When Last We Left Our Protagonist...
...kidnapped human Hunt Bowman and alien princess Lyssa have returned to Earth and are about to experience an extremely short-but action-packed adventure!
What the hell is going on?
When this issue of Fiction House's Planet Comics #25 (1943) was published, the entire comics line lowered it's page count from 68 pages to 60, due to new wartime paper rationing restrictions.
For whatever reason, Lost World was the only strip whose length was affected.
In addition, a promo for War Bonds and Stamps was tacked on to the end of the story!
With a couple of editorial adjustments, story length was back to normal by the next issue!
But the shorter length gives me an excuse to present a bit of comic book history!
Back in the 1970's, before the internet (and kool sites like Comic Book Resources and the Grand Comics Database) info on pre-Silver Age comics was extremely-limited!
Several reference books written by fans and fans-turned-pros filled that gap as best they could.
One of the best was All in Color for a Dime, edited by Don Thompson and Richard Lupoff, utilizing articles written in the 1960s by Harlan Ellison, Roy Thomas, Ron Goulart, Ted White, Chris Steinbrunner, Bill Blackbeard, and both editors for the Hugo Award-winning fanzine Xero.
(Thompson became the editor of the weekly Comics Buyers Guide.
Lupoff became a novelist, including books based on the Buck Rogers TV series!)
BTW, I still have my dog-eared hardcover first edition of All in Color...!
"Me to Your Leader Take!", a chapter by Richard Ellington about Fiction House's Planet Comics, really hit home for the then-12 year old redhead who writes and edits this blog, driving my desire to read the impossible-to-find series.
Here's an excerpt about Hunt Bowman and the Lost World that really stirred my imagination and gives you a taste of what's coming up...
You've already seen the introduction of the VoltaMen's German-type uniforms.
The VoltaMen's modified speech pattern (also spoken by Star Wars' Yoda and his race) will debut in a couple of issues!
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