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| Art by Al Williamson and Carlos Garzon |
..or else!
Showing posts with label Al Williamson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Al Williamson. Show all posts
Sunday, June 19, 2022
Saturday, June 4, 2022
Space Hero Saturdays 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...
Monday, April 4, 2022
Monday Madness RACE FOR THE MOON "Saucer Man"
From the era when actual space travel was brand new...
...and flying saucers were probably real, here's a tale from Harvey's Race for the Moon #3 (1958).
Pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Al Williamson, an absolutely magnificent combo, rivaling Kirby's pairings with Wally Wood and Joe Sinnott!
Science fiction was in a state of flux as real-world science began catching up with our imaginations.
Instead of far-future sagas with warp-drive ships, tales of "the day after tomorrow", when we would make our first landings on the Moon and Mars came into vogue.
That didn't mean that visitors from beyond our Solar System were left out, but the technology we used to respond to them (friendly or not) was much closer to "present-day" (1950s) tech than ray-guns and photon drives.
Why does this tale fit into the concept of Monday Madness?
Because, now that we're actually in the era shown in these tales, we haven't done anything close to what they show...
Because, now that we're actually in the era shown in these tales, we haven't done anything close to what they show...
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Saturday, March 26, 2022
Space Hero Saturdays BUSTER CRABBE "and the Maid of Mars"
Though Buster Crabbe starred in more Westerns than any other genre...
...he's best-known to the public at large as the movie serial heroes Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers!
Here's a tale from his own comic that combines both Western and space hero concepts!
Note that Buster is actor Buster Crabbe, not "Buster Crabbe as a character like Billy West" or somesuch in the tale, and it's assumed that he's actually able to do anything he's shown doing in his films.
The amazing art for this tale from Eastern Color's Buster Crabbe Comics #5 (1952) was by Al Williamson, Roy Krenkel, and Frank Frazetta, who were astounding comics fans with similar quality work at EC Comics on Weird Science and Weird Fantasy!
The cover was by Frazetta, who was also doing covers featuring Buck Rogers (whom Buster had played in the movies) for Famous Funnies, as well as illustrating the White Indian strip and covers for Ghost Rider! so he had handled both sci-fi and Western genres before doing this mixed-genre piece!
Tuesday, January 25, 2022
Reading Room ASTONISHING "Unknown Ones!"
The story's title has a double meaning to graphic literature aficionados...
...since it also covers the fact this story hasn't been seen in color since 1957!
It was reprinted (in b/w) in Dark Horse's Al Williamson: Hidden Lands TPB (2004), but that OOP tome had a very limited print run.
Written by Carl Wessler, this Williamson-penciled and Roy Krenkel-inked tale from Atlas' Astonishing #57 (1957) was done after the horror comics purge of the mid-1950s reduced EC Comics to just MAD Magazine, and the majority of now-unemployed artists were scrambling around for work.
Besides Atlas, Williamson was freelancing for ACG and Harvey, doing full pencils and inks, inking others like Jack Kirby and Matt Baker, or, as in this case, penciling for others (usually fellow Fleagle Gang members*) to ink.
*The "Fleagles" were a group of artists including Williamson, Krenkel, Frank Frazetta, Wally Wood, Angelo Torres, and George Woodbridge who would help each other out on tight deadlines by doing a "jam" with individuals penciling and inking different pages and even different panels on a single page, producing some absolutely amazing visuals!
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Thursday, November 18, 2021
Reading Room WORLD OF FANTASY "Inside the Tunnel"
Ever wonder where writers come up with their ideas?
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| Art by Joe Maneely |
...well, here's a never-reprinted story from Atlas' World of Fantasy #2 (1956) that offers a clue!
Of course, if it was an original manuscript/draft by Verne (which I think was the writer's intent), it would be in French...
The writer is unknown, but could be Stan Lee or Larry Lieber.
The art is by Al Williamson who did quite a bit of work in the fantasy and Western genres during the late 1950s for Atlas before it became Marvel.
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(A new translation in contemporary English, heavily-illustrated, and with lots of info about the era when the book was written to put the tale in context!)
Tuesday, October 12, 2021
Reading Room STRANGE WORLDS "Invasion from the Abyss!"
Since 1938, Halloween and alien invasions go hand-in-hand...
...even when the "aliens" are from inside the Earth, rather than outer space!
This story from Avon's Strange Worlds #3 (1951) was a "Fleagle Gang" production.
The "Fleagles" were a group of artists including Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, Roy Krenkel, Wally Wood, Angelo Torres, and George Woodbridge who would help each other out on tight deadlines by doing a "jam" with individuals penciling and inking different pages and even different panels on a single page, producing some absolutely-amazing visuals!
Trivia: the group was named by EC Comics editor/writer/artist Harvey Kurtzman.
The idea of advanced beings living inside the Earth and invading/reconquering the surface was very popular in the early 1950s.
Richard Shaver and pulp magazine editor Ray A Palmer caused a media firestorm with series of stories presenting a theory that combined the "civilization inside the Earth" concept with another pop culture phenomenon...flying saucers!
Numerous readers wrote in, claiming that they had actually seen creatures and vehicles exactly as described in the stories!
The "Shaver Hoax" (as it came to be known) influenced 1950s sci-fi/fantasy ranging from the pilot episode of the TV's Adventures of Superman to movies like Brain Eaters.
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Monday, August 30, 2021
Monday Mars Madness STRANGE STORIES OF SUSPENSE "Beware...a Martian"
Here's a tale of racism and innuendo involving an "illegal alien"...
...that all Reich-wingers should take note of!
Written by Carl Wessler, penciled by Al Williamson, and inked by Ralph Mayo, this never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Strange Stories of Suspense #14 (1957) uses science fiction to tell a civil rights parable, substituting a Martian (and the paranoia about his race) for a African-American, Hispanic, Japanese, or other minority group about whom equally-inane fantasies have been concocted!
Note: it's interesting that Nardo the Martian has the same appearance as DC's J'Onn J'Onzz: the Martian Manhunter (except for skin color), as well as MM's specific ability to shape-shift, not a talent usually attributed to inhabitants of the Red Planet!
Note: J'Onn had debuted almost two years earlier!
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