Saturday, November 10, 2012

Reading Room: SPACE ADVENTURES "Unknown Element"

Here's a never-reprinted tale...
...about the perils of exploring Inner (rather than Outer) Space, illustrated by a most unexpected artist!
This short story from Charlton's Space Adventures #12 (1954) was one of the last tales penciled by Superman co-creator Joe Shuster, who ended his comics career doing work for Fawcett and Charlton.
The inker was Spurs Jackson's John Belfi, but the writer is unknown.
BTW, when I said the story was "never-reprinted", I was somewhat incorrect.
(Yeah, it's hard to believe, but true!)
While the tale itself has never been re-presented in print, the splash page was modified and used as the cover for IW's Jet Power #1 (1958), which reprinted material from Magazine Enterprises' Jet and Space Ace comics!

Friday, November 9, 2012

Reading Room: ABRAHAM LINCOLN: LIFE STORY "Part 3"

From the day of his birth, Abraham Lincoln's life was a mixture of triumph and tragedy.
Moving constantly to find better-quality farmland, the Lincoln family endured hardship due to famines and floods.
Eventually, they found themselves on the very edge of America's Western frontier, where they were able to settle for an extended period, but at a terrible cost...the life of their beloved mother due to "milk sickness, which forced the two Lincoln children to accept adult responsibilities much earlier than they normally would have to.
When their father remarried, the children acquired both a new mother and three siblings...
This section of Dell's never-reprinted one-shot Abraham Lincoln: Life Story (1958) was written by Gaylord DuBois, and illustrated by Alberto Giolitti (except the first two pages, which were penciled by John Buscema and inked by Giolitti).
Note: the story is over 80 pages, so it's going to run through next Friday.
But it's a story worth telling, especially with a new Steven Spielberg-directed feature film starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Honest Abe coming out today, so I'm going ahead and I hope you'll join me.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Reading Room: ABRAHAM LINCOLN: LIFE STORY "Part 2"

From the day of his birth, Abraham Lincoln's life was a mixture of triumph and tragedy.
Moving constantly to find better-quality farmland, the Lincoln family endured hardship due to famines and floods.
Eventually, they found themselves on the very edge of America's Western frontier...
"Milk-sickness" was caused by drinking the milk of cows who had ingested plants that, while harmless to bovines, was lethal to humans.
This section of Dell's never-reprinted one-shot Abraham Lincoln: Life Story (1958) was written by Gaylord DuBois, penciled by John Buscema, and inked by Alberto Giolitti.
Buscema would pencil the remainder of this chapter about Lincoln's boyhood, then Giolitti would assume both pencil and ink tasks for most of the remainder of the book, up until the final few pages detailing Lincoln's assassination, which Buscema penciled.
Note: the story is over 80 pages, so it's going to run through next Friday.
But it's a story worth telling, especially with a new Steven Spielberg-directed feature film starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Honest Abe coming out tomorrow, so I'm going ahead and I hope you'll join me.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Reading Room: ABRAHAM LINCOLN: LIFE STORY "Part 1"

After one of the most divisive Presidental campaigns in history...
 It's time to look at the man whom most believe was the Greatest President of All!
Note: For the politically-correct, this all-ages story may be NSFW, due to it's referring to slaves as "Negro" rather than "Black" or "African-American".
When the story was produced in 1958, the politically-correct term was, in fact, "Negro".
This section of Dell's never-reprinted one-shot Abraham Lincoln: Life Story (1958) was written by Gaylord DuBois, penciled by John Buscema, and inked by Alberto Giolitti.
Buscema would pencil the remainder of this chapter about Lincoln's boyhood, then Giolitti would assume both pencil and ink tasks for most of the remainder of the book, up until the final few pages detailing Lincoln's assassination, which Buscema penciled.
Note: the story is over 80 pages, so it's going to run through next Friday.
But it's a story worth telling, especially with a new Steven Spielberg-directed feature film starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Honest Abe, so I'm going ahead and I hope you'll join me.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

It's ELECTION DAY...

GET OUT AND VOTE!
Here's a handy basic guide...
...published by Harvey Comics in 1952 (60 years ago)!
Amazing how it's both generic and pertinent decades later!
Note: You can see the color cover from this HTF comic book HERE!

Monday, November 5, 2012

Reading Room: SPACE SQUADRON "Last of the Martians"

Meet Mxxptrm! No, not "Myxzptlk"!
You can't get rid of this guy by getting him to say his name backwards!
And, though he's a Martian, he's neither little, nor green!
An interesting aspect of Space Squadron was that, unlike Speed Carter's Space Sentinels, the Squadron had members from every allied world, not just Earth.
"Max", who debuts here, becomes a valued (albeit temperamental) teammate, rather like Worf on Star Trek: the Next Generation.
Art from this final story from Atlas/Marvel's Space Squadron #1 (1951) is by George Tuska who later became the final artist on the original Buck Rogers comic strip (1959-67) and then assumed the art duties for almost a decade on Marvel's Invincible Iron Man!

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