Saturday, August 31, 2019

Reading Room MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN COMICS "Doorway to the Future!"

Is this a "lost" Kirby Klassic from the 1950s?
Read this never-reprinted tale from Monster of Frankenstein #33 (1954) and judge for yourself...
When Prize Comics' Monster of Frankenstein title was revived during the horror comic boom of the early 1950s, besides a wonderfully-gruesome version of Dick Briefer's Monster, it featured a number of two to four page "fillers".
Most of these tales appear to be, at the very least, laid-out by Jack Kirby.
This story is a prime example.
The figure poses, faces, machinery, even the futuristic buildings all but scream "KIRBY"!
The Grand Comics Database lists the story's artist as Marvin Stein with a "?", but considering the volume of work Simon & Kirby did for Prize before leaving to form their own company, Mainline, and the fact Stein worked primarily for their studio, it's not unlikely this was an "inventory" story meant for insertion wherever editorial material pagecount came up short.
Sadly, the writer of the story is, as in so many cases, unknown, but it might also be Kirby...

Friday, August 30, 2019

Friday Fun SPACE MOUSE "Hunter"

The Dreaded Deadline Doom caught up with us this week...
...so we're re-presenting the first Space Mouse story we ran last year, right after a slew of Martian related posts celebrating the 80th Anniversary of Orson Welles' 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast, which explains the following caption...
Thought the Martian invasion stuff was over for the year?
Guess again, Earthling!
Even funny animals battled Martians!
Not a Dream!
Not a Hoax!
Not an Imaginary Story!
(though it is the ending of the movie Invaders from Mars, which came out the year before this never-reprinted tale from Avon's Space Comics #4 [1954] appeared!)
If I were a cynical sort, I'd say writer/artist Frank Carin copped that finale...
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(covering the studio where Frank Carin got his start)

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Reading Room LARS OF MARS "Terror Weapon" Part 1

...they just return in the next issue, as the guy who doesn't just play a Martian on TV, but is a Martian playing an actor playing a Martian on TV while fighting crime in real life (got that?) discovers...
What Next?
Will Lars Stop Raskov?
Will Raskov Stop (and/or Kill) Lars?
You'll note the Communist Chinese were illustrated in a non-cartoony manner, unlike the Japanese in most World War II comics and animated cartoons!
(The unfortunate lemon-yellow skin-tone wasn't artist Murphy Anderson's choice, I'm sure.)
Written by Jerry Siegel, illustrated by Murphy Anderson, this was the cover-featured tale from Ziff-Davis' Lars of Mars #11 (1951), the second (and last issue) of the series!
featuring the covers of both issues of Lars of Mars!

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder "Secrets of SEEKER 3000!"

Before we continue our re-presentation of the time-lost Seeker 3000! series...
...here's some background on both "classic" and "next gen" versions of the series..
First, the original plans for the proposed series by co-creators Doug Moench and Tom Sutton from Marvel's FOOM Magazine #21 (1978)...
Sadly, 'twas not to be, as the series didn't make it beyond the "pilot" stage...until 21 years later!
The only reprinting it had before this was a serialized version in the Marvel British weekly Future Tense...
Now we'll have a look at the "next gen" version from 1998...

Be here next week as we begin the first re-presentation of the follow-up series, which has never been collected in TPB form or reprinted in any way!
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(the first appearance of the series)

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Reading Room OUT OF THIS WORLD "Pallas Rebellion"

And we do mean Reading Room, today...
Art by Gene Fawcette
In the dark days before comic shops,  comic books were sold at newsstands, drugstores, lunchenette/soda fountains, etc. on racks along with magazines and newspapers.
To qualify as magazines/periodicals and receive special 2nd class (periodical) mailing discounts, comics had to include at least one text page per issue.
From the mid-1950s on, the quota was filled with a letters page.
But before that, the text page was often a short story.
In some cases, the story was based on the cover art, like this one from Avon's 1950 one-shot Out of This World...
The cover is by Gene Fawcette.
The story is by "W Malcolm White", a pen-name for Donald A Wollheim, a noted genre author who was the sci-fi/fantasy editor for Avon Magazines at this time.
Shortly after this, he moved to Ace Books, where he conceived the Ace Doubles paperback series and spearheaded the returns of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E Howard to the pop culture spotlight.
He also introduced JRR Tolkien to American audiences with an unauthorized (but legal) reprinting of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Later, Wollheim and his wife would found DAW Books, the first mass-market genre publisher!
(Today it's an imprint of Penguin Books.)

Monday, August 26, 2019

Monday Madness FAIRY TALES "All About Fairies!"

It makes sense a comic called Fairy Tales would have a feature on fairies...
...although classifying witches as "bad fairies" seems to be stretching the concept to the breaking point!
From the inside cover of Ziff-Davis' Fairy Tales #11 (1951) comes this never-reprinted b/w feature by an anonymous writer/artist or writer and artist which raises more questions than it answers!
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Sunday, August 25, 2019

Design of the Week Redux ADVENTURES IN ROMANCE: SEPTEMBER SQUALL

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days...
unless it sells exceptionally-well!
This Week...
With autumn right around the corner, it's time to wind summer up with a kool klassic romance comics cover design that exemplifies the time of year!
Available on a slew of collectibles!
FREE BONUS: You can read the actual tale behind the cover HERE!