Space...Hero??? Saturdays PLANET COMICS Cosmo Corrigan & Norge Benson

With North America currently caught in a deep freeze with major snow storms/blizzards...

...you can stay warm at home and read Fiction House's Planet Comics' two different characters starring in strips set on the frigid world of Pluto!

Unlike most of the deadly-serious features of the period, these strips played both series as sci-fi sitcoms, starring "heroes" who could best be described as "spacegoing slackers", or "galactic party animals"!

You can read the complete run of the first guy, Cosmo Corrigan, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Yeah, he only lasted three issues.

Cosmo Corrigan was apparently caught in a black hole and immediately replaced (like the very next issue) in Planet Comics by Norge Benson, who encountered a whole different group of Plutonians!

Norge was a somewhat less snarky (though no less humorous) version of the "Earthman on Pluto" concept shown in Cosmo Corrigan., mixing talking alien versions of both Arctic and Antarctic animals with total disregard to anything even remotely resembling exobiology (or continuity)!

But both strips were fun, and that's all that really matters!

Norge Benson managed to survive for twenty issues, all of which you can read by clicking HERE!

Frigid Friday Fun WEIRD WONDER TALES / STRANGE TALES "When a Planet Dies!"

The current "deep freeze" covering the USA reminded me of the splash panel from this story...

...from Marvel's Weird Wonder Tales #22 (1973), which was actually a reworking of this (literally) kool splash page from a cool story from Atlas' Strange Tales #97 (1962)!

While the art is credited to Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers, who wrote it is not entirely clear.

A number of people, myself included, think it's scripted by Kirby!

Bonus: Here's the cover from a previous issue of Weird Wonder Tales that supplied the Dr Druid figure on the reworked splash page above...

Art by pencilers Jack Kirby and John Romita Sr (Dr Druid's face), and inker Joe Sinnott.

Here's the original art for the story's splash page!

A Marvel production artist "flipped" a photostat of the Dr Druid figure from the Weird Wonder Tales cover and replaced the bearded aliens with it on a photostat of this splash page!
No original art was harmed in the making of the new splash page!

Reading Room LOST WORLDS "Visitors from Space" and "Space Platforms--Way Stations of the Future!"

Besides comic stories, comic books often ran one-page features like these...

Standard's Lost Worlds #5 Art by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito

...based on historical or scientific information available at the time...

Standards' Lost Worlds #6 Art by Rocco Mastroserio

...or speculation about future developments, again, based on then-current knowledge!

(I love that third panel, showing spacesuit-garbed scientists on a balcony on the satellite!)

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics 

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder WOLFF "World of the Witches"

Return to the post-apocalyptic future Earth of Wolff the Barbarian...

...where technology and magic are both considered "dark arts" by the majority of inhabitants of this barbaric future!

Is it just me, or does the Sorceress of the Red Mist remind you of our previous Wednesday Worlds of Wonder feature, the sexy space heroine Agar-Agar, who was also published in the Dracula anthology magazine (and was also written by Wolff co-scripter Luis Gasca under the pen-name "Sadko")?

Or was that eye-makeup thing just a European fashion trend in the early 1970s?

This tale from  New English Library's Dracula #2 (1971) was superbly-illustrated and co-written by Esteban Maroto.
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Wolff et la Reine des Loups

(aka Wolff and the Wolf Queen)

French Graphic Novel reprinting this storyline with superb printing!

Reading Room WORLD OF SUSPENSE "When the Creature Escapes"

Is a "sea monster" a mindless animal...or something more?

That's what this story from Atlas' World of Suspense #7, 1957 asks...

Penciled by Al Williamson, inked by Ralph Mayo, and written by a currently-unknown scripter, this tale leaves the matter open-ended, practically begging for a sequel!

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Taylor Illustrated History

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Monday Madness TOPS "Anthony Comstock: Fanatical Reformer"

Is it any wonder Republicans are using the work of a puritanical, conservative con-man from the 19th Century...

...to promote and serve their anti-abortion agenda in the 21st Century?

Both Federal and local Republican politicians are currently attempting to use the ancient Comstock Act's19th Century definitions of "obscene material" (which includes birth control printed information and drugs) to prevent them from being provided to pregnant women in 2024!

Written by George Hansen and illustrated by Lee Ames, this feature from Lev Gleason's TOPS #2 (1949) presents itself as a "review" of a biography of Comstock, Anthony Comstock: Roundsman of the Lord (1927)..which praised the man!

However, where the book put Comstock on a pedestal, the comic strip savaged him, taking the material from the tome and presenting it in a historical context.
BTW, you'll note the art here is larger than we usually present.
That's because the periodical it was presented in was tabloid-sized, like Marvel and DC Treasury Editions of the 1970s and 80s and the lettering would be unreadable in our usual 525-pixel wide format.
Editor Charles Biro conceived and produced the mag as an attempt to do an "adult oriented" magazine using the comic book format.
Sadly, it only lasted two issues and either issue is incredibly hard to find!
Happily, Fantagraphics worked with noted writer/artist/historian Michael T Gilbert to produce a superb book reprinting those two issues with an astounding amount of historical material about the periodical...

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TOPS

Complete Collection of Charles Biro's Visionary 1949 Comic Book Series

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Design of the Week MOD LOVE

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another!

This week, kool, retro Swinging Sixties-style pop-art comic art on a line of collectible goodies (including this mug) which would be perfect as small Valentine's Day presents for your pop-culture-obsessed Significant Other!
BTW, our "sister" RetroBlog, True Love Comics Tales, has run almost all the stories from this incredibly HTF book, as shown HERE! 

Order now, because the Day for Lovers is only a month away!

And you don't want to be caught empty-handed!