Reading Room OUT OF THIS WORLD "The World Awaits"

We know Steve Ditko as the co-creator of The Amazing Spider-Man...

...but he was equally-adept at visualizing insects as well as arachnids!
(Yes, there is a difference!)

This lovely Ditko-rendered story from Charlton's Out of This World #12 (1959) would really have benefited from some Stan Lee-esque scripting rather than Joe Gill's stilted prose, which renders the ending rather...dull.

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Creativity of Ditko
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Monday Mecha Madness SHOGUN WARRIORS "Starchild" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

...Ilongo Savage, piloting Dangard Ace, tries to divert a recently-hatched alien from heading for populated areas.
But, the creature has some hidden surprises...









The Mecha Meyhem Continues in May as Genji (aboard Combatra) Battles...Whatever the Heck That Is!
(I was going to call it "A Big Hand for the Little Lady!", but I resisted.
Oh, wait...I did say it...)

Lunar Reading Room: RACE FOR THE MOON "Thing on Sputnik 4"

Now That Aretmis II has Safely Returned...

...let's look at a tale created during early days of space travel, before Man had made it beyond the stratosphere, when we had NO idea of what awaited us "out there", but it was so kool to speculate...

From Harvey's Race for the Moon #2 (1958).
Beautifully-rendered by Jack Kirby and Marvin Stein.
It's both amazing and depressing to see what we hoped to achieve in the (then) near-future

Then to see what we actually did...

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Simon & Kirby Library

Science Fiction

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Space Hero & Heroine Saturdays ASTONISHING "Menace from the Moon!"

Congratulation to the Artemis Crew for a Successful and Safe Trip to the Moon and Back!

But what if something had happened while they were on the Far Side, totally out of communication with Earth?

OK, this tale from Atlas' Astonishing #5 (1951), written by Hank Chapman and illustrated by Cal Massey is a tad silly.

They claim the ship was lost five years earlier, yet speculate the crew was still alive and coming home?
C'mon, even a kid in the 1950s would find that concept...well...DUMB!!!
(And that's being polite!)

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics 
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Friday Fun SPACE MOUSE "Reservation to the Moon!"

Sometimes the heroic Space Mouse ventured into outer space to fight menaces...

...sometimes the menaces commuted to Earth!

And, sometimes, very rarely, there is no menace...just misunderstood alien visitors!

Writer/artist Frank Carin told this never-reprinted tale of misinterpreted Moon-people motives in Avon's Peter Rabbit #31 (1956)!

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Golden Treasury of
Klassic Krazy Kool Kids Komics
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Reading Room AMAZING ADVENTURES OF BUSTER CRABBE COMICS "Science Lore"

Who says comics ain't educational?

 

One and two-page featurettes, based on the science known at the time, offer fascinating insight into the mindset of the sci-fi/comics writers and what info they had to work with!

This never-reprinted, Pete Morisi-illustrated piece from Lev Gleason's Amazing Adventures of Buster Crabbe #3 (1954) is typical of the era, except for the fact all the spaceship designs, combining real and fictional vessels are from different eras!

Among them are a Mongo warship from the Flash Gordon comic strip, a ship from the movies Destination Moon and/or Conquest of Space, and what's described as a "WAC Corporal", but is rendered as a German V-2!

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3
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Wednesday Worlds of Wonder TRAGG AND THE SKY GODS

Man-Gods From Beyond the Stars Wasn't the Only Comics Project Based on Chariots of the Gods!

Art by Jack Kirby and Frank Giacoia
The best-known (and most successful) was Jack Kirby's Eternals series, which he began when he returned to Marvel in 1975!

In fact, the series was going to be called "Return of the Gods" with a logo using the same font as the Chariots of the Gods books!
But there was another series, also utilizing the theme of "ancient astronauts interacting with our ancestors" launched about the same time...but it didn't start out that way...

