Monday, January 26, 2026

Monday Mecha Madness STRANGE WORLDS "My Job...Catch a Robot"

The Title of this Story is Misleading...

...but you'll have to read to the end to discover how and why!




Illustrated by Joe Sinnott, this never-reprinted story from Atlas' Strange Worlds #3 (1959) involves a search for a human criminal among the mechanical men!
Sort of Blade Runner, but in reverse!
Sadly, the writer is unknown.
Next Week: the Return of...

Sunday, January 25, 2026

Tales Best-Read Indoors on a Cold Winter Day...

With Winter Hitting the US Full-Force...
... we invite you to re-visit the kool winter-themed posts on this blog
Here's the best of them (with links)...

We suggest you read them in front of a roaring fire (hopefully in a fireplace) with a mug of hot chocolate!

Saturday, January 24, 2026

Space...Hero??? Saturdays PLANET COMICS "Cosmo Corrigan: Exiled from Earth!"

Like Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and many other handsome space heroes...
...Cosmo Corrigan had a weird first name.
Unlike them, he was a bit of a screw-up and wise-ass...
...so he was sent to the Solar System's equivalent of Siberia...the frozen planet Pluto, qualifying him (sort of) for appearing as part of Space Hero Saturdays!
Planet Comics was noted for its...well...lack of scientific accuracy, being much more "science fantasy" than hard science fiction (which at least tried to apply known scientific facts to the storytelling).
But this series seems almost like a space opera sit-com, featuring a slacker as the hero!
Sadly, it only ran for three installments...which you'll see over the next few Saturdays!
Illustrated by George Tuska (who would handle the Buck Rogers newspaper strip in the 1950s, as well as becoming Iron Man's illustrator when he received his own book in the late 1960s) the scripter for this tale from Fiction House's Planet Comics #9 (1940) is, regrettably, unknown.
("Ray Alexander" was a Fiction House pseudonom.)
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Reprinting issues 9-12

Friday, January 23, 2026

Friday Fun JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Comic Strip!"

Did a Comic Strip Creative Ever Hold the Power of Life or Death...

...over everyone around him, or was this just a power-trip fantasy of writer Stan Lee and/or artist Steve Ditko?




Regrettably, we can't ask either of the creatives of this story from Marvel's Journey into Mystery #81 (1962), as they've both passsed beyond this mortal coil!
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Thursday, January 22, 2026

Reading Room BLACK CAT MYSTIC "Great Stone Face!"

Despite the title, Black Cat Mystic was actually a sci-fi anthology...
...featuring the final work of the Simon & Kirby Studio!
NOTE: May be NSFW due to racial stereotypes common to the era.
Penciled, inked, and probably scripted by Jack Kirby, this tale from Harvey's Black Cat Mystic #59 (1957) is Jack's first look at what would become known as the "ancient astronauts" theory in the 1970s due to the interest generated by Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods.
At the same time, Kirby himself would expand the concept into The Eternals, (originally-titled Return of the Gods), which is now one of the lynchpins of the Marvel Universe.

Kirby would present a variation of the theme a couple of years after "Great Stone Face" in Race for the Moon's "Face on Mars" as shown HERE.
Note: Kirby and Stan Lee did a variation of the concept at Marvel in the 1960s with The Inhumans, who were created by Kree scientists visiting Earth in prehistoric times and genetically-manipulating humans to draw out dormant abilities.
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