Tuesday, December 31, 2024

Reading Room SPACE ADVENTURES "You Are the Jury"

We Close Out 2024 with a Trial...

...unlike any we've ever seen...with the stakes being the survival of the planet Earth, itself!
What would you decide, considering the state of the planet (and the USA) as of December 31, 2024?
Illustrated by Steve Ditko and scripted by an unknown writer, this tale from Charlton's Space Adventures V1N11 (1954) presents an interesting dilemma.
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Monday, December 30, 2024

Monday Madness STUART TAYLOR IN WEIRD STORIES OF THE SUPERNATURAL "Faustus"

Despite the title, the series is actually sci-fi about a time traveler and his machine...
...who occasionally run into mystical menaces.
IIRC, The Time Tunnel TV series did the same thing, encountering Merlin, the ghost of Nero, and others along with the usual silver-skinned Irwin Allen aliens...
This series started in Jumbo Comics #1 (1939) as Diary of Dr Hayward, illustrated by Jack Kirby under the house pseudonym "Curt Davis" (which was used for every story in the series).
With #5, Lou Fine assumed the art chores, and several issues later the title changed to Weird Stories of the Supernatural as lab assistant Stuart Taylor took center stage and old Doc Hayward became a supporting character.
(In fact, the series title sometimes listed "Stuart Taylor" above the "Weird Stories..." logo, playing up the action-hero aspect, as it does here.)
As of #15, a rotating lineup of artists contributed art but no other "big names" worked on the series which continued for almost the entire run of Jumbo, ending at #140 (1950).
This particular never-reprinted story is from Jumbo Comics #111 (1948) and was produced by the Iger Studio, which supplied almost all of Fiction House's comic material during this period!

Sunday, December 29, 2024

Holiday Reading Room SANTA CLAUS FUNNIES "Fir Tree"

For Our Final Yuletide-Themed Post of 2024...

...we thought we'd present a tale of a Christmas Tree by a master storyteller...Hans Christian Anderson!
Walt (Pogo) Kelly both adapted the story and illustrated it for Dell's Santa Claus Funnies #1 (1942).

Saturday, December 28, 2024

Space Heroine Saturdays ALICE "Flying Saucers"

I always wondered what happens when someone takes the concept of "flying saucers" literally...
...as the amazing Dave Berg did in this Allen Anderson cover-featured tale from Ziff-Davis' Alice #11 (1953)!
And, yes, this strip is about an updated version of Lewis Carroll's Alice from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass!
Not quite the sort of "flying saucers" we usually present, eh?
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Thursday, December 26, 2024

Thursday Worlds of Wonder ATARI FORCE "Galaxian" Conclusion

Wednesday was Christmas, so we're posting this a day late.
The Dark Destroyer, has possessed the minds of normally-peaceful aliens and is using them to destroy Scanner One and the crew in interstellar combat.
The Atarians are trying to protect themselves, incapacitate the alien craft,and avoid killing their crews...who have no such compunctions about the humans!
The crew are using a strategy taken directly from the real-world gameplay of the video game this comic was included with...though not without taking heavy damage...
The storyline of the original Atari Force mini-comics concludes with what appears to be a happy ending!
When the sequel series begins publication a year later, 20 years have passed in-universe and a lot of things have happened.
For one thing, The Dark Destroyer survived!
But that's a story for another time...
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Tuesday, December 24, 2024

Monday, December 23, 2024

Monday Holiday Madness SANTA'S CHRISTMAS COMICS "Coo Coo in 'Christmas Capers' "

Our Final Yuletide Entry is Quite Mad...
...as in "cuckoo", since that's exactly what he is!
This never-reprinted story from Nedor/Pines' one-shot Santa's Christmas Comics (1952) by artist Milton Stein and an unknown writer features a character almost totally-unknown to comics fans today!
Coo Coo the Bird-Brain was an irrepressible, anarchic cuckoo bird along the lines of Daffy Duck, who was named after the title of Nedor/Pines' Coo Coo Comics funny-animal anthology...but he didn't actually appear until near the end of the book's run beginning in #47, in 1949 and running through the final issue, #62, in 1952!
This is his only appearance outside of Coo Coo Comics, and none of his stories has AFAIK, ever been reprinted!