Art by Jesse Santos

Writer Don Glut and artist Jesse Santos had conceived a tale about Tragg, a prehistoric caveman in a world where a crashed alien ship leakd chemicals into a lake which turned a human who drank from it into a proto-werewolf!
You can read it HERE!
Glut and Santos tried to promote Tragg again, this time facing a shaman who utilized herbs to control others.
That story appeared HERE.
When neither tale prompted the editors to greenlight Tragg as a series, a new approach was taken, combining Tragg with Chariot of the Gods-style aliens...and that was OKed as a new series...

Art by Jesse Santos

With the concept locked in, Tragg and the Sky Gods launched at the same time as The Eternals, but lasted only eight issues.
The aliens from the planet Yargon apparently didn't believe in a non-interference Prime Directive, and manipulated the DNA of a pair of cavewomen to "improve the species", then left, returning 25 years later to check on their now-grown offspring, Tragg, his mate Lorn, and Tragg's older brother Jarn (born before the Yargon altered his mother's DNA).
The Yargonites themselves were a mixed bag of altrusitic scientists and power-hungry soldiers, whose differing motives constantly produced problems among themselves, and resulted in conflict with the humans!
Note: Jesse Santos did the interior art for the "tryout stories" listed above and the first two regular issues, but continued doing covers for the remainder of the run.
Dan Spiegle took over the art the stories for the remainder of the series.
Unlike The Eternals (whom Kirby deliberately kept separate from the rest of the Marvel Universe), Tragg was incorporated into an already-existing universe of characters at Gold Key also written by Don Glut, including present-day mystic Doctor Spektor and ancient warrior Dagar the Invincible, even doing crossovers through space and time with those other characters!
We're not going to re-present the tales in Wednesday Worlds of Wonder (which would end up running from now to Autumn non-stop), but here are links to the entire series....

Spawn of Yargon

Part 1, Part 2
Day the Earth Thundered
Part 1, Part 2
Race Against Death
Standalone Story featuring Lorn
Slaves of Fire Mountain
Part 1, Part 2
Project: Sabre: Fang
Part 1, Part 2
Attack of the Man-Apes
Part 1, Part 2
Death-Duel
Part 1, Part 2
Battle for a World
Part 1, Part 2
Master of the Living Bones
(Crossover story with Dagar the Invincible & Dr Spekor)
Part 1, Part 2
Where Prowls the Devil Shark
Part 1, Part 2
Plus: Three Text Stories
"Tragg and the Jaws of Death", "Valley of the Shadow" & "Spotlight on Keera"
Next Week: A New "Flashy" World of Wonder!

Lunar Reading Room & Theatre WALT DISNEY'S MAN INTO SPACE

Walt Disney Was a Major Supporter of America's Space Program...

...so much so that, even before Sputnik launched the Space Race, he devoted a number of episodes of his various TV series to then-infant American space program!

The original plan to send men to the Moon involved first creating a space station as shown above to serve as a launch platform for lunar-bound ships.

Obviously, that never occurred, but a lot of what was presented by Disney, based on info from such authorities as Wernher von Braun and Willy Ley, was to become fact years later!

Written by Don F Christensen and illustrated by Tony Sgroi, this section from Dell's Four Color Comics: Man into Space #716 (1956) adapts part of one of the first episodes of Magical World of Disney devoted to the then-infant Space Program, "Man and the Moon" scripted by William Bosche, John W. Dunn, and director Ward Kimball, which aired Dec 28, 1955.

And. because the servicable (but hardly spectactular) artwork above doesn't do justice to the concepts involved, here's the actual segment of the episode combining live-action, minature SFX, and animation in a tour-de-force only Disney could bring to TV at the time.
BTW, though it initially-aired in b/w, the episode was shot in color, because Disney knew color TV for the mass-market was only a few years away!
Reruns from the early 1960s onward were broadcast in color...
Trivia: the voice of the narrator is Dick Tufeld, best-known as the voice of The Robot on Lost in Space!

Note the "state of the art" technology used on the spacecraft.

In reality, the actual tech used in the Mercury and Gemini space programs was barely a few years ahead of this stuff!

It's a miracle they survived those flights!

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Walt Disney Treasures

TomorrowLand
Disney in Space and Beyond
Which contains all the kool 1950s Disney episodes about space travel, plus bonus features including an interview with Ray Bradbury about Walt Disney!
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