Showing posts with label 1950s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1950s. Show all posts

Saturday, August 29, 2026

Space Hero Saturdays SILVER STARR "Operation Space Disc" Part 2"

...the handsome, square-jawed, muscular, blond hero, his girlfriend, and their bearded scientist buddy meet the goateed, gloating despotic ruler of another world (who is definitely, positively, not Ming the Merciless)...
And on that diverting note, we bid the visitors to Mongo...I mean Spherule..."adieu" until next Saturday...
Written by Frank Ashley, illustrated by Stanley Pitt.
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Saturday, August 22, 2026

Space Hero Saturdays SILVER STARR "Operation Space Disc" Part 1

A blond space adventurer with a hot girlfriend and bearded scientist buddy...
 ...you were expecting, maybe, Flash Gordon?
Don't be silly!
This guy's nothing like that guy!
To be continued...
NEXT SATURDAY!
An illustrator in the classic Alex Raymond/Austin Briggs/Mac Raboy vein, Australian Stanley Pitt worked on a number of beautifully-rendered, commercially-successful strips that could charitably be called "carbon copies" of previous series.
Ironically, his most innovative strip, Gully Foyle (based on Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination, failed to make it to market. (Read why HERE.)
Written by Frank Ashley, illustrated by Pitt for Silver Starr #1 (1952)
BTW, note that, in an era where most Australian comic books were b/w or two-color, Silver Starr got the more-expensive full color treatment!
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Saturday, August 8, 2026

Space Hero Saturdays JET POWERS "Fleets of Fear!"

...oh, heck, I'll let writer Gardner Fox and artist Bob Powell explain what happened in the previous story...
He stops alien invasions and solves matters of the heart!
Jet Powers is truly a Renaissance Man!
Sadly, this was his final appearance in sci-fi...but not in comics.
When next he appeared, several months later, it was as "Army Air Ace" Jet Powers in the revival of Magazine Enterprises' WWII title American Air Forces!
Though he looked and sounded like the space-adventure hero, down to the curly white hair, there was no reference to his being a scientist, nor any use of sci-fi elements in the new Korean War-set stories!
This particular tale from Magazine Enterprises' Jet Powers #4 (1951) was one of two sequels to separate cliffhangers featuring the hero in the previous issue.
It's unusual that a series would have a pair of unrelated cliffhangers for one character in the same issue, but that's what writer Gardner Fox and artist Bob Powell did!
Considering the previous issues had inter-related stories in the same book, I wonder if this was a case of the first parts of a pair of two-part stories being completed, but the second parts weren't ready when the deadline crept up on them.
(In those days, comics had to come out on schedule since they were dependent on their status as periodicals to qualify for lower postage/shipping rates.)
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Wednesday, August 5, 2026

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder DUKE Ray Bradbury's "The Day Negroes Left Earth!"

Last Week, We Re-Presented Ray Bradbury's "The Last White Man"...

...so today we present the prequel to that tale...which was published after the other story!
This story, better known as "Way in the Middle of the Air", premiered in Other Worlds (July 1950) before being anthologized in The Martian Chronicles.
Duke, a Playboy competitor aimed at Black audiences published "The Other Foot" under the title "The Last White Man" in their premiere issue as we detailed HERE, but didn't run this prequel to it until their third issue in 1957, nor did they provide any introduction or editorial context to the story this time!
There's a scholarly article about "Way.../Day..." HERE which make no mention of this version of the story, but does state it has been left out of recent editions of Martian Chronicles!
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Saturday, August 1, 2026

Space Hero Saturdays CAPTAIN SCIENCE "Cat Men of Phoebus"

After defeating a threat to the Earth by aliens who crash-landed on the far side of the Moon, Gordon Dane and Rip waste no time in dealing with another group of aliens who just kidnapped Luana from their headquarters...

The art on this never-reprinted story from Youthful's Captain Science #2 (1950)  is by Gustav Schrotter.
The writer is unknown.

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Wednesday, July 29, 2026

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder DUKE Ray Bradbury's "The Last White Man"

From the first issue of a long out-of-print 1950s Playboy competitor comes this Ray Bradbury tale...
...which was presented only once with this title!
Intended as one of several new stories to link previously-published Mars tales in the now-legendary anthology The Martian Chronicles (1950), specifically as a sequel to "Way in the Middle of the Air", it was delayed due to editorial requests for revisions and ended up initially-appearing in 1951 in a non-science fiction magazine dedicated to short stories in every genre as "The Other Foot"...
...before finally making its' appearance in a later, equally-legendary Bradbury anthology in 1951...
How did this unusual retitling come about?
In 1957, with Playboy dominating the newsstands, a new publisher introduced an African-American counterpart called Duke, which featured Black creatives and cheesecake models.
(The centerfold models were called "Duchesses"!)
Along with acclaimed Black writers Langston Hughes, Erskine Caldwell, and Chester Hines, the premiere issue featured Ray Bradbury's short story "The Other Foot", now entitled "The Last White Man"!
Unlike most of Bradbury's works, this tale has, to date, never been adapted into any other media!
(Sadly, Duke only lasted six issues.)
AFAIK, the only time "The Other Foot/The Last White Man" has ever been cover-featured was in a rare, limited-run book produced by, of all companies, Xerox, in 1967!
Try finding a copy of it at a reasonable price (or even a clean scan of the cover)!
Note: The story this tale was a sequel to; "Way in the Middle of the Air" was also re-titled "The Day Negroes Left Earth".
Duke published it in their third issue...which you'll see next Wednesday!
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