Reading Room: GREEN PLANET "Empty Earth"

Yesterday, it was a "Little Earth", today it's..

...in this never-reprinted tale from the one-shot Green Planet, published by Charlton Comics in 1962.

This backup tale, unrelated to the title story, was written by Joe Gill, penciled by Dick Giordano, and inked by Vince Coletta.

Green Planet was a very odd comic...

1) The title story was actually an adaptation of a then-current sci-fi novel by J Hunter Holly, but, oddly, there's no mention of that fact anywhere in the comic!

2) There's no numbering on the comic (it's indicia lists it as a quarterly book) and no copyright notice listing either Charlton or novel author Holly!
We presented the main feature a couple of years ago, HERE and HERE!

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3

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Monday Mecha Madness FANTASTIC "Thinking Machine"

During the Golden Age of Comics, Writers and Artists Sometimes Came Up with Rather...Unique Portrayals of Mechanical Beings...

...as you'll see in this never-reprinted tale from Youthful's Fantastic #8 (1952)!

Illustrated by Vince Napoli and scripted by a writer whose identity is lost to the mists of time, this reads more like a Frankenstein-type horror tale than a sci-fi story about a robot!

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Science Fiction Comics
Taylor History of Comics
Vol 3
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Holiday Reading Room EVERY DAY'S A HOLLY DAY "Thrilling Story Behind Old Glory: Flag Day"

Learn About...

...and try to forget it is also (ironically) the 80th birthday of disgraced, twice-impeached, President Don (the Con) Trump, the Oldest President in American History!

Coloring goof: the Union soldiers in panel 5 are wearing Confederate gray!

Why is this 1955 comic entitled "Every Day's a Holly Day" instead of "Every Day's a Holiday"?

Because it was given away to kids by grocers who sold Holly Sugar!

Illustrated by John Rosenberger, it's a unique pamphlet covering a number of American holidays, including both Lincoln and Washington's Birthdays (before they were combined into "Presidents' Day" in 1962), Mothers' Day (though not Fathers' Day), Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and a couple of holidays we've largely abandoned...Pan-American Day and American Indian Day!
Note: We're gearing up for our traditional multi-blog Summer Blogathons which we'll announce the week before the 4th of July weekend and begin the week after!

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Cartoon History of the United States
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Space Hero Saturdays SPACE MOUSE "Master Mind" & "Believe It or Not"

This short-lived, but entertaining, series was uneven...

...with some stories, like this one from the back cover of Avon's Space Mouse #1 (1953) featuring the heroic character as a thief, obviously adapted from a different strip...

...and this one, from the inside cover of Avon's Space Mouse #3 (1953) showing him both in "hero mode" and cleverly breaking the "fourth wall"!

Writer/artist Frank Carin was an experienced pro who started as an animator the Fleischer Brothers and TerryToons, then moved over to comics in the early, writing and/or illustrating several hundred stories and covers for everybody from Timely/Atlas to Magazine Enterprises, to Nation-Wide, to Harvey, to, of course, Avon, and finally, to Gold Key!

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Fleischer Story

A History of the Cartoon Studio in the Golden Age of Film Animation

(covering the studio where Frank Carin got his start)
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Friday Fun KOOKIE "Bongo & Bop 'Cats in the Attic' "

 Before Slackers!
Before Hipsters!
Even Before Hippies!
There were Beatniks!

Here's a tale about a pair of them that could easily be updated and re-told today!

This never-reprinted story from Dell's Kookie #2 (1962) by writer John Stanley and artist Bill Williams was part of an attempt to produce an on-going series featuring young adults in a (then) contemporary setting.

Bongo and Bop were the slackers of the ensemble, like Dobie Gillis' Maynard G Krebs amped up to 11!
Sadly the title only lasted two issues!

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Beatniks

Guide to an American Subculture
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