 I hadn't planned on making another video so soon after my December roundup. It's only been two days. But I saw something online, New Year's Eve, that reminded me about this book, this comic book. I should have thought to do this before Christmas, but of course I didn't. But it's so interesting I wanted to tell you about it while it was still on my mind. Bizarre Adventures, issue number 34, dated February 1983, which means it would have been on the shelves before Christmas 1982. This series started under the title Marvel Preview in 1975. It was a black and white adult comics magazine that was part of Marvel's experimentation with more adult science fiction themes. They were trying to get some of that heavy metal magazine audience. And Marvel Preview was the series that Star-Lord made its first appearance, and so did Rocket Raccoon. With issue number 20, the series changed its title to Bizarre Adventures. And then with issue number 34, which was the final issue, they changed the format from a black and white magazine to a regular color comic size format. But you'll notice there's no comics code, and there's no UPC bar code either. This was part of Marvel's early experiments with direct sales. These direct sale books were not available on newsstands or at grocery stores. You can only get them through comic book dealers. They had higher prices because they were printed on better paper stock, and they had no advertisements. There's all comics. So this was the final issue special of Bizarre Adventures, and it's pretty good. The special Hate the Holidays issue. It starts off with one of my all-time favorite standalone comic stories, Son of Santa. You may be familiar with The Son of Satan, which was one of Marvel's horror slash superhero crossover titles that was somewhat popular throughout the 1970s. This story, written by Mark Grunwald and illustrated by Alan Kupperberg, is about a homeless young man in a New York City one freezing December evening. He is approached by a short man in a trench coat who, as you've certainly guessed, is an elf. He informs this kid that he is in fact the son of Santa, who was abandoned to an orphanage as a child to keep him hidden from Santa's enemies. Well, it's time for them to find the son of Santa because things have gotten bad, and they need someone to take up the legacy and fight the anti-claws. It's a funny story. I've never forgotten it. The second story in the book is Howard the Duck's Christmas. This being 1983, Howard's original color comic book series had been canceled after three years, and his black-and-white magazine series had been canceled after less than one year. So this was like the final goodbye for Howard. This is the period at the end of Howard's original run at Marvel Comics. And it's a pretty good little story. It was not written by Steve Gerber, who created Howard. It was written by Stephen Grant and illustrated by Paul Smith, who, I feel, created a very acceptable rendition of Howard. He did a good job of keeping it in the visual tradition of the classic Gene Colin, Howard the Duck. Anyway, the story is a counterpoint to the famous Christmas movie. It's a wonderful life in which George Bailey wishes that he had never been born and is prepared to throw himself off of a bridge. He is intercepted by an angel who shows him what the lives of his friends and family would be like if he had never been born, and of course it's all very awful. So George repents. And this story starts with, appropriately enough, Howard on the Golden Gate Bridge contemplating throwing himself off. This is not a new situation for Howard. In fact, the very first issue of his original 1976 series on page one, he is in the same situation on the Cleveland River contemplating suicide. This was not your regular comic book. It was not a silly beat-em-up superhero comic. It was a more thoughtful, more existential, more adult series, and my favorite comic book of all time. But here we are with Howard having come full circle. As one of my favorite lines here, what the hay, life's been a cabaret, long dull and full of Nazis. If you don't get the reference, then look up the word cabaret on Google. Yeah, you'll understand it. The angel introduces himself with his card. Seraphim and cherubim incorporated. We get souls the old fashioned way. We save them. This is a reference to a television commercial that ran all the time back in those days, and everyone was sick of it. And it looks like Howard was as well. With Barney, they make money the old fashioned way. They earn it. Anyway, the angel shows him what the lives of his friends would be like if he had never come to Earth, and as you can predict, it turns out everyone would have been better off. So, their positions reverse. Howard has to pull the angel off the bridge, and they go off to get a drink. At the time, I was very sad to see the Howard the Duck series end, both of them. However, I liked this little story. It's one that you never hear about, and it's appropriate for the season, so that's why I'm telling you about it. Bizarre Adventures Number 34, featuring Son of Santa and Howard the Duck. This is the first episode of a series that I'd been thinking about doing for some time, and I'm going to use a vintage comic books. I had thought about calling it Odd Comics, but there is a YouTube user named Odd Comics, and they are very active. They're publishing videos this week, so I don't think I'll call it that. I'll have to think about it for a while, but that's what I'll do every once in a while. I'll review a comic book that I find interesting with a subject matter that's topical or something that's just funny or unusual. I don't know when I'll do my next one, and I don't know what the subject matter will be, but keep watching this account and you'll see it. Bye.