Monday Moon Madness RACE FOR THE MOON "Lunar Trap"

Today's the scheduled launch to the Moon of NASA's Artemis test ship...

But, it won't be like the 1950s, when we thought we'd be fighting with the Soviet Union for control of the Moon!

 

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!

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Science Fiction

Reading Room UNEARTHLY SPECTACULARS "Saucerer"

The 1960s were a weird period in comics (and pop culture in general)...

...as this camp-fest from the "Swinging Sixties" amply demonstrates!

BTW, could you guess that the creators were both middle-aged guys whose exposure to "rock-n-roll" was through their kids (more likely, their grand-kids)?

Yep!

Written by long-time sci-fi and comics author Otto Binder (born 1911), and illustrated by Golden and Silver Age artist Carl Pfeufer (born 1910), this never-reprinted two-pager appeared in the back of Harvey's Unearthly Spectaculars #3 (1967)!.

In point of fact, most Silver Age creators were 40 (or over)!

In comparison, today's comic creators are mostly in their 20s and early 30s...and judging from their output, I'm wondering if that's such a good thing...

Reading Room: UNEARTHLY SPECTACULARS "Hidden World"

"Men in Black" were here long before the 1990s comic (much less the movies)...

...as this never-reprinted story from Harvey's Unearthly Spectaculars #1 (1965) by Doug (Jonny Quest) Wildey shows!

The story was probably part of the inventory of material left over by the cancellation of Race for the Moon in 1960.
After all, in 1965, Wildey was far too busy working on both Jonny Quest, and the Marvel Super-Heroes animated series in California to do comic book work in NYC!

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Sci-Fi Art: a Graphic History

Tales Twice Told RACE TO THE MOON "Disc Jockey" Version 2

Tuesday, we saw a pre-Comics Code Authority version of this tale...

...but when the tale was reprinted in Harvey Comics' Race for the Moon #1 (1958), there were some odd art changes to the alien...because of the Comics Code Authority...

As we said, some odd art changes to make the aliens less-insectoid...which really made no sense!

Plus: note how, on the last page, Sam doesn't look frightened...and a couple of the word balloons have been re-written to be less "panicky"!

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Terror

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Tales Twice Told BLACK CAT MYSTERIES "Disc Jockey" Version 1

We're looking back at an era when "disc" could mean "flying saucer" and/or "lp record"...

...(presuming you know what an "lp record" is), in a Case of Curious Censorship by the Comics Code Authority!

Here's the original version of the story, as it appeared in Harvey Comics' Black Cat Mystery #46 (1947)...

OK, a straightforward tale of just desserts illustrated by comics legend Bob Powell.

Nothing too gory or gross.

But the Comics Code Authority thought otherwise...as you'll see on Thursday!

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Bob Powell's

Terror

(Anthology of the best of his 1950s horror and sci-fi tales)

Space Hero Saturdays UNEARTHLY SPECTACULARS "EarthMan"

"What if Superman had been a Terran marooned on another world..."

...and what if he lost his memory?"

On a koolness scale from 1-10, this tale rates an "11".

Unfortunately, there was never a sequel to this story from Harvey's Unearthly Spectaculars #2 (1966), so we'll never know if EarthMan got his memory back or not!

Written, penciled, and inked by Wally Wood, who apparently had some interesting variations on the theme planned, but never had the opportunity to carry them out.

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics 

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...

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Science Fiction

Monday Madness "Supreme Penalty" 1.0 & 2.0

Here's two radically-different versions of the same sci-fi comic tale...

...with changes in the reprint forced upon the publisher by the Comics Code Authority!

This version appeared in Harvey's Black Cat Mystery #47 (1953) during the height of the horror comics boom.

It was re-presented in Harvey's Race for the Moon #1 (1959) after the Comics Code went into effect.

Let's see how things have changed...

Almost every panel has a change from the original, either in art or balloons!

Panel 4 has an interesting change in dialogue indicating the condemned survive in space...

Only change is dialogue in the first panel, which indicates the exiled criminals are still alive, but in orbit.

The figure of Judge Krenk being murdered in Panel 6, and his corpse in Panel 7 have been removed!

Panel One: Judge Krenk is said to be wounded, not dead!

Panel Six: Frances' face redrawn to look less maniacal and his sentence altered to confine him to his lab!

Interesting to note the alterations inflicted by the Comics Code!

Art (and probably story) by Bob Powell.

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Bob Powell's
Terror
(Anthology of the best of his 1950s horror and sci-fi tales)