits and pieces- a memory here of a place, or a memory there of an exchange with people- and it's a weird, if mostly enjoyable, feeling. There's something about the way that those Marvel covers simply looked- the vividness (or lack thereof) of the color, the lettering and placement of same, the inklines- that never fails to make me feel this way. The magic of nostalgia, I suppose.

And with that, this old man will cease his pointless rambling and withdraw to the parlor, where my staff of comely young nurses will feed me, fix me a drink, hand me the TV remote and a stack of books, and leave me to my memories. Zzzz....