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

Monday, January 20, 2025

MARTIN LUTHER KING and THE MONTGOMERY STORY

On the day we honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr, the gang at Atomic Kommie Comics™ thought it only appropriate to help present this item, the first comic book dramatizing his historic efforts.
From the website's intro to the comic...
Many sane thinkers consider MLK to be an important and historic larger-than-life icon, but how did that happen?
Especially given the marginalized press coverage of blacks in the 50s, how was his message galvanized among southern minorities and then spread as a single statement beyond the black community -- and how was it focused so specifically to such seemingly ignorable or boring local incidents as one black woman's refusal to give up a bus seat and a following small-town bus boycott, as well as the concept of Passive Resistance?
Without any need for hyperbole, this comic book is one of the reasons.

Produced by the Fellowship of the Reconciliation and sent very surreptitiously throughout the South (it was dangerous for many to own a copy), then translated, re-drawn, and distributed once again throughout the entire SOUTHERN CONTINENT through Mexico, into Central and then South America, this comic tells the story that established the myth of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks at the time that it mattered, mere months after news events occurred.
Intended for adults, but shown in comic book format for the largest possible distribution and audience and instruction.

It was also produced as a comic because more adult seeming publications and newspapers were often destroyed by white businessmen and other violent types bent on continuing segregation's grip on the South.
But that does not mean people found distributing copies of this comic were not given their fair share of beatings and harassment, nor does it mean thousands of copies were not often destroyed.
Why? This comic is and was dangerously honest.
Featuring the Klan (lynching, bombs, burning crosses), Jim Crow laws, and the entire concept of Nonviolent Protest.
This pamphlet offered advice and instructions on how to use passive resistance and massive non-violent resistance against segregation, just as these ideas were fresh --and it also established a clear connection of MLK to Gandhi, a public connection that continues on to today.

A copy of this comic is held in the Smithsonian and many Civil Rights leaders recognize this as one of the most important AND PERSUASIVE items of the 50s in establishing or explaining their cause to the world, as well as giving many black youths the courage and direction to hold their own political protests.
Many notable sit-ins and demonstrations link to this comic book getting into the right hands - and it did get around, literally devoured by black college students at the time.

We're DELIGHTED to offer you not just the American version of this comic but also the SPANISH edition, of which maybe two or three copies are known to exist.
After extensive effort and search, we were able to find a copy in Uruguay.
Not joking. Completely redrawn and translated, click back and forth to compare art, some of the differences between the two are great.
Ever wonder how much influence and power a small press or self-produced item can have?
This is one of the best examples you'll ever see.

Saturday, January 18, 2025

Space Hero Saturdays JIM SOLAR: SPACE SHERIFF "Defeats the Moon Missile Men" Part 1

From the 1950s comes this weirdly-formatted, never-reprinted strip...
...that was available only as a giveaway inside various products!
Be here next Saturday for the thrillling conclusion!
Created by writer Walter (The Shadow) Gibson and artist E.C. Stoner (Blue Beetle), this 7" x 3.5" comic was part of the Vital Publications line of promotional giveaways distributed by a variety of merchants inside their products' packaging.
This particular one was included in packages of Rodeo All-Meat Wieners...
Back cover
There were apparently eight other Jim Solar comics, but they're very HTF since they were "self-covered (fragile newsprint covers, like the inside pages, instead of the heavy slick magazine paper most comics use for covers) and included with food products, whose juices would damage the paper!

Thursday, January 16, 2025

Reading Room OUT OF THIS WORLD "Antique Collectors"

What's "antique" really depends on your point of view...
...as this tiny tale (from 1959) demonstrates!
Cars from 1959 are extremely collectible now, and it's only 66 years later!
Both the writer and artist of this story from Charlton's Out of This World #13 (1959) are, sadly, unknown.
Support Atomic Kommie Comics!
Visit Amazon and Order...

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder CAPTAIN COMET, SPACE PILOT "vs the Vicious Space Pirates!"

A space-going hero named "Captain Comet" who saves the Earth?
Plus, he's drawn by Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta?
Sign me up!
Note: he's not DC Comics' mutant mental marvel...
 ...but a character who only appeared once, in 1953, two years after DC's space hero debuted in Strange Adventures #9, and would continue as an ongoing strip through 1955 (usually getting the cover slot)!
The Captain Comet we've just shown you was more a Flash Gordon / Buck Rogers-type hero, set in the future, battling interplanetary threats with fists and ray guns.
Appearing in the first issue of Toby Press' anthology title Danger is Our Business, he obviously was meant to be an ongoing character, but there was never another appearance, except for a reprint in 1958.
Did DC issue a "cease and desist" due to trademark infringement?
We'll never know...

