Monday, June 16, 2014

Free Charlton Comics Classic - Doomsday+1 Issue # 2 1975 As Resource For Your Old School Post Apocalyptic Campaigns


  Grab It Right
HERE

I'm incredibly fond of this wonderful little gem of a post apocalyptic comic book series. Issue two picks up with the action and really ramps up the action. The three cornered love triangle and balance between the comic encounters is well done. There's lots to mine in this series. 

According to Wiki:
 Doomsday + 1 was an American post-apocalyptic comic-book series published by Charlton Comics in the 1970s.

It is best known as the first original, color-comics series by artist John Byrne, who would go on to become a major industry figure. Byrne had previously drawn three unrelated, anthological short stories for comics, as well as the first three issues of a Saturday-morning cartoon licensed comic book before co-creating this original series.
Doomsday + 1 originally ran six issues, cover-dated July 1975 - May 1976. Two years after its cancelation it was revived as an all-reprint series with issues #7-12 (June 1978 - May 1979), reprinting the contents of the first six issues.[1]
The series was created by writer Joe Gill and penciler-inker John Byrne for the small, Derby, Connecticut-based publisher Charlton Comics, under editor George Wildman. Byrne, who also served as letterer, used the pseudonym"Byrne Robotics" for issue #4-6 (reprinted as #10-12). The credits for issue #5 credit the artwork as "Art: Byrne Robotics with technical assistance from Patterson-75", a pseudonym for Bruce Patterson, who provided some degree of inking.[2]
Byrne drew the covers of issues #2-6, with the cover of issue #1 variously credited to Byrne[1] and to Tom Sutton.[3]Issues #7 and #11 featured re-colored reprints of Byrne covers, while issues #8-10 and #12 featured "new" covers created by blowing up panels of interior artwork from the stories.[1]
Stories ran 22 to 23 pages, with most issues also containing a two-page text backup — either a story featuring the main characters or a non-fiction featurette. The backup in issue #5 consisted of two comics pages, drawn by Steve Ditko, of "real world" paranormal vignettes.[1]
One additional 22-page story was produced by Gill and Byrne, but was not published in the original series. It appeared in two parts titled "There Will Be Time, Part One: Time-Slip" and "Part Two: The Man from Elsewhen" in publisher CPL/Gang Publications' Charlton-sponsored comic-book/fanzine hybrid Charlton Bullseye #4-5 (April & Sept. 1976).[4]
Sales of the 1978-79 reprint issues began strong, and editor Wildman assigned Tom Sutton to write and draw a 15-page story scheduled to run as issue #13. As sales of the reprint series tapered off, the project was canceled. While the script became lost, Sutton's pencil-and-ink art for the story, "The Secret City," eventually surfaced, with the cover and the first page published in the magazine Charlton Spotlight #6 (Fall 2008).[5]
The basic plot reads like a Mutant Future or Gamma World Shadow Years Tale, once again wiki has a pretty solid plot write up : 
The series takes place in a near future in which a South American despot named Rykos launches his sole two atomic missiles on New York City in the U.S. andMoscow in the U.S.S.R. The two superpowers, each believing the other has launched a first strike, retaliate. By the time American president Cole and a Russian premier with the first name Mikhail have realized their errors, their fully automated nuclear-missile systems can not be countermanded.
Only hours before the apocalypse begins, a Saturn VI rocket launches bearing three astronauts: Captain Boyd Ellis, United States Air Force; his fiancée, Jill Malden; and Japanese physicist Ikei Yashida. Weeks later, after the post-apocalyptic radiation has subsided to safe levels, their space capsule lands upon a melting Greenland ice field, where the three ally themselves with Kuno, a 3rd-century Goth revived from his ice-encased suspended animation.
The four encounter a Russian scientist/cyborg in Canada, where they commandeer a futuristic jet plane; undersea dwellers; and brutish U.S. military survivors, among others.
There more about the comic series right over on wiki :
HERE

5 comments:

  1. I've always dug Byrne's robot designs. Goofy and cool all at once.

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  2. This was an interesting series. It should have been an animated Saturday morning show. Good to see that there are digital versions available! Thanks for posting the link.

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  3. Byrne is one of my all time favorites, a great influence and an awesome artist. Love the man's stuff as well.

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  4. Thanks for the great comment Trey and I've got more coming up!

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  5. Garrison James, I whole heartily agree that this should have been a Saturday morning cartoon and it would have been a great addition to the likes of Thundarr and the Planet of The Apes cartoon. It's got a lot of that vibe echoing through it from the Charlton company creators and I'm happy to provide the links my friend. Thanks for the great comments. More coming up!

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