Flash Gordon: Dan Barry Vol. 2: The Lost Continent Hardcover – December 13, 2016

Such a great series. So much better than the stuff written today. Very enjoyable

This was a surprise to see a second volume of Dan Barry's beautiful Flash Gordon strips so soon (six months) after the first volume arrived. This volume is in the same format as volume One. The suggested retail on this volume has gone up $10 but you do get an additional sixty pages of strips. The strips are in a three to a page format, with sharp crystal clear reproduction on superior paper. Rick Norwood, long time publisher of the seminal comic strip magazine Comics Revue provides an excellent introduction. You get a whopping 12 story-lines this time. Granted the stories did seem to decrease in size after the first one collected here. The strips start on October 26th 1953 and run to June 9th 1956. so well over two and a half years worth.While the art is just as beautiful as last volume, the writing is not as good this time. Last volume the great Harvey Kurtzman wrote about half of them before Dan Barry took over the reigns again for some also pretty good sagas. This time Barry seems to be trying out a few other comic book writers before once more taking back the writing, The success of these are mixed. I liked the first story a lot, but the next several are not as good then it picks up for a pretty strong run for the second half of the book.The Cast as we start is Flash and Dale his spunky girlfriend Dale plus Professor Zarkov. The Space Kids from the tail end of the previous volume make a return In several stories and we get a new female cast member, Plus at the start of 1956 they all go to Mongo to reconnect with all those characters.THE LOST CONTINENT is the longest story of the collection lasting Five Months. After it ended they all ran about 2 to 3 months. Our trio of heroes find themselves in submersible and locate the lost civilization of Atlantis. Lots of political intrigue and a cast of fully developed characters make this a fun story. It is written by Sid Jacobson of Harvey Comics fame. Much of the art seems to be the work of Paul Norris. Norris was the co-creator of Aquaman and had a decades long run on the sadly ignored Brick Bradford Comic Strip. Dan Barry's brother Sy Barry also did some art for this volume. Probably mostly inking. Sy would go on to a long run on The Phantom.CIRCEA is the first of four stories written by longtime D.C. Comics scribe Robert Kanigher. These are all pretty wonky strorytelling.THE DEADLY TOUCH even seems like it could have run in Strange Adventures. Flash gains so much strength in his hands that everything he touches crumbles.In PERIL PARK a young woman in the future is being menaced by Sharks and Alligators at the same time so she puts a note into a bottle and Flash finds it in the past and travels to the future to rescue her. WHAT ??? Her name is Elda and she also has the Hots for Flash. She is a spitting image of Dale and her name is just Dale scrambled up.THE MARTIAN BABY is equally strange. Dale & Flash find a newborn infant in Flying Saucer. We are told Dale can not lift the baby because it weights three the weight of an Earth Baby. Since a 1950's Earth Baby might weight 7lbs that would mean 21 lbs. Who could lift that much? Even stranger Flash knows immediately that since the baby weights three times too much is must be from Mars where they have three times as much Gravity. So off they go to Mars.THE TRAIL OF THE VULKE is a sequel to the final story in the first volume. The Space Kids and Flash revisit a planet they went to previously. This is the return to Dan Barry written storiesTYMPANI is a rather weak story about Space Music.STARLING is a very sexist story about a beautiful but strong willed woman who thinks she is as good as a man. She is physically spanked and in the end submits to the male. Feminists be warned. The Introduction says it is an Outer Space version of the musical "Annie Get Your Gun"In SPACE CIRCUS Flash is picked up by a Superior Race who uses other races for entertainment. We are told their captors are Telepathic but we find out the are only talking through their ears. Flash and his allies learn this skill by covering their mouths and noses while talking. I actuallt tried this at home and sadly never learned to Talk out of my Ears.SWAMP GIRL was my favorite because we learn Zarkov has a wife that is dying. He also has a Hot Daughter named Zara who was raised in a Swamp Jungle. Zara is a new cast member (at least for now).the Last two stories RETURN TO MONGO and KAG THE CONQUEROR are a big change of pace as the strip returns ti it's origins. Flash, Dale, Zarkov, Zara and the Space Kids all return to Mongo. When Dan Barry took over the strip almost 5 years earlier he had avoided all these setting and characters. Now they are all back including Price Barrin. Ming was previously killed off so we get a never revealed long lost som also named Ming. I am eager for a third volume to find out how long we stay on Mongo.My Highest Recommendation. ..

Covers daily b/w strips from Oct. 26, 1953 to June 9, 1956.

