Doc Savage - In The Mighty Marvel Manner

Marvel's colour ( and black and white ) adaptations of Doc Savage never seem to get much love from tried and true Doc fans.
But those people forget that Marvel's Doc introduced a whole load of fans to The Man Of Bronze. Like the Spanish Warren being my Warren, Marvel's Doc Savage was my Doc Savage.
I may well have investigated Lester Dent's original stories without the comics existing, in fact I know I would've, I bought everything back then, but I'm not sure I would've been as interested.
And I still think the b/w Doc book was one of the best of the House Of Idea's magazine line.
The colour book, which came a couple of years before, is also a lot of fun, though a bit more problematic.
In the plus column, we have Steve Englehart adapting the original stories for most of the run, splitting each novel into two issues, and we also have Ross Andru, my fave Spidey artist ( I know, I know ) for nearly every issue.
The problem really, is that even with two issues for each tale, Englehart is still forced to cram, so that even for '70's Marvel, this is wordy stuff.
Also Andru seems teamed with a different inker almost every time out. Yes, those inkers include Jim Mooney, Ernie Chan, Frank Giacoia and Tom Palmer, but it does mean the book fails to settle into a solid team.
So you can see why Doc's initial excursion into The Mighty Marvel Manner didn't sell. And also why they needed the space the b/w books afforded.
But it's Doc. And The Fabulous Five. With Monk doing his best Ben Grimm. It's you, me and all our pals, with all the gadgets in the world and adventure waiting behind every corner. The ultimate boys' gang, in fact.  Who can resist?

Spider-Man Meets The Mindworm

Only an all-time classic, is all.
It's amazing ( arf! ) when you stop to think about how great Spidey's book was, and for how long. All through Ditko, Romita, Kane and Andru it really was the gold standard.
But it was Conway & Andru that, if pushed, would be 'my' run. Not as ground-breaking as Lee / Ditko obviously, but this was the period where we actually could get American colour Spidey in this country, every month!
And practically every issue was a classic in the making. Take this one, where Petey moves in with Flash, an epoch making event in itself. Add to that a great, tortured villain, and the fact that the neighbourhood is being torn down in a spate of '70's urban renewal, giving Spidey not that many places to swing from, and you have a masterclass in how to do it in one issue.
In that PBS Superheroes documentary, somebody says that the reason '70's Marvel writers could write so convincingly about New York was because they were all living in the not-so-nice areas, and I'd be willing to bet we're looking at Gerry Conway's old neighbourhood here.
Just an added frisson to an already great story.

Ross Andru & Mike Esposito's Up Your Nose & Out Your Ear

Up Your Nose & Out Your Ear was Andru & Esposito's try at their own version of MAD, containing and in some cases rejigging old work they had sitting around looking for a home.
It was originally due to be published by Skywald, until publisher Israel Waldman realised he was already losing money with his current magazine line, and couldn't afford it.
So going the self-publishing route, they tried to put the book out with a little help from the other half of Skywald, Sol Brodky, and the first issue was released in 1972.
Unfortunately, it bombed. Not because of readers ( who probably never got to see it ), and not because of the perceived racism of, admittedly clumsy, strips like Ace Of Spades, but because of distributors & retailers who refused to stock a drug comic book.
Russ & Mike were aghast. A drug book? Where did they get that from?
Well, as you'll see, UYNAOYE is hosted by a comedy presenter called Joe Snow ( actually an actor friend of Esposito's daughter ). Add that to the title, and I can't believe the two creators didn't really know what they were doing.
Still, this is solid stuff, and it's always nice to see Andru & Esposito do humour.
I've managed to put together a fair bit of the 1st issue from original art sites around the net like Heritage, but if anybody has scans of the actual issue, I'd obviously love to see that.