Wednesday, November 25, 2020

BOOK REVIEW! A MOON GIRL TREASURY BY SHELDON MOLDOFF ETC.(GWANDANALAND COMICS, 2020)

Well yuh, it sure is nice that these legendary (perhaps for all the wrong reasons!) stories from EC's only superhero title have been collected under one roof so-to-speak but sheesh, why such poor quality which renders a good portion of this book comparatively unreadable? If Gwandanaland really wanted to present a high quality reprint they could have at LEAST purchased some pristine reissues from some of their PD competition and used those 'stead of the microfiches and various on-line artwork that eventually made its way into this particular anthology.

An' talk about sloppiness! For some strange reason two pages from a Comics McCormick tale that originally appeared in Ed Wheelan's FAT AND SLAT pop up making me wish that Gwandanaland would issue those titles rather pronto! Whereas I usually can rely on quality reproductions from this published I really find A MOON GIRL TREASURY to be an extremely hard on the eyes effort. It really does take much away from the whole concept of fun suburban slob escapist reading which sure affected a few generations of everyday doofus kids more'n all the Ritalin that's being pumped into 'em by higher up authoritiarian types who just don't realize that all these kids really do need are A FEW SWIFT KICKS INNA BUTT!!!!

But otherwise the stories are fine once you get beyond the at times horrid reproductions. Sheldon Moldoff's art might not be as hotcha as the stuff he was doing at DC but it holds up fine especially when compared to some of the slop that was being pushed inna forties, while the stories are about as good as any of the Golden Age hero epics that the biggies were pumping out atta time so like what's there to complain about at least on that level. The house ad reprints as well as the various extras like Fat and Slat not to mention "Zombie Terror" which any fanabla knows was the very first EC horror saga, make for some better'n usual surprises. Surprises that, when mingled with the Johnson Smith and various other typical comic book advertisements, sure do shoot one back to those days of pre-teen brain-addled bliss which was one thing that really gave me a reason to exist in a world of James Taylor and BLESS THE BEASTS AND CHILDREN

And the reproduction of original art which closes this set was a nice touch even if the lack of color for some strange reason detracts from the usual visual delights. Kinda funny in that I'm still a guy who prefers the monochrome dank of old moom pitchers and tee-vee shows to color efforts, but that's just one of my many idiosyncrasies which I'm sure you reg'lar readers are already familiar with. 

If you liked those early WONDER WOMAN tales or the idea of a powerful female character working in conjunction with a handsome yet comparatively stoopid sidekick (the Prince, who is more or less Steve Trevor with a costume) you just might go for this. Maybe Gwandanaland'll come up with a tidier version once some better source material arrives and this current edition is sold off to dolts like myself who sure know how to buy pigs in pokes repeatedly and never did learn their lessons in caveat emptorship!

1 comment:

debs said...

kewl to see a feminist super grrrrrl, but, other than that, totally retarded lol