Space Hero Saturdays SKYROCKET STEELE "Chapter 2"

Three Years Ago, We Left Space Hero Skyrocket Steele in a Cliffhanger...

...but we're going to correct that oversight starting now!

Great!
Another Cliffhanger!
But we're not gonna wait three more years to present the next chapter!
Skyrocket will return next month!

This second chapter in Steele's space-spanning saga by writer-artist Bill Everett appeared in Centaur's Amazing Mystery Funnies V1N3(a) in 1938.
And there's a simple reason for the weird numbering, which we'll explain when you return next month!
Trivia: Pop culture historian and prolific genre author Ron (Star Hawks) Goulart utilized the name (but nothing else from Everett's strip) for a hysterically-funny novel about 1940s sci-fi movie serials...

(click for bigger image)

...which, while available on Amazon (as seen below) can't be found as this 1980 first edition with a kool cover by noted artist Carl Lundgren!
Snarky Note: I bought it in 1980,when it came out!
That and Goulart's very HTF Tremendous Adventures of Bernie Wine...

...a PG-13/soft R mass-market novel about a young (and extremely horny) comic book artist in NYC, are among my favorite Goulart books in my collection (and I have a lot of them, including ghost-written standalones and series)!

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Skyrocket Steele
by Ron Goulart
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Friday Fun HOT DOG "Harry Hotdog in 'Mad, Modern and Egad!' "

Though the Series' Title was Hot Dog...

...the character's name was Harry Hotdog, who can best be described as Curb Your Enthusiasm's Larry David as a generic yellow canine!

Cue the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme...

This never-reprinted story from Magazine Enterprises' Hot Dog #3 (1954) aka A-1 #124 (1954) satirizes the "Greatest Generation's" attitude towards "modern art"!
If you're wondering why the comic has two titles and numberings, let me explain...
Like Dell's Four Color Comics, A-1 was an anthology title which served as a tryout platform for various concepts, so it had both the strip's numbering and the title's numbering.
That way, if the strip didn't sell well, the publisher wouldn't have to pay for another second-class mailing permit (which was required for each title published) for a new series!
Numerous ME strips were published this way, including Cave Girl, I Am a Cop, Trail Colt, Manhunt, Ghost Rider, Undercover Girl, and Thun'da!
This issue was the third of four Harry Hotdog-starring issues!
Writer/Artist George Crenshaw began as an animator for Walt Disney, then MGM before going to comic strips and books.
Besides being a longtime "ghost" on Dennis the Menace, he created his own long-running strip, Belevdere, about (surprise) a dog...but not an anthropomorphic one like Harry!

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Golden Treasury of

Klassic Krazy Kool Kids Komics
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Reading Room BLAST-OFF "Little Earth"

This is a classic example of an unheralded gem by two graphic-story masters...

...that has been reprinted only twice...in now OOP limited-run books, so most of you have never seen it!

Oddly, the GCD lists it as penciled by Reed Crandall and inked by Al Williamson, but Teddy I at pencilink.blogspot.com reverses the credits!
Personally, I think both artists, in typical Fleagle Gang-style worked at both tasks in various panels.

The writer is Larry Ivie, who scripted several dozen stories for Marvel, DC, Tower, King, and Warren in the 1960s, and also published Monsters and Heroes, a competitor to Famous Monsters of Filmland!

According to the Kirby Museum, this story was intended for Harvey's never-published Race for the Moon #5 in 1958, but remained unused until 1965, when it ran in the Harvey one-shot anthology Blast-Off!

Wednesday World of What the Hell??? SLOW DEATH FUNNIES "It Grows!"

Happy Earth Day...sort of!

We look back at the cover-featured (but never-reprinted) story of the first issue a now-legendary series that debuted on the very first Earth Day in 1970!

Though the cover of this first issue has reached "graphic icon" status, reproduced (often unlicensed/unauthorized) all over the place, the actual story by writer-artist Greg Irons has never been reprinted!

Slow Death was published for 11 irregularly-produced issues, from 1970 to 1992.

Besides environmental/ecological stories, it also featured tales about diseases/plagues/epidemics, and other (sometimes deliberately-produced) medical horrors!

A 50th Anniversary Special (numbered "Zero") appeared (a few months late) in 2021.

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Slow Death Zero

The Comix Anthology of Ecological Horror

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Reading Room WEIRD THRILLERS "Shadow on the Screen!"

For all those whose parents told them "TV is bad for you"...

...and "comics are bad for you", well, they were right, as this comic tale about TV proves!

This tale from Ziff-Davis' Weird Thrillers #3 (1952) was illustrated by Bob Powell.

Powell, besides being a gifted illustrator was also a pioneer in the use of "color holds" in comic books.

The same technique he used on the tv screen was also used in a tale of radio and pulp hero The Shadow HERE, taking artwork that normally would be black-line and making it one of the color plates.

It was a very tricky thing to do back in those days since the interior pages were almost never proofed due to time and cost restraints.

But, Powell does some amazing things with the holds, making them line up exactly almost all the time!

Sadly, the writer of the story is, as in so many cases, unknown...

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The Chilling Archives of Horror Comics: Volume 2

Bob Powell's

Terror
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