Lunar Reading Room & Theatre WALT DISNEY'S MAN INTO SPACE

Walt Disney Was a Major Supporter of America's Space Program...

...so much so that, even before Sputnik launched the Space Race, he devoted a number of episodes of his various TV series to then-infant American space program!

The original plan to send men to the Moon involved first creating a space station as shown above to serve as a launch platform for lunar-bound ships.

Obviously, that never occurred, but a lot of what was presented by Disney, based on info from such authorities as Wernher von Braun and Willy Ley, was to become fact years later!

Written by Don F Christensen and illustrated by Tony Sgroi, this section from Dell's Four Color Comics: Man into Space #716 (1956) adapts part of one of the first episodes of Magical World of Disney devoted to the then-infant Space Program, "Man and the Moon" scripted by William Bosche, John W. Dunn, and director Ward Kimball, which aired Dec 28, 1955.

And. because the servicable (but hardly spectactular) artwork above doesn't do justice to the concepts involved, here's the actual segment of the episode combining live-action, minature SFX, and animation in a tour-de-force only Disney could bring to TV at the time.
BTW, though it initially-aired in b/w, the episode was shot in color, because Disney knew color TV for the mass-market was only a few years away!
Reruns from the early 1960s onward were broadcast in color...
Trivia: the voice of the narrator is Dick Tufeld, best-known as the voice of The Robot on Lost in Space!

Note the "state of the art" technology used on the spacecraft.

In reality, the actual tech used in the Mercury and Gemini space programs was barely a few years ahead of this stuff!

It's a miracle they survived those flights!

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Walt Disney Treasures

TomorrowLand
Disney in Space and Beyond
Which contains all the kool 1950s Disney episodes about space travel, plus bonus features including an interview with Ray Bradbury about Walt Disney!
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Space Hero Saturdays MEN INTO SPACE "Space Probe"

Just as the #Artemis Crew are Currently "Taking the Jalopy Out for a Test Drive"...

...the astronauts who will soon travel to the Moon in this amazingly-realistic TV series from the early days of the Space Race needed to see how their ship will handle in space and "work out the bugs" before heading all the way to a lunar landing!

Adapted by writer Gaylord DuBois and illustrator Murphy Anderson from the episode's screenplay by Arthur Weiss, you may note there are some differences between the comic and the episode as aired, as you'll see when you click HERE to open a new window to see the actual episode!
That's because, with the long lead-time to produce a comic (about 3 months from script and art to production to printing), DuBois and Anderson had to work from an early draft of the script!
Trivia: Angie Dickenson played Col. McCauley's wife Mary in this episode, but Joyce Taylor portrayed Mary in the other eight episodes the semi-regular character appeared in!

Note: We already re-presented the comic adaptation of the show's second episode, "Moon Landing" HERE and HERE at our brother RetroBlog Secret Sanctum of Captain Video, our usual locale for comic book/graphic novel adapatations of movies/TV shows/radio shows!

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Men Into Space

The Making of the TV Series

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Lunar Reading Room MEN INTO SPACE "Perils of Outer Space" and "What Is on the Moon?"

Before We Actually Launched People into Space...

...the newly-formed NASA was incredibly-concerned about "real-world" problems most sci-fi stories never addressed!

Both pages above written by Gaylord DuBois, illustrated by Murphy Anderson

When you look back on it, it's astonishing how much info we did have when the only tools we were utilizing were ground-based visual telescopes and spectrometers!

The only satellites we (or the Russkies) had at that point were just metal-hulled shells with radio transmitters and radiation detectors (like geiger counters)!

One thing the scientists were adamant about, even then, was first taking the vehicle that would orbit and land on the lunar surface and "field-test" the ship as much as possible before actually landing!

In fact, the surprisingly scientifically-accurate 1959 TV series Men into Space did exactly that in the series' premiere episode, "Space Probe", which was adapted into comic form...

We're running that tale in Space Hero Saturdays this coming Saturday!

Don't Miss It!

Note: We already re-presented the comic adaptation of the show's second episode, "Moon Landing" HERE and HERE at our brother RetroBlog Secret Sanctum of Captain Video, our usual locale for comic book/graphic novel adapatations of movies/TV shows/radio shows!

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Men Into Space

The Making of the TV Series

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Easter Reading Room EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Fun and Games"

Besides numerous single-page, two/three page, and longer stories...

...Dell's annual Easter with Mother Goose books by Walt (Pogo) Kelly usually included a game/puzzle page centerfold!

Three of the four issues from 1946 thru 1949 had them, and none have ever been reprinted!

...but we have them for your reading (and playing) pleasure, you lucky duckies!

Enjoy!

All written and illustrated by Walt Kelly, from Dell's Four Color Comics #103 (1946), #140 (1947) and #220 (1949)!

Easter Reading Room EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Hickory and Dickory Help the Easter Bunny"

Though the rodent duo in this tale are named after the classic nursery rhyme "Hickory, Dickory, Dock"...

...the nursery rhyme featured only a single, anonymous, mouse...and there's no one named "Dock" in this story, either!

Walt (Pogo) Kelly scripted and illustrated this story from Dell's Four Color Comics #220: Easter with Mother Goose (1949), which was the mouse duo's second (and last) appearance!
The first was several months earlier, in Dell's Four Color Comics #201: Christmas with Mother Goose (1948), where they assisted (as you might have guessed) Santa Claus!
You'll see that one this Christmas...

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Friday Holiday/Fairy Tale Fun EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Mother Hubbard's Cupboard"

Walt (Pogo) Kelly loved to incoporate well-known characters...

...(in this case, from a classic nursery rhyme) into his seasonal holiday stories!

This fun, never-reprinted featurette, written and illustrated by Kelly, appeared in Dell's Four Color Comics: Easter With Mother Goose #220 (1949).

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Lunar Reading Room FOUR COLOR COMICS "Maybes About the Moon"

As the Artemis II Moon Shot is Postponed Until April...

...we're presenting a never-reprinted feature from the days before we had even landed on the moon the first time!

This never-reprinted short from Dell's Four Color Comics #1253 (aka Space Man #1) appeared in 1962, just as our Mercury space program was getting under way, so it's a lot of speculation.

Illustrated by Jack Sparling, but the writer is unknown.

BTW, even though it appeared in Four Color Comics, it's in black and white because it appeared on the inside back cover.

The inside covers of comics used to be printed with only one color, black, instead of the four colors CYAN, YELLOW, MAGENTA, and BLACK (CYMK), that make up all the colors in standard comic printing, as a cost-saving measure!

Monday Madness / Easter Reading Room SANTA CLAUS FUNNIES "Great Three-Flavored Blizzard"

Wait!
"Santa Claus Funnies"?
Isn't it Almost Easter???

Yes it is..for us!

But, it seems the Easter Bunny has lost track of time!

And that's why this is our final Monday Madness entry for the Easter season...

Published in Dell's Four Color Comics/Santa Claus Funnies #175 (1947), Walt Kelly wrote and illustrated this tale of holiday confusion with what I believe is the first Santa Claus-Easter Bunny crossover comic story!

If I'm wrong, let me know, and I'll credit you on this blog when I run the story you cite!