Friday Fun AMAZING WILLIE MAYS "Diamond Doings" "Splinters" "Balls and Strikes"

Besides tales about the title person, the Amazing Willie Mays one-shot comic we ran yesterday...

...featured humorous one-page "fillers" about (what else) baseball!

Note that every page has at least one Black ballplayer in a cartoon, a rarity in the 1940s-50s unless the illustration focused on a specific Black sports figure!

BTW, "ballhawk" is outdated slang for an expert fielder!
Who says comics ain't educational???

Reading Room AMAZING WILLIE MAYS Willie Mays (1931-2024)

I'll leave the eulogies for the legendary Willie Mays (1931-2024) to those better-equipped to present them.

What I will do is present a couple of tales from a comic published 70 years ago, when he was just beginning his major league career...but, even then, was considered one of the greats of the game!

Eastern Color's 1954 one-shot Amazing Willie Mays heralded a baseball player with, at that point, only two years in the majors!
Mind you, he had won Rookie of the Year in 1951.
But in 1952, Mays was drafted and served two years in the Army, returning to pro baseball in 1954!

BTW, we don't know if the following is actually Willie's "favorite story" or not!

Here's a bonus feature, supposedly using quotes from Willie himself...

Sadly, the comic doesn't list credits for the writers or artists, and Eastern Color has been out of business for decades, so the creatives behind these tales are unknown.

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Say Hey
Autobiography of Willie Mays
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Monday Madness AMAZING ADVENTURES "Cosmic Comics"

Ziff-Davis' 1950s sci-fi anthology Amazing Adventures...

...ran interesting "filler" pages including these humor strips by Harry Sahle from the first two issues.

Note the one above, from the inside back cover of #2, is b/w.

But the one above, from issue #1, while also an inside cover, is two-color!

Perhaps there were budget cuts between the printing of the two issues!
Sadly, these were the only two Cosmic Comic strips to run in any Ziff-Davis comics!

Reading Room STRANGE WORLDS "End of His Service!"

Though Isaac Asimov had introduced his Three Laws of Robotics in 1942...

...obviously the unknown scripter of this never-reprinted tale from Avon's Strange Worlds #5 (1951) never read the story,or chose to disregard the concept!

No less than three illustrators contributed to this story.

Norman Nodell did the bulk of the art, and inked the others' pages.
Those others were John Rosenberger on Page 3 and Werner Roth on Page 4.

The reason for the artist round-robin is unknown, though it was likely a tight deadline.

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics 

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Reading Room: AMAZING ADVENTURES "Deal to Die"

Here's a never-reprinted short tale with a Twilight Zone-style ending...

...from the final issue of Ziff-Davis' sci-fi anthology Amazing Adventures!

I wonder if Zoro's husband, Space Captain Ventra was as big a SoB as Bernice's spouse Harold Leighton!

Illustrated by the relatively-unknown Lawrence (Louis) Dresser, this story from Amazing Adventures #6 (1952) has no credited writer.

Too bad, because it's a memorable piece for a shorter-than-usual filler.
Trivia: There have been four different comic series entitled Amazing Adventures!
This 1950-51 six-issue book, from Ziff-Davis was the first.
The other three 1960-61 (scifi/fantasy anthology), 1970-76 (featuring ongoing series The Inhumans and Black Widow (ten issues), The Beast (seven issues), and War of the Worlds/Killraven (twenty-one issues), and 1979-81, X-Men reprints (fourteen issues), were all published by Atlas/Marvel.

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics 

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Space Hero Saturdays BARNEY CARR "Attack of the Groteks!"

We like the kool names Space Heroes have!
Buck!
Flash!
Brick!
Barney!

BARNEY???

Yes!

For two issues in 1950, there was a Space Hero named "Barney"!

And, he was a futuristic "space detective", like Lance Lewis and Space Detective/Avenger)!

Note: the pages are damaged, likely by insects, and we're presenting them despite that due to the historical value of the story!

Cover-featured in his very first appearance in Eastern Color's Famous Funnies #191 (1950), Barney Carr: Space Detective didn't do much actual detecting.
He was too busy being a typical square-jawed, two-fisted, ray gun-wielding action hero, kicking alien butt!
Unlike the other features in Famous Funnies, Barney Carr wasn't a reprinted newspaper strip, but an original series!
It only appeared once more, before disappearing into the void, but original art for a third story exists, without any captions or word balloons!
You'll be seeing both of them in the future!

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Mystery in Space

Pulp Fiction Library

(which contains only a couple of stories from this previously-listed volume)

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Reading Room TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED "Who is Mr Ashtar?"

We usually don't run stories that have already been reprinted...

...but this one is so kool, we just couldn't resist!

(And after reading, I'm dure you'll agree!)

Penciled and inked by Jack Kirby, shortly before his return to Atlas (which shortly thereafter became Marvel), the writer of this story from DC's Tales of the Unexpected #17 (1957) is unknown...but could be Kirby himself!

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Jack Kirby Omnibus

Volume 1

...which includes this story!

Reading Room TALES TO ASTONISH "I Fell to the Center of the Earth!"

Here's a kool 1950s sci-fi story penciled by Matt Baker, whose speciality was "good girl" art!

Yet, there's not a single beautiful woman (not even a cavewoman), in this story, one of his few assignments for Atlas (later Marvel) Comics!

When this story appeared in Atlas' Tales to Astonish #2 (1959), Baker was near the end of his career, working through Vince Colletta's studio, doing only penciling to increase his productivity.

Vince Colletta inked the pages, and it's possible that, seeing how much detail Colletta tended to leave out during inking, Baker did less-detailed pencils than normal.

The writer is unknown, but it's believed to be the book's editor Stan Lee.
Penciler Matt Baker was one of the few Black comic book artists of the Golden and Silver Ages, and was easily the most prolific of them!
Though known for his "good girl" art, including the famous (and infamous) Phantom Girl stories, he handled every genre with ease, including horror, war, sci-fi, and romance!
Sadly, though, few of his stories featured Black characters...who were rare in comics until the mid-1960s!
You can read a short, but complete bio HERE!

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Matt Baker

Art of Glamour
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