Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Reprint This! The Frogmen

Yeah, I said Frogmen. Deal with it. You may think I'm nuts for wanted a TPB collecting this Dell series, but you're nuts for thinking I'm nuts. This is a fun, fun series from back in the 60s and still holds up quite well today. Non-superhero adventure strips were fairly common back then, and many had an underwater theme (Sea Devils, UNDERSEA Agent), and this one is my favourite of the genre. In fact, I truly think that this series is as good as any adventure series from that decade. Don Segall's stories are fun and inventive, featuring interesting plots, lots of action and interesting locales. Things get better when a villainous mad scientist shows up. Dr. Vogar is some sort of crazy Sivana/Blofeld hybrid.

OK fine - I see that you still needs some convincing. I've only ever owned a couple of these, so I can't speak to the whole series but I will say that from what I've seen, you'll have a tougher time finding a book with as much artistic talent as Frogmen. First, the covers are fantastic. I like to consider myself to be a connoisseur of painted covers, and I must say that there are some really fantastic examples here. I really wish I knew who painted them - George Wilson, perhaps? Second, the list of artists who work on Frogmen is like a who's who of funnybook legends. George Evans, Alex Toth, Mike Sekowsky, Don Heck, George Tuska, Gil Kane. Hell, Frank Frazetta even inked a handful of pages. How can you possibly go wrong. I don't know who owns the rights to this series, but please reprint it ASAP!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My favourite Dell series. Like you Scott, I don't have them all, but issues 2 and 3, with that Evans/Frazetta art are just mind-blowingly good. Some of the best, underwater adventure art there is to be found in comic books (including Heath's Sea Devils). The Toth issue (#5) is also a standout... really exciting layouts in that one as you'd expect from an AT book. Oh yeah... I'd buy a tpb collecting this work in a heartbeat. I'm not going to bet even a mere bail of hay from the farm it'll happen though.

Scott M said...

I agree - it'll never happen, but I would have bet against the likes of MARS Patrol being collected, so you never know. I think I'll try to dig up the full series in the meantime.