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Reading Room LOST WORLDS "Space Race"

If you think a high-speed auto race is fun...
...what if the race was between high-speed spacecraft?

This is the sort of story that proves the trope that most sci-fi of the Golden Age was just re-written Western stories.
Replace the horse or stagecoach with a spaceship, six-shooters with ray blasters, and Indians with aliens, and voila, a sci-fi story!
This never-reprinted tale from Lost Worlds #6 (1954) was penciled by John Celardo and inked by Bernard Sachs.
The writer is unknown.
Support Atomic Kommie Comics!
Visit Amazon and Order...

Monday, January 13, 2025

Monday Madness FLASH GORDON COMICS "The World You WILL Live In"

In 1950, what amazing advances did we think the 21st Century would bring?
As shown in this uncredited (and never-reprinted) feature from Harvey's Flash Gordon #1 (1950), all five predictions have, in fact, come to pass...albeit in modified form.
Unlike the predictions from #1, most of these from #2 have not come true!
Only the wristwatch one has occurred, and only on expensive, high-end timepieces!
In 2025, we do have laser scalpels (in limited use, mostly for eye surgery) and lasers are used to remove tattoos.
The mobile telephone one can be interpreted as cell phones, but radiophones in cars were a popular item among the rich (and spies/superheroes) in the '60s to early '80s.
(Batman, James Bond, Honey West, Matt Helm, The Avengers [Steed and Peel, not the superheroes] and The Green Hornet all had them!)
Extensive mining of minerals from the ocean floor has yet to occur, and the sun's going nova billions of years from now has been predicted since the 1800s.
So, 4 out or 5 for this never-reprinted feature from Harvey's Flash Gordon #3 (1950) is pretty good, eh?
Both the artist and writer are unknown.
Let's take one final look at this never-reprinted strip...
Of the five predictions in this one-pager from Harvey's Flash Gordon #4 (1950), the first is a possibility, the second and fifth have yet to occur, and the third and fourth have come true.
Both the artist and writer are unknown.
This was one of three different new one-page features that appeared in all four issues of the series which reprinted the Flash Gordon Sunday newspaper strip by Alex Raymond, reformatted for the comic book page, and with new covers (not by Alex Raymond).
The others were "Stories Behind the Stars" (about the myths behind constellation names) and "Know Your Planets" (about the other worlds in the solar system).

Friday, January 10, 2025

Frigid Friday Fun WILD! "Frozen North"

A never-reprinted story from one of Atlas Comics' many MAD comic clones...
...is our snowbound story for today, as a cold wave continues to cover most of America!
Did you catch the cameo by the Golden Age Human Torch on page 3 panel 3, asking if this book was Young Men Comics (where he was appearing in 1954)?
This tale from Wild! #1 (1954) was illustrated by Sol Brodsky, who, while better-known to aficionados as Atlas/Marvel's production manager than as an artist, actually had over 1,000 stories and covers to his credit!
(He inked Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four #3 and #4 as well as Kirby's iconic cover for Avengers #16!)
Sadly, little of the material from Atlas' four humor titles from the 1950s has been reprinted, despite the fact that some of their "big names" like Bill Everett, Joe Maneely, Gene Colan, and Russ Heath all contributed stories that went far afield from their usual "realistic" styles...with amazing results!
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Order...

Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Wednesday World of Wonder WORLD OF FANTASY "Prison 2000 A.D."

In January, We're Doing One-Shot Tales Instead of Continued Stories...
...beginning with this tale, which utilizes a concept that's commonplace today, but all but unknown when this story appeared in Atlas' World of Fantasy #16 (1959)!




WOW!
Editor/conceptualizer Stan Lee and plotter/penciler Jack Kirby were doing what we now call "virtual reality"...in 1959!
The story was reprinted in Marvel's Strange Tales Annual #2 in 1963, than lay unseen for more than a half-century before finally being resurrected in, oddly, Monsters: the Marvel Monsterbus by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby...
...when, despite the "monsters" in the title, the only requirement is that the story was conceptualized/plotted by Lee, scripted by Lieber (Stan's brother, BTW) and plotted/penciled by Jack Kirby!
But there are lots of kool Kirby sci-fi/sci-fantasy stories, some never-previously reprinted!
So don't let the title put you off!

Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Reading Room WORLD OF MYSTERY "Obey or Die!"

Here's an Ability Any Wanna-Be Dictator...
...like Don da Con, for example, would kill to possess!
This never-reprinted tale from Atlas' World of Mystery #7 (1959), scripted by Carl Wessler and illustrated by Sam Kweskin poses an interesting dilemma!
If you can verbally-command someone else to do something, even against their will, why wouldn't it affect you...if you heard it?
Support Atomic Kommie Comics!
Visit Amazon and Order...