Friday Fun WILD "Frozen North"

A never-reprinted story from one of Atlas Comics' many MAD clones...

...is our snowbound story for today, as a heat 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!

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Sincerest Form of Parody

Best 1950s MAD-Inspired Satirical Comics

Monday Mars Madness VENUS COMICS "Invasion from Mars!"

Orson Welles wasn't the only one to tell this tale...

...but this never-reprinted story takes a slightly different turn!

While the scripter for this story from Atlas' Venus #13 (1951) is unknown, the artist is Dave Berg, who would make a name for himself as one of the mainstays of MAD Magazine with his Lighter Side of... feature!
Berg started at the beginning of the Golden Age as one of the Eisner/Iger Studio artists providing material in various genres for Quality Comics and Fiction House.

He eventually went solo doing stories and covers for St John, Toby, Ziff-Davis, Dell, Fawcett, Archie, and, as you can see here, Timely/Atlas, before finally landing at EC doing one war story and then switching to MAD as of #34, becoming one of the steadiest of the "Usual Gang of Idiots" (as the contributors referrred to themselves).

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Dave Berg

Five Decades of the Lighter Side

Friday Fun RIOT "Mother Goosepimple's Nursery Rhymes" 2

The second, final , never-reprinted installment in this series features...

,,,an artist who already had a rep doing humor, John Severin, best known for his serious Western and War comics work at Harvey and EC!

He was also brother of EC Comics colorist Marie Severin, who later became Marvel's resident caricaturist (among her many other talents)!
I suspect this was going to be an ongoing series featuring rotating illustrators, but since Atlas' MAD-clone Riot was cancelled as of this issue (6) in 1956, we'll never know!
BTW, if the writing style feels "familiar", that's because it was by Stan (the Man) Lee!

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Sincerest Form of Parody

Friday Fun RIOT "Mother Goosepimple's Nursery Rhymes"

Atlas Comics' numerous 1950s MAD comic clones...

...gave their creatives a chance to flex their artistic muscles in ways rarely-seen by their readers!

This never-reprinted short from Atlas RIOT #5 (1956) gave amazingly-versatile artist Joe Maneely a chance to show his humorous side.

OTOH, writer/editor Stan Lee was already well-known for his snarky prose.

This was the first installment of what was intended to be an ongoing feature.

A second Mother Goosebumps appeared in the next (and last) issue.

You'll see that one next Friday.

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Sincerest Form of Parody

Friday Fun CRAZY "Robert the Robot!"

Here's a long-lost tale from the era when MAD comic clones filled America's newsstands!

(Which bring up the question...does anybody under 30 even know what a "newsstand" is?)

While the story's not a classic, it's not bad, either!

The amazingly versatile Joe Maneely handled the art for this never-reprinted tale from this never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Crazy V1N7 (1954), but the script is not nu Stan Lee...who would've had his name on it if he had penned the story!

Maneely could do anything; sci-fi, horror, war, romance, western, even humor, as this story demonstrates!

If not for his tragic death falling from a New York suburban commuter train, he would have been one of the major talents of Marvel Comics in the 1960s.

Atlas had no less than three MAD clones going at once; Crazy, Wild, and Riot!

MAD themselves commented on the proliferation of clones, not only from Atlas, but virtually every other publisher with this opener for their spoof of the 1950s movie Julius Ceasar by Harvey Kurtzman and Wally Wood...

When MAD converted to a b/w magazine, Atlas dropped the three color comics and launched the b/w Snafu,which only lasted three issues!

Atlas/Marvel would revive Crazy twice more!

First, in early 1973 as a reprint book of Not Brand Echh stories.

Then, in late 1973 as a b/w magazine going head-to-head with MAD, and surviving until 1983 for 96 issues!

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Sincerest Form of Parody

Monday Mars Madness WILD! "Menace from Mars"

Most of the time, a Martian invasion story should be taken seriously!

This never-reprinted tale from one of Atlas' many MAD! comic clones, WILD! #2 (1954) is not one of those tales!

Though we know the talented and versatile Howie Post illustrated the story, nobody knows who wrote it!

But it reads a lot like Stan Lee...

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Sincerest Form of Parody

Reading Room WORLD OF FANTASY "Guardian of the Stars!"

What's kooler than a Jack (King) Kirby cover?

How about the never-reprinted Steve Ditko story it leads into?

Did the cover or the story come first?

The total redesign of the robot indicates whichever was done first wasn't provided to the other artist as reference!

Also, shouldn't the title be "Guardian of the Earth"?

Of course, that would be a "spoiler", ruining the drama shown on the cover...

Illustrated by Steve Ditko, this tale from Atlas' World of Fantasy #17 (1959) was probably plotted by Stan Lee, though the scripting doesn't read like his work.

Keep an eye on this blog as we re-present more never-reprinted Steve Ditko stories and covers!

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Ditko Unleashed

Baker Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Green Fog!"

Before a long-haired hippie (hey, it was the Swinging Sixties) with a hammer took over the book...

....Atlas-Marvel's Journey into Mystery was first a horror, then sci-fi anthology featuring some of the best work of the era...quite a bit of it never-reprinted, like this tale from #50 (1959), penciled by the legendary Matt Baker and inked by Vince Colletta!

The scripter is unknown, but probably isn't editor Stan Lee, who tended to incorporate his distinctive signature into the title page when he wrote the story.

You'll note the inking is much more detailed here than in the previous Baker Reading Room story, also inked by Colletta, but published by Charlton!

Atlas' reproduction quality was better than Charlton's, so art studio owner/inker Colletta (who packaged stories for Atlas, Charlton, Dell and others) put more effort into the final product.

The Marvel Masterworks: Journey into Mystery reprint series ended with Volume Four (2012), which only reprinted up to #40, so almost all the non-Thor and Tales of Asgard material since #40 (including this story) hasn't been seen since original publication!

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Matt Baker

Art of Glamour

Space Force Saturday SPEED CARTER "Half-Horrors of Hyades!"

We skipped last Saturday to present a tribute to the late, great writer/artist Richard Corben...

...but we're back with a never-reprinted story that gives new meaning to "split personality" from Atlas' Speed Carter: SpaceMan #2 (1953).

This tale takes several cliches, including hero/heroine tied to a buzz-saw and the idea that, since different sides of the brain control different aspects of memory and personality, physically dividing it would result in different personas and mixes them together.

It's an interesting concept, but doesn't quite work.

Written (as are all the Speed Carter stories) by Hank Chapman and illustrated by Joe Maneely.

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Reading Room / Halloween Horror UNCANNY TALES "Witch in the Woods"

 Since we posted a story about people blaming horror comic books for all the world's evils...

...we thought we'd run another tale by the same writer from the same period!

As Stan Lee's somewhat snarky script for this story from Atlas' Menace #7 (1953) points out, those beloved fairy tales were as mind-rotting as the comics Wertham and the others hypocritically tried to ban!

Joe Sinnott's clean and elegant renderings keep the story from being too grotesque, helping to sell Lee's point without the extreme gore some other publishers of the period (and even Atlas itself) occasionally went for!

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Horror Comics of the 1950s

Edited by Ron Barlow & Bhob Stewart