Remember INAPAK, the Amazing Chocolate Drink?

Bosco?

Bah!

Quik?

Crap!

Ovaltine?

Ewww!

You want serious chocolate flavor in your milk?

Here it is...

It must be true!

Major Inapak says so!

And Major Inapak wouldn't lie!

In fact, he uses science to prove his point...

Major Inapak returns to tell the Youth of America what to do...

You'll pardon me while I scamper out to the supermarket to get a box!

Be back Thursday for more on...Inapak!

Belated Holiday Post: EVERY DAY'S A HOLLY DAY "Thrilling Story Behind Old Glory: Flag Day"

Learn About...

...and try to forget it was also (ironically) the 79th birthday of disgraced, twice-impeached, President Don (the Con) Trump, the Oldest President in American History!

Coloring goof: the Union soldiers in panel 5 are wearing Confederate gray!

Why is this 1955 comic entitled "Every Day's a Holly Day" instead of "Every Day's a Holiday"?

Because it was given away to kids by grocers who sold Holly Sugar!

Illustrated by John Rosenberger, it's a unique pamphlet covering a number of American holidays, including both Lincoln and Washington's Birthdays (before they were combined into "Presidents' Day" in 1962), Mothers' Day (though not Fathers' Day), Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and a couple of holidays we've largely abandoned...Pan-American Day and American Indian Day!
Note: We're gearing up for our traditional multi-blog Summer Blogathons which we'll announce the week before the 4th of July weekend and begin the week after!

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Cartoon History of the United States
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Space Hero Saturdays WITCHCRAFT "Hero of the Venus Flyer!"

Being a Space Hero Can Be as Easy as Being in the Right Place at the Right Time...

...and as difficult as being willing to die to save others!

Illustrated by Gene Fawcette and scriped by an unknown writer, this tale appeared twice within a year, first in Avon's WitchCraft #6 (1953), then in Avon's Strange Worlds #18 (1954), where, due to a miscalculation in pagination, the last page of the story ended up on the inside back cover, in black-and-white!

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3

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Reading Room DO YOU BELIEVE IN NIGHTMARES? "Man Who Crashed into Another Era"

Here's a short story featuring dinosaurs, illustrated by Steve Ditko...

...just before his stint on Charlton's Gorgo!

Ok, so it was the old "It's only a dream" scenario.

You got to admit, it's well-done!

From St John's Do You Believe in Nightmares? #1 (1957), a short-lived anthology produced just before St John went out of business.

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Unexplored Worlds

Steve Ditko Archives, Vol 2

Reading Room STRANGE WORLDS "Abduction of Henry Twigg"

Here's a dream come true for all us fanboys and nerds (Yep, I'm one)...

...in this Joe Kubert-illustrated tale from Avon's Strange Worlds #8 (1952)...

Talk about politically-incorrect...from both sexes!

But it's still entertaining, and that's what counts, eh?

Note: we've run stories from two different series named "Strange Worlds".

This tale is from the first one, published by Avon Comics in the early 1950s.

By the late 1950s, Avon Publishing had abandoned comic books and concentrated on "traditional" publishing (hardcovers and paperbacks) in various genres (including sci-fi and horror).

Curiously, when comics became "hot' in the 1960s, Avon did not reprint their comic library in paperback format the way Ballantine Books did with EC Comics, Signet did with DC Comics, Lancer did with Marvel. and Belmont did with Archie's super-heroes!

Considering they owned the material and didn't have to pay to reprint it like all the other publishers did, it seems like a lost opportunity for Avon to make some quick cash.

Note: We've re-presented several tales from the other Strange Worlds, published by Atlas Comics in the late 1950s, literally right before they became Marvel in 1961!

It's easy to tell which is which, since the Atlas/Marvel version features work by creatives like Jack Kirby, Don Heck, and Steve Ditko who would be the creative mainstays of the Marvel Age of Comics, while the Avon books have art by illustrators who would make their mark at DC, like Joe Kubert and John Forte!

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3

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Space Hero Saturdays SPACE ACE "Nothing Weapon!"

Buckle Up for EXCITEMENT in the Far-Flung Reaches of Space...

...as Magazine Enterprise's Space Ace 2.5 makes his initial appearance, and he's looking good!

Al Williamson does the penciling, showing off his superb design and anatomy skills.
The inking is by Williamson plus the legendary Fleagle Gang (Frank Frazetta, Angelo Torres, Roy Krenkel, George Woodbridge).
If that weren't enough, the script is by Gardner Fox, taking the somewhat more juvenile concepts of "Space Ace 2.0" (as seen HERE and HERE) and making them a superb example of classic, epic space opera.

BONUS #1: the original art for page one...

Is that magnificent, or what? ;-)

Bonus #2

This story in 3-D

Get your Red/Blue glasses out...

From 3-D Zone #10 (1988)
"ZoneVision" conversion by Ray Zone.

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3

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Reading Room HOUSE OF MYSTERY "Human TIme Capsule"

Under this kool Ruben Moreira cover...

...lurks an even kooler, never-reprinted tale of illegal aliens and crime from DC's House of Mystery #64 (1957)!

So the American citizen is the criminal, not the "illegal alien"!

The Mort Meskin-illustrated tale left a possibility for a sequel, which was never realized!

Since even DC doesn't know who wrote it (and the odds are the author is deceased by now), we'll never know...

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Showcase Presents

Strange Adventures

Volume 1
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Reading Room AMAZING ADVENTURES "Amazing Prophecies"

Let's peer into a crystal ball from the 1950s...

...and see they did predict 3-D TV and bigger women (as compared to the females of the 1950s).

But the other prophecies from this never-reprinted feature illustrated by Ross Andru in Ziff-Davis' Amazing Adventures #4 (1951) have yet to occur...

Reading Room LOST WORLDS "Man Who Didn't Know Venus"

Nedor/Better/Standard Comics produced several sci-fi anthologies...

...none of which lasted more than three issues.

But it certainly wasn't due to lack of quality.

With a contributor list that included Alex Toth, Ross Andru, Mike Sekowsky, Nick Cardy, and Jack Katz, you're talking some of the great and soon-to-be-great storytellers of comics history!

But, there was one other sci-fi creator who did a story for Lost Worlds, one of only four tales he did for comic books.

Jerome Bixby, novelist and short-story writer, as well as screenwriter whose credits include...

IT! the Terror from Beyond Space!

Fantastic Voyage

Star Trek "Mirror, Mirror"*, "By Any Other Name", "Requiem for Methuselah" and "Day of the Dove"

and the short story "It's a Good Life" which was adapted on both the original Twilight Zone tv series (by Rod Serling) and the 1983 feature film (by Richard Matheson).

BTW, around the time he wrote this, Bixby had just left his position as editor of the Planet Stories pulp magazine at Fiction House, where he also contributed a couple of text pieces to Planet Comics and Indians (his only non-genre text story)!

*The Mirror Universe created by Bixby in "Mirror, Mirror" has proven to be so popular that it has reappeared in almost all the spin-off series spanning almost all of Federation and StarFleet history!

And let's not get into the numerous (sometimes contradictory) novels and comics about the concept...

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Masters of Science Fiction Volume 2
Jerome Bixby
"One Way Street" and Other Tales
Note: "One Way Street's" concept of being transferred to another universe was the thematic basis for "Mirror, Mirror"!
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