It's the 50th Anniversary of Space: 1999

Along with the undeniably-kool Halloween horror stuff our various RetroBlogs are running this October...

...we're also presenting the various graphic versions of the pilot episode, "Breakaway", that launched the series half-a-century ago in 1975 on Secret Sanctum of Captain Video!
Power Records/Peter Pan Read-Along Album

"Breakaway"

A 20-page comic book story accompanied by a 45rpm record featuring a full cast presentation in the style of old time radio dramas along with music and SFX!

Note: It's not the actual TV cast, music and SFX, but Power Records' in-house ensemble!

Scripter is unknown, and the art is by Neal Adams' Continuity Associates, who "packaged" the graphics for almost all the Power Records albums.

In this case, the artists included Rich Buckler, Dick Giordano, Russ Heath, and Terry Austin!

Charlton Magazines

"Last Moonrise"

Five-page b/w magazine adaptation by writer Nick Cuti and artist Gray Morrow, who apparently served as Lead Artist/Art Director for Space: 1999 licensing, since his art was used on other products like t-shirts, lunchboxes, etc.
In particular, the cover art for #1 (above) was also used for print ads in magazines (including TV Guide) to promote the show's debut!
Trivia: For an unknown reason, though most actors' likenesses were used in the American comics, actor Prentis (mustachioed Main Mission Controller Paul Morrow) Hancock's likeness couldn't be used, so all the American stories featuring Paul used artist Gray Morrow's face as the character's visage!

Charlton Comics

"Moonless Night"

Another 5-pager, also written by Nick Cuti, and illustrated by Joe Staton, this time for the color comic book.

This Wednesday:
The Never-Seen-in-America Illustrated Short Story Adaptation of "Breakaway" from the 1975 British Space: 1999 Annual!

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Space: 1999
The Complete Series

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Design of the Week Redux 1969 WOODSTOCK CONCERT PROMO POSTER!

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another...unless it sells really well!

Then we carry it over for another week!
Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the greatest rock and roll concert in history, WOODSTOCK, with a kool kollectible featuring the digitally-remastered ORIGINAL promo poster that was plastered all over record stores and head shops in 1969!

Sorry, no tie-dye shirts available!

Design of the Week 1969 WOODSTOCK CONCERT PROMO POSTER!

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another!

This week:celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the greatest rock and roll concert in history, WOODSTOCK, with a kool kollectible featuring the digitally-remastered ORIGINAL promo poster that was plastered all over record stores and head shops in 1969!

Sorry, no tie-dye shirts available!

Design of the Week Redux RETRO SPACEMAN

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another...unless it sells really well, then we run it for a second week!

This Week:  We continue to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the ACTUAL landing on the Moon with this classic 1950s comic book cover art...

...featuring a kitchy, retro-style spaceman (complete with ray gun), a leering monster, and a helpless woman ready to be rescued!

Available on a plethora of products HERE!

Happy 50th Anniversary, Apollo 11!

In the 1940s (and before), we dreamed of meeting (and battling) aliens on the Moon...

...In the 1950s, we feared meeting (and battling) Commies on the Moon...

...when we actually got to the Moon in 1969, thankfully, there was nothing to fear (or fight)!

Happy 50th Anniversary!

Friday Fun RACE FOR THE MOON "Lunar Trap"

In tribute to the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon...

...we present a change-of-pace tale from the 1950s, when we thought we'd be fighting with the Soviet Union over control of the Moon...

 

This tale from Harvey's Race for the Moon #2 (1958) features a fierce, fighting, female cosmonaut...extremely progressive for the time!
Pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Al Williamson (who, along with fellow EC alumnus Reed Crandall, was doing a lot of work for Harvey at the time)!
Not sure who wrote it, but speculation is that Kirby himself scripted it.
Either way, a decent story with solid storytelling and magnificent rendering!

We've been to the Moon Dozens of Times...

..in movies and TV shows including...

Space: 1999!

MoonTrap!

Moon Zero Two!

(The only Apollo-era production in the group...before...well. see below!)

Destination: Moon!

Now, our "brother" RetroBlog, Secret Sanctum of Captain Video, is proud to present the only other Apollo-era movie comic adaptation...

