Reading Room SPACE WAR "Comeback"

What's cooler than re-presenting an over six decade-old never-reprinted Steve Ditko story?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

I love what I do!

And, as they say, if you love what you do, it ain't work!

Written by Joe Gill and illustrated by Steve Ditko, this story from Charlton's Space War #10 (1961) has some weird "echoes" of the origin of Captain Atom II in Charlton's Space Adventures #33 (1960)...by the same creatives!

(We showed it HERE!)

Could this story have been created before "Introducing Captain Atom" and held in inventory until a slot opened up?
We'll never know...

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Unexplored Worlds

Steve Ditko Archives, Vol 2

Monday Madness MIGHTY MARVEL COMICS STRENGTH AND FITNESS BOOK "Posture and Balance Exercises from The Silver Surfer"

 The full title is Stan Lee Presents the Mighty Marvel Comics Strength and Fitness Book...

...but that was too long for the post header!

The book is actually pretty clever and its' use of specific characters for particular easy-to-do exercises is nicely done!

Written by Ann Picardo and illustrated by Joe Giella, this never-reprinted 1976 trade paperback from Fireside/Pocket Books was part of their extensive line of Marvel titles that included the original Stan Lee/Jack Kirby Siver Surfer: the Ultimate Cosmic Experience graphic novel, the four-volume Origins reprints series, and assorted individual character reprints as well as How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way and oddball titles like Marvel Fun Book and Mighty Marvel SuperHeroes' Cookbook!

It's Cinco De Mayo!!!

 Let's show how Mexican-American writer/artist Gus Arriola told about the holiday in his newspaper strip, Gordo...

...by the way, this is from the original art for the Sunday page on May 5, 1946!

A couple of years earlier, Cinco de Mayo fell on a weekday, and Gus made the holiday part of a week-long run of daily strips...

...which were reprinted in United Feature's Tip Top Comics #100 (1946).

Running from November 1941 to March 1985, Gordo was the first nationally-syndicated newspaper strip to title-feature a Mexican character!
While the characters initially followed many Hispanic ethnic stereotypes of the era (never going over the line into offensiveness), Arriola downplayed and eventually eliminated them over time.
By the 1960s, the strip was earning praise from both the Mexican government and the California State Legislature for its promotion of tolerance and understanding between ethnicities.
Charles (Peanuts) Schulz described it as "probably the most beautifully drawn strip in the history of the business."
You can read more about Arriola and his creation HERE, HERE, and HERE!

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Accidental Ambassador Gordo

Comic Strip Art of Gus Arriola

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Space Hero Saturdays STAR WARS the Lost Comic Books!

Since today is May the 4th Be With You Day...

...we're showing the covers of the only Star Wars comics that have never been reprinted in their original format!

Blackthorne's three-issue mini-series from 1987, Star Wars 3-D!

The stories are new tales by Len Wein, Patrick Zircher, Jim Nelson, and Caesar MacSombol!

While these comics have been reprinted (as shown below), the reprints aren't 3-D!

Would you like to see the 3-D versions?

Let us know!

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Star Wars Omnibus

Wild Space

Volume 1

(Which reprints the issues shown above...but in 2-D!)

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Friday Fun BLAST-OFF "Danger! Atoms!"

Some stories need little extrapolation...

...such as this never-reprinted short by writer/artist Howard Nostrand from Harvey's Blast-Off! #1 (1965)

Cute, eh?

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Chilling Archives of Horror Comics Volume 7

Howard Nostrand's Nightmares

Reading Room WEIRD TALES OF THE FUTURE "Survival of the Fittest"

Fiction or prophecy?

This is only 8 years away!

Consider recent developments in Artificial Intelligence and prepare for the possible (if not probable) mechanical Armageddon!

The penciler of this never-reprinted story from Key's Weird Tales of the Future #1 (1952) was a young Ross Andru, but the mediocre inking is clearly not his soon-to-be-partner Mike Esposito!
The identity of the embellisher, as well as the scripter remain a mystery to this day...

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Ten-Cent Plague

Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder ADVENTURE COMICS "SWORD OF THE DEAD!"

Here's a never-reprinted tale of "HIGH adventure"...

...written and illustrated by Gil Kane during the same period he was producing his landmark graphic novel BlackMark!

Simple.

Visceral.

Effective.

Now, THAT'S the way to tell a story!

This tale appeared in DC's Adventure Comics #425 (1972-73), when it was, briefly, an anthology between the departure of Supergirl into her own short-lived title and the debut of heroine Black Orchid!

BTW, BlackMark will be coming to Wednesday Worlds of Wonder this summer!

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Blackmark

by Gil Kane

One of the first true graphic novels

Reading Room WEIRD ADVENTURES "Dome of Death"

Reading this blog,  you might think that "sci-fi" just means "space opera" or "futuristic"...

...but it can be set on present-day (meaning when the story was created) Earth, as well!

This never-reprinted tale from the Ziff-Davis one-shot Weird Adventures #10 (1951) reads like a script for an anthology tv show or a b-movie.
It's mostly character interaction and a crime/thriller plot with some easily-done (even for the 1950s) sfx!

Illustrated by John Giunta, whose long career spans both the Golden and Silver Ages with work for literally every company in every genre!
However, Giunta may be best-known to today's audiences as the artist who gave the legendary Frank Frazetta his first job, when he hired the talented teen as a studio assistant!
The writer of this unusual tale is unknown, but could be Giunta himself!

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Mystery in Space

Pulp Fiction Library

(which contains only a couple of stories from this previously-listed volume)