Friday, March 20, 2026

Friday Holiday/Fairy Tale Fun EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Mother Hubbard's Cupboard"

Walt (Pogo) Kelly loved to incoporate well-known characters...
...(in this case, from a classic nursery rhyme) into his seasonal holiday stories!
This fun, never-reprinted featurette, written and illustrated by Kelly, appeared in Dell's Four Color Comics: Easter With Mother Goose #220 (1949).

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Thursday, March 19, 2026

Reading Room UNUSUAL TALES "Look into the Future"

One of Charlton Comics' defining traits was...
...using montages of interior art as their covers.
Usually, the cover would utilize several different stories' art, but in this case, they played up the final story in the issue!
A morality play in a sci-fi/fantasy context.
Rod Serling was a master of this concept, as he displayed weekly on the original Twilight Zone.
This never-reprinted story from Charlton's Unusual Tales #27 (1961) illustrated by Steve Ditko (and probably written by Charlton mainstay Joe Gill) follows the concept to a "T", within the limitations established by the Comics Code Authority.
If it had been done pre-CodeSimms would've come to a horrific (and graphic) end...

Wednesday, March 18, 2026

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder MAN-GODS FROM BEYOND THE STARS Part 3

In the far-distant past...
...technologically-advanced aliens visit the Earth on a missionof exploration.
Their mandate is to observe, but not interfere.
In the present (1975)...
...scientists discover ancient cave paintings that tell of god-like beings who came down among the primitive humans.
But, the paintings don't tell the whole story, for the aliens are far more human than even they suspect!






To Be Concluded...Next Wednesday!

This tale, written by Doug Moench, illustrated by Alex Nino was likely a "pilot" for an ongoing series, but, due to Jack Kirby's return to Marvel with his similarly-themed Eternals, this ended up being merely an all-but-forgotten one-shot!
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Featuring all the Chariots of the Gods-inspired series' Jack Kirby-written and illustrated stories!
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Tuesday, March 17, 2026

Holiday Reading Room AMAZING ADULT FANTASY "Beware of the Giants!"

It's not often you see Stan Lee's signature on cover art...
...(behind the giant boot) perhaps because it was probably meant as the title page for the following story (and, to tell the truth, I think the splash page below would've been a better cover)...
Hah!
Bet you thought I had forgotten St Patrick's Day, eh? 
This Stan Lee-scripted/Steve Ditko-illiustrated piece from Atlas' Amazing Adult Fantasy #14 (1962) has one fatal flaw...the clothing and architecture are more mid-European (Germany/Austria/Switzerland) than Celtic (Irish/Scottish)!
BTW, one of the rarely-noted aspects of this series were the kool individualized contents pages for each issue...
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Monday, March 16, 2026

Monday Mecha Madness ADAM LINK!

This Requires a Little Explanation/Background...

Introduced in Ziff-Davis' sci-fi anthology Amazing Stories (1939), Adam Link was the first ongoing series about a sentient robot!

Though credited to "Eando Binder" (a pen-name used by author brothers Earl and Otto Binder when they worked together), the Adam Link stories were entirely Otto's work!
Adam was no soulless automaton!
From his introduction onward (and Binder used the title "I, Robor" before Isaac Asimov) he was on a quest to become as human as possible!
Though created to be totally-logical, he developed emotions!
In fact, after his second story "Trial of Adam Link" where he was accused of killing his creator (scientist Dr Charles Link, not Otto Binder), though found innocent (he was framed)  he decided he couldn't go on living without his "father", and decided to commit suicide.
That's the basis of the third tale, "Adam Link's Vengeance", where another scientist (of the "mad" variety), prevents his untimely death, and plans to use him as a weapon!
That particular story was adapted by writer/editor Bill Spicer and artist D Bruce Berry into a two-part story in Spicer's prozine Fantasy Illustrated in 1965 and reprinted in Spicer's Graphic Story Magazine (under a new Berry cover) in 1971.
You'll be seeing that over the next two Mondays.
The comic story was done shortly after the Adam Link tales were adapted into a fix-up novel combining all the short stories...
Note the Isaac Asimov quote!
BTW, if the name "Otto Binder"sounds familiar to comics fans, that's because he wrote a lot of DC, Quality, Timely, and Fawcett comics in the Golden and Silver Ages, as well co-creating among others, the Legion of Super Heroes, Black Adam, Braniac, Kid EternityKrypto, Young AlliesMary MarvelBizarro, and Supergirl!
But, for some, he's best-known as the writer of the first Marvel Comics prose novel...

(Dig the Doc Savage-style logo!)
BTW, We'll be running this long OOP & HTF novel this summer during the annual RetroBlogs Summer Blogathon!