Yesterday, we showed you a 1970s version of this robo-apocalyptic tale...
...now witness the sheer terror of the original 1950s version!
The art for this 1952 one-shot title from Avon Comics is by Gene Fawcette, an Avon mainstay who did everything from horror to Westerns, to romance to sci-/fantasy!
If you compare the two tales, you'll see the robots are totally different in this version.
They're based on a still-popular squeeze toy first marketed in the early 1950s... Obie the Popping Martian/Panic Pete/Bug-Out Bob!
Who came up with the idea is unknown, and there was no attempt at an actual tie-in between the toy and the comic...
Beyond that, the most unusual aspect of this tale is the scripter...Walter Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant", the primary writer of the legendary pulp/radio/comic/movie character, The Shadow!
Yeah, that guy!
If you compare the two tales, you'll see the robots are totally different in this version.
They're based on a still-popular squeeze toy first marketed in the early 1950s... Obie the Popping Martian/Panic Pete/Bug-Out Bob!
Who came up with the idea is unknown, and there was no attempt at an actual tie-in between the toy and the comic...
Gibson, a trained magician-turned writer did very little "hard" sci-fi during most of his long career...except in 1951 to '54, when he edited (and wrote under several pseudonoms) most of the contents of Charlton's short-lived pulp magazine (only two issues) Fantastic Science Fiction, as well as Charlton's Space Adventures comic for its' first eleven issues and co-creating and scripting Spurs Jackson and his Space Vigilantes for Charlton's newly-created Space Western Comics!
(Yes, it really existed, as shown HERE!)
He also wrote this comic and several other one-shots for Avon Comics.
(Yes, it really existed, as shown HERE!)
He also wrote this comic and several other one-shots for Avon Comics.
For the record, Gibson also wrote two volumes of prose adaptations of Twilight Zone TV episodes (with a couple of original tales mixed in), but none of those were "hard" sci-fi.
BTW, while this was the only tale adapted into b/w in the 1970s, there were two more chapters of the man vs funky robot saga!
BTW, while this was the only tale adapted into b/w in the 1970s, there were two more chapters of the man vs funky robot saga!
You'll see them Wednesday and Thursday...
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