Due to CoronaVirus, there's NO Free Comic Book Day on the 1st Saturday in May...

...but you can always read free tales of fictional epidemics/pandemics Mon-Fri here on this blog...

...and weekly / bi-weekly on our other RetroBlogs, including our newest one...

...Medical Comics...

...plus...

...Seduction of the Innocent...

...Secret Sanctum of Captain Video...

...True Love Comics Tales

(You'd be amazed at how many romance comics stories revolve around disease!)...

...Hero Histories...

...Heroines!...

...Crime & Punishment...

...War: Past, Present and Future...

...Horror Comics of the 1950s...

...Western Comics Adventures...

...and the aptly-named

Not Safe For Work Comics!

Besides the daily posts here at Atomic Kommie Comics, there'll be at several new ones spread out among the various RetroBlogs each week!

Don't Miss Them!

Friday Fun / CoronaVirus Comics JUGHEAD ANNUAL Reggie in "Plague Take It!"

What's more painful?

A real disease...or a deception involving a non-existent disease?

Ouch!

The running gag of Reggie trying to date Midge behind Big Moose's back (always with disastrous consequences) has continued to this day (although somewhat less violently)!

BTW, the page sequence shown here is as printed, though you'd think Page 3 and 4 should be reversed!

This tale from Archie Comics' Jughead Annual #7 (1959) was not the first Archie story with this title!

A shorter, unrelated, and never-reprinted feature starring Betty & Veronica appeared in Archie Giant (Christmas Stocking) #1 (1954)!

Plus: this Reggie tale was only reprinted once...in a 1982 digest, so I think 38 years is long enough for it to remain hidden from fans' eyes!

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Archie
A Celebration of America's Favorite Teenagers

CoronaVirus Comics SCIENCE COMICS "Dr Doom's Diabolical Disease"

No, not this well-known Marvel villain...

...but his totally-unrelated Golden Age predecessor who had his own strip in Fox's Science Comics!

In a future when Mankind has colonized the Solar System, a somewhat-stereotypical Mad Scientist constantly threatens all civilized life due to unspecified "injustices" done to him!

Opposing this nutcase are heroic square-jawed aviator Jan Swift and his co-pilot/girlfriend Wanda.

And that's all you really need to know...

In the early days, few comics were about just one character.

(Even books which were titled after a lead strip, like Superman, had backup stories about other characters to fill out 52 to 68 pages in each issue!)

Most comics of the era were anthologies, with up to a half-dozen strips ranging through every genre you could think of!

Many titles had an ongoing feature about a villain...who lost almost all the time!

And even if he (or she! Comics were equal-opportunity when it came to evil!) was captured, they would escape to plot evil once more!

This never-reprinted tale by "Richard Crater" (a pen-name) from Fox Feature's Science Comics #6 (1940) was typical of those "villain strips"

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Illustrated History of Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics Volume 3

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder / CoronaVirus Comics SPACE ADVENTURES "U.F.O.: Plague"

We Have Already Seen...

Small town newspaper reporter Paul Mann researches a story about how, 100 years earlier, a flying saucer landed and aliens cured a local boy, ending a feud between two families that had gone on for generations.

With saucer sightings recently on the increase, Mann wonders if he'll encounter one...

But can Mann be prepared for the senses-shattering Secret of the Saucer?

Find Out Next Wednesday!

The second part of this book-length tale from Charlton's Space Adventures #60 (1967) was illustrated by artist Pat Boyette, an artist who usually did his own penciling, inking, and lettering, giving his work an immediately-distinctive visual style.
There's a kool tribute page to Boyette HERE.
You'll note the art is much cleaner and sharper than the previous chapter.
That's because it's not from Space Adventures, but the reprint in Charlton's Ghost Manor #77 (1984), which, curiously, left out the previous chapter entirely (but did run the final chapter, making the reprint a two-part, not three-part story)!
Here's Page One from the original printing...

Note the "Chapter Two" subhead was removed in the reprint!

BTW, all three parts of this story (and the sequel) were written by Denny O'Neil using his "Sergius O'Shaughnessy" pseudonom.

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Injection

Volume 1

(which shares a number of plot elements with this story)

CoronaVirus Comics UNSEEN "Eerie Glen"

No, it's not about a weird guy named "Glen"...

...but, according to dictionaries, a Scottish/English term meaning "valley with gentle slopes"!

In truth, it seems more like a swamp than a glen, which tends to be open and grassy!

This never-reprinted tale from Standard Comics' Unseen #6 (1952) is typical of the "Oops! I'm dead!" twist-ending story, but because of the reason for the demise (a fever from an unspecified disease), we felt it appropriate for CoronaVirus Comics.

Artist George Roussos worked for for half a century in comic (1940s to the 1990s) as a penciler, colorist, and, most notably, a fast, clean and efficient inker (one of the few who could keep up with speed-demon penciler Jack Kirby)!

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Ten-Cent Plague

Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America

Monday Madness / CoronaVirus Comics VEXT "Germ Warfare" Part 1

Think of the protagonist's name as a phonetic version of "vexed"...

...and the character himself as a "trapped on Earth"
 parody of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and you have the concept behind the series!

Now, just follow along...

We take our leave of the sentient, screaming streptococcus until next Monday...

Written and laid-out by Keith Giffen, penciled by Mike McKone, and inked by Mark McKenna, this never-reprinted story from DC's Vext #3 (1999) was a showcase for the snarky, in-joke-infused humor Giffen is notorious for!

Despite being incorporated into the mainstream DC universe from his first issue (which guest-starred Superman), and promoted in the DCU Heroes Secret Files and Origins one-shot, the book didn't sell well despite writer-artist Giffen's popularity with the comics audience!

The 6-issue mini-series was one of the few to not be reprinted as a trade paperback!

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Justice League International

Omnibus Volume 1

(which, despite the "Volume 1" designation has the entire Giffen run, including annuals and spin-offs!)