Saturday, June 19, 2021

Space Force Saturdays SPACE WORLDS "Temptress of Jupiter!"

There are secrets aplenty under the clouds of the Solar System's largest planet...

...but will Jet Dixon and his crew discover them?
In the 1950s we weren't certain of what lay under Jupiter's cloud cover, so sci-fi writers had total freedom to guess what was there.
Artist Allen Bellman and the unknown writer gave it their best shot in Atlas' Space Worlds #6 (1952).
(The Space Squadron comic was retitled for unknown reasons, though the features were the same as in previous issues!)
The rebranding didn't work since this would be the final issue, under any title, of the run!

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Friday, June 18, 2021

Friday Fun HOT DOG "Harry Hotdog in Alarm! Alarm!"

It's my birthday, so I thought I'd present a never-reprinted tale about a birthday present...

... from Magazine Enterprises' Hot Dog #1 (1954) which utilized then-state of the art tech!
I bet you thought Siri and Alexa were terrible as alarm clocks!
At least that's what i hear from those who utilize them as such!
Harry Hotdog was Magazine Enterprises' primary attempt at creating a funny animal series, running four issues.
It wasn't bad, by any means, but it wasn't really distinctive, either

Thursday, June 17, 2021

Reading Room UNEXPECTED "Choice"

When DC's oversized 1979-80 sci-fi anthology Time Warp folded, the remaining stories...
...were published in the fantasy/horror anthology The Unexpected!
This never-reprinted tale of questionable "justice" from DC's The Unexpected #210, (1981) was written by George Kashdan and illustrated by "Vicatan" (Vic Catan, Jr).
It was typical of the output by long-time pro Kashdan, solid, but not really memorable.
The art by Vicatan raises it a notch with unusually-effective storytelling and clean linework.
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Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder LOST WORLD "Winter in July!"

Now that we're past the "Dreaded Deadline Doom"...
...let proceed forward with a new adventure with Hunt Bowman and Lyssa as they encounter...climate change!
But that will prove to be the least of their worries...
Zombie Vikings!
That's something you don't see every day...even in the Lost World!
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Planet Comics
Volume 12
(contains issues 54 to 59)

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Reading Room ALIEN WORLDS "Few and the Far"

In space, things aren't always as they seem to appear...
...as this never-reprinted tale from Pacific's Alien Worlds #1 (1982) demonstrates not once, but twice...
Admit it.
Writer Bruce Jones and artist Al Williamson fooled you!

Monday, June 14, 2021

Monday Mars Madness (JOURNEY INTO) UNKNOWN WORLDS "End of the Earth"

There's a lot of never-reprinted Atlas/Marvel comics out there...
...including almost all of this anthology series!
By not accepting handouts from others, mankind is taught to, once more, be self-sufficient! 
Earth will not be a welfare state!
One other point: though the city containing all surviving humans is in Africa, there aren't any non-white people there!
Illustrated by Vernon Henkel, this never-reprinted cover and feature from Atlas' Unknown Worlds #36 (1950) is typical of sci-fi comics of the 1940s-early 1950s (pre-EC Comics' sci-fi line)
BTW, though the book is #36, it's really the first issue!
The previous issues were titled Teen Comics, before that, All-Teen Comics, and before that, All-Winners Comics!
Also note, I called it "Unknown Worlds", even though the cover says "Journey into Unknown Worlds"!
The indicia (which lists the actual title in official records) leaves out the "Journey into...", so that's what we, and indexers, go by.
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Sunday, June 13, 2021

Here Come the DARING and DIFFERENT RetroBlog Summer Blogathons...

Our annual summer tradition continues with a twist...PROSE!

Novels featuring superheroes/superheroines were extremely-rare before the 1960s.
Besides Big Little Books, the only books based on superheroes were several reprints (in hardcover) of pulp heroes Doc Savage and The Shadow and one original hardcover novel about Superman based on both the comics and the radio show.
In the 1960s, paperback publishers unleashed reprint series of every pulp superhero/adventurer they could get their hands on!
Doc Savage was joined by The Shadow (with reprints and a series of new novels set present-day), Operator 5, The Spider, The Phantom Detective, G-8 and his Battle Aces, and Captain Future, among others!
DC and Marvel had already been reprinting comics in b/w paperback form.
But Marvel decided to go the next step, joining with Doc Savage's publisher Bantam Books to create two novels, not based on previous comic stories!
DC joined in with a couple of novels, an adaptation of the 1966 Batman feature film and an original novel!
We'll be re-presenting one of Marvel's titles, Captain America: the Great Gold Steal by Ted White in July!
(If the response is good, we'll run the other 1960s book, Avengers vs the Earth-Wrecker by Otto Binder, next summer!)
August will see Batman vs the Three Villains of Doom by Winston Lyon (William Woolfolk) once more available for fans to read after 55 years!
Note, it's an interesting amalgam of the comic and TV Batman with elements of both!
If that one attracts an audience, the novelization of the '66 Batman movie, Batman vs the Fearsome Foursome will be next!
Both will be re-presented at Hero Histories.
Next week we'll have the exact dates and info on our other, comics-oriented Summer Blogathons