Saturday, October 9, 2021

Space Force Saturdays SPACE BUSTERS "Death Rite of the Dwarfs"

In space no one can hear you die...
...as we present the third chapter of the Mars Campaign from Ziff-Davis' SpaceBusters #1 (1952)
This Bernie Krigstein-rendered story concludes the Space Busters tales from issue #1!
But we're not proceeding to #2 when we return to SpaceBusters after another two=part InterPlanetary Police tale!
There was a major artistic shift between issues, resulting in much of the already-completed work for #2 by Krigstein being "written-off" and later published by other companies who acquired the comic division's assets after Ziff-Davis dropped the line (except for G.I. Joe) in 1953!
The second issue contains an artistically-rebooted series with a new "look" created by illustrator, Murphy Anderson, fresh off a run on the Buck Rogers newspaper strip!
That's what you'll see in three weeks as we present those missing tales in the correct order (Space Busters #1.5, as it were!)
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Friday, October 8, 2021

Friday Fun CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST "Premiere"

Here's the first appearance of a comics legend (over 100 series with his name in the title)...
...who, at the time this came out, was already an animation mainstay!
Utilizing story elements from Casper's first cartoon (1945's Paramount NovelToon "The Friendly Ghost", written by Seymour Reit and Joe Oriolo) this opener written by Isadore Klien and likely illustrated by one of the cartoon series' animators appeared in St John's Casper the Friendly Ghost #1 (1949)
Interestingly, though Harvey Comics acquired the character rights from Paramount Pictures and continued the series after St John went out of business, they never reprinted the covers or stories of the five issues by St John!   
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Casper the Friendly Ghost

Thursday, October 7, 2021

Reading Room STRANGE TALES OF SUSPENSE "Uncle Ed and the Men from Space"

Telling stories about monsters from outer space is common around Halloween...
...just ask Orson Welles!
But when real aliens show up, things aren't quite what they seem...
A simple little tale from Atlas' Strange Stories of Suspense #5 (which was the first issue of the title)
Oddly, the GCD lists "Bill LaCava" as the artist, but the work is clearly John Forte (whose signature is at the bottom of the first panel!)
Forte is best known for his work at DC Comics including long stints on Superman Family series, particularly Tales of the Bizarro World and Legion of Super-Heroes.
The writer is unknown.
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Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder TALOS OF THE WILDERNESS SEA "to the Wilderness Sea" Part 2

On a post-atomic war Earth, civilization has reverted to medieval levels.
Radiation-mutated BeastPeople are used as slaves by unmutated humans.
Jaggar, leader of a team of slavers, comes across Shan and Vereena, a BeastFolk couple who have just given birth to a baby who appears to be a normal human!
Shan tries to keep Jaggar from stealing his newborn son and is slain, leaving Vereena to mourn both her mate's death and the loss of her child.
Jaggar uses the child to replace the stillborn child of ruler, Zar Totth.
(Totth's wife had suffered stillborn births three times, and her midwives were put to death each time.
Jaggar's wife, Ingla, was the new midwife, and would suffer the same fate if the fouth child was stillborn...which it was!)
Jaggar and Ingla make the switch, Zar Totth names the baby Carn Whitemane, and proclaims the child to be his future heir...
Riding high on the success of the Sword of the Atom mini-series and follow-up annuals which re-imagined the hard sci-fi character in a barbarian adventure setting, Gil Kane (along with collaborator Jan Strnad) was given the go-ahead for another high-adventure series, this time based on a new character.
Planned as a 12-issue mini-series, cutbacks at DC dictated that the already-penciled and scripted first two issues be combined into a one-shot whose sales would determine if the project would continue.
Unfortunately, the unfamiliar character didn't attract a large enough audience (as The Atom had), and only the single, open-ended issue came about.
It's never been reprinted since its' publication in 1987.
BTW, if you're thinking the plotline seems familiar, It's because Kane based it on the Biblical tale of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt, transposed into a barbaric future!
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One of the first true graphic novels

Tuesday, October 5, 2021

Reading Room ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN "Vampire Spider"

Here's a tale that combines two of the most popular themes of sci-fi/horror...
...science-induced mutation in human beings and giant arachnids (which includes both insects and spiders)!
This never-reprinted cover story from ACG's Adventures into the Unknown #50 (1953) was written by editor Richard Hughes and illustrated by Robert McCarty, who, unfortunately, doesn't do a very accurate (most panels show the arachnid with only six legs) or scary spider, much like cover artist Ken Bald...
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Monday, October 4, 2021

Monday Mars Madness WAR OF THE WORLDS "Part II: The Conquest of Earth!"

Yeah, we could've called this chapter...
...but then HG Wells' ghost would've risen from the grave and bitch-slapped us!
(and rightly so!)
...projectiles from Mars have landed on Earth in 1898, unleashing aliens with heat-rays destroying everything in range of their landing sites.
Unfortunately, the aliens are now mobile...
To Be Continued...
NEXT MONDAY!
Adapted by Chris Claremont, penciled by Yong Montano, and inked by Dino Castrillo, it's a pretty straighforward visualization of the original novel, without updating to the present, as most adaptations of the tome have done.
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(Mars' Invasion of Earth from HG Wells to Orson Welles)