Don't Miss It!

Design of the Week RETRO SPACEMAN

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another!

This Week:  Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the ACTUAL landing on the Moon with this classic 1950s comic book cover art...

...featuring a kitchy, retro-style spaceman (complete with ray gun), a leering monster, and a helpless woman ready to be rescued!

Available on a plethora of products HERE!

50 Years Ago Today...2001 Arrived!

No, I haven't gone senile...yet!

On this date in 1968, Arthur C Clarke and Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece 2001: a Space Odyssey, hit movie theatres like an atom bomb!

Eight years after that, a comic adaptation finally appeared...in the now-defunct, tabloid-sized "Treasury" format by none other than Jack (King) Kirby...

(You can read it at this amazing site!)

...followed by an ongoing series by Kirby that, to this day, generates controversy among comics aficionados!

Due to licensing limitations, neither the movie adaptation or the sequel series have been reprinted in the US, but we've re-presented the complete set of these otherwise lost tales on this blog!

Click on the titles below the covers to go to each story!

#1 "Beast Killer"

#2 "Vira, the She-Demon"

#3 "Marak"

#4 "Wheels of Death" ("Marak" Part 2)

#5 "Norton of New York: 2040 AD"

#6 "Inter-Galactica" ("Norton of New York: 2040 AD" Part 2)

#7 "New Seed"

#8 "Capture of X-51" (Mister Machine Part 1)

#9 "Mister Machine" (Mister Machine Part 2)

#10 "Hotline to Hades" (Mister Machine Conclusion)

Blow Your Mind, True Believer!

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Making of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey

Taschen

Want to See The Green Hornet Beat Up a Criminal Named Trump...Twice?

Click HERE to see it...

... in his premiere episode from exactly 50 years ago today!

Note, The Green Hornet trashes gangster Al Trump (Charles Francisco), not the mango-hued moron currently running for President...

Fifty Years Ago...the Final Frontier!

The Fall 1966 TV season was a landmark for TV sci-fi/fantasy!

There were at least two series every night in Prime Time (sometimes opposite each other, which in those pre-DVR days drove us NUTS)!

(NO Internet! NO YouTube! NO Streaming Video! NO DVD/Blu Rays! Not even VHS Tapes!)

But, every night, after dinner (and presuming you finished your homework)...

Spies!

Super-Heroes!

Comedies with monsters/witches/genies/time-traveling astronauts, etc!

Straight sci-fi with The Invaders, and three Irwin Allen series (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, and Time Tunnel!

And, of course, the greatest of all...

Original 1966 NBC promo poster. Art by James (Doc Savage) Bama!

It was an amazing time to be eight years old!
Even though my family had two huge 13" TVs, both of them were b/w, so I didn't see all this stuff in color until the '70 when my dad finally got a color set!
(Some, like Captain Nice, I didn't see in color until VHS and DVD copies were available!)
But even in monochrome, those shows enthralled me.
So, tonite, I'm settling down in front of the tube (a 50-inch flat-screen) with my own mini-marathon of 50-year old sci-fi!
Batman "Shoot a Crooked Arrow" (which, technically, aired on Sept. 7) & "Walk the Straight and Narrow"
Star Trek "The Man Trap"
(Bewitched and Jericho [A spy series set in World War II Europe] also ran on Thursdays, but didn't begin their season until Sept 15th!)

Support Atomic Kommie Comics

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Fantastic Television

RAUMPATROUILLE "Dance"

While there are many similarities between Space Patrol and Star Trek...

...the one big difference I've seen commented upon over and over again is...

...the dance numbers that occur in almost every episode.

The closest thing I've ever seen on American sci-fi tv was in the pilots for Battlestar Galactica (1978) and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979).
However, Raumpatrouille had their own ongoing choreographer, William Milié, to compose the funky dance numbers that appeared in the background of each episode!

RAUMPATROUILLE "Invasion"

These guys are smiling right now...

...but not for long, as we reach the apocalyptic series finale (yes, finale)!

The energy-based aliens known as "Frogs" make their move against Earth, using traitors from within to disable Space Command!
It's all-out war, and you, space cadets have a ringside seat!
Enjoy!

