Five Star Comics Down Under #5

This is the last cover of the Australian 5 Star Comics for which we have an image. It may or may not be the last issue of the magazine. Note that the faces of the characters have shrunk away, leaving only their names inside the stars. The boy looks like a hillbilly character. I wonder if he is the "Hickory" from the star on the far right.

Five Star Comics Down Under #4

Five Star Comics Down Under #3

We weren't the first to have our characters' faces enclosed by stars on the cover of our comic book. The Australian 5 Star did it way back in the Golden Age. The grotesque image on the right is unfortunate, but that's how Will Eisner drew The Spirit's sidekick, Ebony White. There's no blaming an Australian artist for it.

Five Star Comics Down Under #2

Five Star Comics Down Under #1

Sharp-eyed Mike Tuz found out that 5 Star Comics goes back to the Golden Age of Comic Books, just like the characters in our modern-day title do. Here's the cover of 5 Star Comics #1, an Australian comic book, date unknown. In addition to The Spirit and Lady Luck, the original 5 Star had stories of Peachy, Perky, and Lassie (a girl, not a dog). More covers are on their way, so keep checking back. The images are from AusReprints.com.

Five Star Comics #2 Now in Print

For those eagerly awaiting the second issue of Five Star Comics--it has arrived! Five Star Comics #2, with a cover and a lead story by Black Bat artist Matt Marshall, is now in print. The newest issue of our comic book made its debut at the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo (S.P.A.C.E.) during the weekend of April 21-22, 2012, in Columbus, Ohio, and is now available to readers. Ordering information is below. In the meantime, have a look at a sampling from Five Star Comics #2.

In the lead story of Five Star Comics #2, Matt Marshall reveals the origin of The Black Bat--the NEW Black Bat, son of the original from the pulp magazines of the 1930s and '40s. Matt's artwork is like nothing you have seen before in the comics and unlike anything you're likely to see anytime soon. 

Missile, great granddaughter of the Golden Age superhero Silver Streak, returns to face an old foe in "The Trojan Cuckoo." Larry Blake created Missile for the first issue of Five Star Comics and handled the penciling on this story. Tim Corrigan provided the inks. 

Next up: Gary Gibeaut wrote, penciled, and inked a tribute to Will Eisner's original Lady Luck. The story is called "The Return of Lady Luck" and features a new incarnation of the 1940s Lady Luck drawn by Klaus Nordling. 

The whole gang collaborated on "The Case of the Nutcase," a story featuring The Amalga-Mates, the first all-original characters to appear in Five Star Comics. In real life, The Amalga-Mates are Hemsworth V. Hemsworth and Semyon Hemsworth, millionaire philanthropists. Donning the trappings of their alter egos, they become the world's first and only Siamese twin superheroes! Tim Corrigan penciled a script by Terence Hanley. The inking came from Many Hands.

Cave Girl returns to Five Star Comics in a ten-page story, "Cave Girl and the Bat King," written and drawn by Terence Hanley.

So how do you order this 48-page extravaganza? Just send a check or money order for $5.00 to:

Larry Blake

69306 State Route 124

Reedsville, OH 45772

And what do you get for your five dollars? Five stories by five artists and featuring five (or six) protagonists, plus two pages of letters, a preview of Miss Masque, and a full-color photo-collage of Cave Girl by Larry Blake on the back cover. Order yours today.

Text copyright by 2012 by Five Star Comics

Art copyright 2012 by Matt Marshall, Larry Blake, Tim Corrigan, Gary Gibeaut, and Terence Hanley

Five Star Preview

A Sneak Peek at Lady Luck by Gary Gibeaut

Gary Gibeaut is hard at work on his story for Five Star Comics #2. The story will feature not one but two incarnations of Lady Luck, originally created by Will Eisner, Dick French, and Chuck Mazoujian for Smash Comics and now in the public domain. In his story, Gary's new Lady Luck meets up with her grandmother, the original Lady Luck, as they face down a gang of thugs and crooks. Anyone who knows the creators of Five Star Comics might also recognize Gary's fictional gang. Anyway, here's a sneak peek at Gary's story, in the penciling stage right now but soon in print!

Story and art copyright 2011 Gary Gibeaut

Text copyright 2011 Five Star Comics