I agree almost completely with the previous reviewer, I would just like to say something in defense of some of the "weaker" stories here. Really, only the trio of Circea, The Deadly Touch, and Peril Park are near-irredeemable, because they have not just one, but many premises that make no sense. The Martian Baby, on the other hand, would work very well if you just replaced Mars by "a strange planet that has just wandered into our solar system," and took off from there. And the Tympani story, in my opinion, is really quite good. (There is, of course, the little matter of sound not being able to travel through space, but presumably those were just radio waves carrying the sound.) It was definitely worth the return engagement it got 13 years later, in "Egon Blant Escapes" (1/15/68).Dan Barry appears to have had some criterion whereby he would not sign an individual strip if he had not put a minimum amount of work on it himself. By that standard (whatever it was), there are a lot of strips here that are primarily the work of collaborators, and it would be nice if we could tell who they were. (The art is uniformly good, and Barry was obviously, at this stage, still involved enough with the strip to secure a consistent look throughout.) The main assistant is probably his brother Sy Barry, as mentioned in the introduction. On the other hand, an article linked from the Wikipedia page on Leonard Starr indicates that he worked on Flash Gordon dailies in the 1955-56 time frame, and "Swamp Girl" looks like his stuff (in fact, when I saw Zara's face on the last panel in that story, I thought "Stan Drake!", but I can't find confirmation of that anywhere--so I'll settle for Leonard Starr instead).Overall, a very good book. They gave us enough extra pages to make up for the weaker stories, and, as a longtime subscriber to "Comics Revue", I was very glad to see the introduction by Rick Norwood. I look forward to the next volume, where a more consistent continuity for the strip should start to develop.

Poor plots, very good drawings.

A mesma qualidade do primeiro volume.Muito bom.

My childhood was surrounded with Phantom, Rip Kirby, Flash Gordon, Bahadur and Buz Sawaer.These Heoes from the world of comics enabled me t learn and entertain at the same time.The stories of Flash Gordon are extra special since my mother regularly advised my father to avoid giving me these comics, which in her opinion had no educational value. Luckily for me , my Father did not listen to my mother and helped me to build up a library of comics , full with Flash Gordon and Buz Sawaer.The science fiction element in Flash Gordon actually helps to improve the attraction to scientific knowledge in a child and I benifitted a lot from these books. I recollect the spectacular adventures of Flash Gordon, Dr. Jarkhov and Dale ARDEN - the svelte companion and love interest of Flash.The days of childhood have gone away , only to reappear once more in this part of life and I am thankful to Amazon to arrange these books delivery at such "reasonable price".I hope to re collect my childhood collections of "Mahakaler Ishara" and " Nekrer Kanna" with these good quality reproductions.The art of Alex Raymond is always a feast for the eyes.Looking forward to more such classics.

Weiter geht es mit dem wohl aktivsten Zeichner der Tagesstrips. Klassischer Zeichstil der Aera. Etwas größere Striefen hätten nicht geschadet. Barry hat den Fantasy-Comic auf einen realistisch aussehenden SF-Comic sehr erfolgreich umgestellt.Mit dem 2. Band scheint nun wohl wieder ein Abbruch erfolgt zu sein... schon ungewöhnlich lange kein neuer Band erschienen. Man wird sich ggf. nicht weiter an den Werken Dan Barrys erfreuen können.Glücklicherweise habe ich frühzeitig die italienischen Ausgaben erworben, die über Dan Barry hinaus Zeicher chronologisch veröffentlicht haben, leider mal wieder sind die Panels ummontiert im Hochformat. Auch in der Türkei gibt es Taschenbücher, aber völlig neu arrangiert ... Mist.Daß sich keiner daran wagt komplette Werkausgaben eines Comic-Helden herauszubringen, ist schade. Italiener hatten da schon mehrfach mehr Mut, selbst bei recht unbekannten Comic-Helden.Secret Agent Corrigan endete irgenwie, ebenso Rip Kirby und Tarzan gibt es nur als Fragmente, meist bezogen auf den Zeichner (Manning, Hogarth). Modesty Blaise und Eisenherz sind da löbliche Ausnahmen ... leider eben nur auf Englisch. Star Wars gibt es in 3 dicken Bänden, dann wr wohl auch Schluss mit den Zeitungsstrips. Vermartkung als Hefte war wohl lukrativer.Für die wohl abgebrochene Gesamtausgabe, gibt es von mir einen Stern Abzug.Ansonsten empfehlenswerter Band, wer den Zeichenstil mag. Heutzutage ist mehr (übertriebene) Action gefragt....

Great stories and art. Buy it now, you won't regret it.

THE LOST CONTINENT c'est une reproduction fidèle des bandes quotidiennes de Flash Gordon de Dan Barry encore merci très beau livre