Note: We've tried to embed the English subtitles, but if they don't come up automatically, go to the "gear" icon on the lower right of the video screen, and set them manually.)
We'll be back next week with a detailed look at some of the unique aspects of the series.

RAUMPATROUILLE "Die Raumfalle" (Space Trap)

Welcome to the penultimate episode of 1960s' Germany's counterpoint to Star Trek...

...as the crew of the Orion is assigned to attempt to prove the theory that life on Earth originated in outer space.

Sounds sedate, eh?

Mix in a passenger who happens to be a science-fiction writer seeking inspiration for his next novel, a stopover at a penal colony, plus a mad scientist who tries to hijack the ship, and you get a space opera episode jam-packed with thrills!

Note: We've tried to embed the English subtitles, but if they don't come up automatically, go to the "gear" icon on the lower right of the video screen, and set them manually.)

RAUMPATROUILLE "Angriff aus dem All" (Attack from Outer Space)

Let's kick the tires and light the fires...

...as we present the first episode of Space Patrol!
(BTW, it's the third tv series to use the name, after the 1950s American broadcast-live show and the early 1960s British puppet series.)

Meet Commander McLane and his rowdy "gang" (as their commanding officer refers to them), learn why they're being disciplined (again), and see why, despite various infractions against both civilian and military authorities, they're not doing life sentences in an interplanetary brig.

Also witness the introduction of the series' main villains, "Frogs", sentient energy beings who want to conquer the universe.

There's a lot to cover, so click on the screen and dive in...

(Note: It's German with English subtitles.

I've tried to set them up before creating the link, but you may have to click on the "gear" icon to implement them manually.)

It was 50 years ago today...

...Ed Sullivan presented the Beatles nationally...

Where's George Harrison?

...and set off the British Invasion of American pop culture...

Script by David Anthony Kraft. Art by George Perez & Klaus Janson

...which is ongoing to this day.

Design of the Week Redux: JOHN F KENNEDY "...ask not..."

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another, except when the response has been so good that we can't see a reason to replace it, at least for another week.

Once more, we remember the passing of President John F Kennedy on the 50th Anniversary of his assassination with this retro-style art with a red/white/blue motif and his most famous quote "ask not what youre country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

Available as a poster, mug, t-shirt, and a host of other kool kollectibles HERE.

Happy 50th, dear Doctor...

Sitting in front of the telly..

...waiting for the simulcast of the 50th Anniversary show.

Saw An Adventure in Space and Time last night.

Thought it was great.

Hopefully it'll inspire Whovians who think the show began with Christopher Eccleston (or Tennant, or Smith) to check out the earlier adventures...

Note: my favorite Doctor is Jon Pertwee, and, despite not being "canon", my first was Peter Cushing.)

Reading Room: JOHN F KENNEDY "Death of the Assassin"

50 years ago today, America lost a great man...

...several days later, the assassin was assassinated.

There's been an incredible amount of speculation as to why either killing occured.

The Warren Report presented it's evaluation of the matter, including their analysis of the actions of Jack Ruby, the man who shot President Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.

In early 1967, Esquire magazine presented a cover story about it...

...and, instead of doing the usual article with photos, engaged Jack Kirby, the primary artist and co-creator of the Marvel Comics universe to write and draw the piece, using, among other things, exact quotes from the Warren Commission's report.

(Note: normally, I post images "same size" on this blog like the ones above.

In this case, in order to make the tiny footnotes referencing specific pages from the Warren Commission and other sources report legible, I've posted larger files for the story pages that you have to click on to see full-size.)

Click to see full-size

Click to see full-size

Click to see full-size

Inked by Chic Stone, the art was colored by Kirby using Dr Martin dyes on photostats of the original art.

Apparently, Esquire's art director felt the coloring was clean enough that it could be used as the actual art instead of as "color guides" for standard comic book hand-separated "flat color".

It gives the art a "children's storybook" softness unique to comics until the late 1980s when similar coloring techniques became more prevelent in comic books.

And now a word from our sponsor (us)...

Visit our Design of the Week shop featuring...

...kool kollectibles with this retro design featuring Kennedy's most famous quote; "Ask not what your country can do for you..." (You know the rest.) for this week ONLY!