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Thursday, August 19, 2021

Reading Room UNKNOWN WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION "Kick the Can"

It's said that space opera = "horse opera" with rayguns instead of six-guns...
...and just like the revisionist westerns of the '60s and '70s, this Bronze Age tale is a more sophisticated version of that concept.
Written and illustrated by Bruce Jones, this never-reprinted tale from Marvel's Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #4 (1975) takes the cliches of both horse opera and film noir, puts them in a sci-fi setting and makes them work in a way the Comics Code would not have allowed in a color book.
(Helping a wife escape her husband through extra-legal means and deliberately allowing someone to die were both no-nos to the Code.)
Plus, Jones' classical illustration style gives the tale an emotional resonance a more-stylized artist wouldn't have achieved.
BTW, Jones is still active in the field, as his LinkedIn site shows.
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Thanx for posting!