Saturday, March 26, 2022

Space Hero Saturdays BUSTER CRABBE "and the Maid of Mars"

Though Buster Crabbe starred in more Westerns than any other genre...

 ...he's best-known to the public at large as the movie serial heroes Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers!
Here's a tale from his own comic that combines both Western and space hero concepts!
Note that Buster is actor Buster Crabbe, not "Buster Crabbe as a character like Billy West" or somesuch in the tale, and it's assumed that he's actually able to do anything he's shown doing in his films.
The amazing art for this tale from Eastern Color's Buster Crabbe Comics #5 (1952) was by Al Williamson, Roy Krenkel, and Frank Frazetta, who were astounding comics fans with similar quality work at EC Comics on Weird Science and Weird Fantasy!
The cover was by Frazetta, who was also doing covers featuring Buck Rogers (whom Buster had played in the movies) for Famous Funnies, as well as illustrating the White Indian strip and covers for Ghost Rider! so he had handled both sci-fi and Western genres before doing this mixed-genre piece!

Friday, March 25, 2022

Friday Holiday Fun EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Goldilocks and the Baby Bear's Basket"

Here's a classic fairy tale everybody knows...
...adapted for the Easter season by Walt (Pogo) Kelly!
A never-reprinted tale from Dell's Four Color Comics: Easter with Mother Goose #140 (1947) demonstrates how Walt Kelly could take even a tale you didn't think would work in this context and make it seasonally-appropriate!
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Thursday, March 24, 2022

The "Star Wars" Defense System...in 1962...60 Years Ago!

You think Ronald Reagan was the first US President to think of it?
From Drift Marlo #1 (1962) Art by Tom Cooke
In the early 1960s, we already had satellites in orbit that would have detected missile launches from the "damn Communists"!
Code-named MiDAS for Missile Defense Alarm System, the plan was to eventually put anti-missile missiles in orbit that could supplement land and sea-based defenses.
As it was, a number of scanner-equipped satellites were orbited, but the crude sensors kept mistaking other heat sources (including sunlight reflected from heavy cloud cover) as missile launches, so the plan was eventually abandoned...but replaced with a more accurate system.
The project was one of the central elements of an entry featuring the Silver Age character Drift Marlo: Space Detective at our "brother" RetroBlog Crime & Punishment™.
Check out Part 1 HERE and Part 2 HERE!
So when you think the Russkies are ahead of us, don't worry.
We have more up our sleeves than you may realize!
Here's some more fact-based feature pages from the Drift Marlo series showing the future as we hoped it would be in 1962...
Who says comics ain't educational?

Wednesday, March 23, 2022

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder ATARI FORCE Part Two "Chapter Three: Spoils of War"

When Last We Left the Mysterious Woman in Dark Burgundy...

...(who actually was Atari's Security Chief), had started relating the "back story" about her experiences in 1998's Five Day War that almost destroyed the Earth...
Written by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, penciled by Ross Andru, and inked by Dick Giordano and Mike DeCarlo, this tale, included with the Atari Berzerk video game cartridge in 1982 is completes the background about both the crew and their mission.
The remaining three comics in the series (also included with VG cartridges) are about their adventures in various universes.
Note: the next chapter of Scanner One's travels (which we'll present in the near future) is not named after the game it's included with!
That honor went to a tale that, while part of this series, featured a new group of characters who were native to one of the universes and was published as a separate graphic novel!

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Art of Atari

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

IS THIS TOMORROW? Russkies/Communists and Propaganda

Even children 80 years ago knew how Russkies use propaganda...
...as this 1940s tale on our "brother" RetroBlogSeduction of the Innocent! demonstrates!
Remember that Vladimir Putin, was both a KGB officer and high-ranking Communist Party member!
(If you believe Vlad's "ex" KGB and Communist Party, his actions in this [and other] matters would say otherwise...)
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(not the 1980s Chuck Norris film!)
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Monday, March 21, 2022

Monday Madness TIME WARP "Righteous Ones"

As, thanks to Vlad the Puta, rumbles of nuclear war grow ever louder...
...we thought we'd take a look at a possible result of such a frightening future!
Oops!
Cue Twilight Zone theme...
Written by DC writer/editor George Kashdan (who co-created Tommy Tomorrow) and illustrated by the multi-talented Dick Giordano, this never-reprinted tale from DC's Time Warp #1 (1979) reads like it was scripted a decade earlier in the late 1960s, especially in the teen-agers' dialogue ("Like it was chain-reacted into doomsville!")!
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Sunday, March 20, 2022

Holiday Reading Room EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Candy Egg"

Here's a (literally) sweet, never-reprinted Walt (Pogo) Kelly short...
...from Dell's Four Color Comics: Easter with Mother Goose #220 (1948)!

Imagine getting one of these 52-page annuals in your Easter basket along with jellybeans, chocolate bunnies and marshmallow Peeps!
Several 7-10 page stories, a number of 1-3 page features, games, and, usually, a wraparound cover!
Would've kept the 5-8 year-old me occupied in those dark days before TV (much less the Internet)!
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