Showing posts with label Jim Mooney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jim Mooney. Show all posts

Thursday, September 26, 2024

Reading Room SPACE ACTION "Silicon Monsters from Galaxy X"

If you're a cheesy sci-fi fan like me, you'll go for a story with a title like...
...'cause with a title like that, you're in for a fun (if not totally rational or even coherent) time!

While the writer is unknown, the art for this tale from Ace's Space Action #2 (1952) is attributed to "Jim McLaughlin", who had a short-lived comics career doing work primarily for Ace!

After Ace dropped comics in 1955 to concentrate on paperbacks, "Jim" did a couple of stories for Atlas/Marvel and a run on Dell's comic adaptation of TV's Gunsmoke!
Then "Jim McLaughlin" disappeared!
Totally.
Unlike most comic book artists who went on to do commercial art or newspaper strips, there's no trace of "Jim McLaughlin" after his brief foray into four-color publishing...and no background about his pre-comics career!
Here's another interesting point...his art style altered considerably during his career.
In this story, the inking looks a lot like the work of long-time artist Jim Mooney!
In fact, a number of panels resemble Mooney's work on the DC strip Tommy Tomorrow, which Jim Mooney was both penciling and inking during the same period as "Jim McLaughlin's" work for Ace!
In McLaughlin's later work (particularly his Gunsmoke art), while the layouts look similar, the inking style is totally-different!
Was "Jim McLaughlin" a pen-name for a penciler working with at least two (if not more) different inkers?

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Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder WORLDS UNKNOWN "Black Destroyer!" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...
Art by Gil Kane & Frank Giacoia
While exploring an alien world, the crew of the Space Beagle encounter Coeurl, who looks like a Terrestrial panther or lion...with the addition of tentacles!
But this is not a friendly housecat!
It's a primitive, but sentient, being who can not only reason, but deceive...

Trivia: The announced adaptation of Day of the Triffids ended up as the cover-featured tale in the premiere issue of Worlds Unknown's b/w magazine successor, Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction...
...under a misleading, but undeniably-kool cover by Kelly Freas!
In fact, an adaptation of Theodore Sturgeon's KillDozer ran in the next issue of Worlds Unknown...
Meanwhile, back with Black Destroyer...
Roy Thomas was concerned that the finale as shown in the adaptation wasn't clear enough, so he included an explanation on the letters page...
Bonus #1: You can read the complete original short story HERE.
Feel free to compare and contrast!
Bonus #2: here are the illustrations from the original pulp magazine, so you can see how closely Dan Adkins and Jim Mooney kept to the pulp magazine "feel" of the tale!

"Black Destroyer" was later incorporated with later short stories about the exploratory vessel Space Beagle into the novel Voyage of the Space Beagle, which is a tribute to Charles Darwin's scientific exploratory ship, "The Beagle".
BTW, Van Vogt sued 20th Century Fox over the 1979 movie Alien, claiming that it ripped off elements of "Black Destroyer" and "Discord in Scarlet", both of which were adapted into Voyage of the Space Beagle.
Fox settled out of court.
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Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder WORLDS UNKNOWN "Black Destroyer!" Part 1

A 1930s pulp story adapted into comic form in the 1970s...
...and a clear inspiration for aspects of movie and tv science fiction ranging from Forbidden Planet and Alien to Star Trek and Space: 1999 (among others)!
Will Coeurl deceive the crew and return with them to Earth?
Or will he simply kill the humans and commandeer the ship?
Find out in the conclusion next Wednesday, plus read some kool background info about the comic adaptation!
This tale from issue 5 (1974) of Marvel's short-lived science fiction anthology Worlds Unknown was adapted by Roy Thomas and illustrated by Dan Adkins & Jim Mooney.
It's based on "Black Destroyer", A E Van Vogt's first published story, which appeared as the cover story (a rare honor for a writer's premiere tale) in Astounding Science Fiction (July 1939).
It was later expanded in Vogt's novel Voyage of the Space Beagle, which continued the voyages of the starship and crew!
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Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Haunted House Reading Room ADVENTURES INTO WEIRD WORLDS "House of Horror!" / DEAD OF NIGHT "House of Fear!"

While today's haunted house tale was the cover feature...
...the art, by the amazing Bill Everett, didn't quite get it right...as you shall see!
Why Everett did a demon/werewolf on the cover instead of the Jim Mooney-rendered skeleton shown is unknown!
When this story from Atlas' Adventures into Weird Worlds #6 (1952) was reprinted as the cover featured tale in Marvel's Dead of Night #1 (1973)...
...artist John Romita Sr got the skeleton right!
Thanks to early 1970s revisions in the Comics Code, the tale was reprinted almost verbatim!
But for some reason, the title was altered...
Nobody knows why...
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Monday, October 10, 2022

Monday Madness ADVENTURE INTO MYSTERY "World Gone Mad!"

Here's a little ditty about how homogenized America (especially the suburbs)...
...became during the post-World War II era...ironically created during that era!
Illustrated by Jim (Supergirl) Mooney and scripted by an unknown writer, this tale of suburban prefab housing tract development and how it could confuse the unaware from Atlas' Adventure into Mystery #3 (1956) rang true for many during that era who actually fell for that sort of trick, especially around Halloween!
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(which presents this tale from its' reprint appearance in 1975)

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Reading Room LOST WORLDS "City That Escaped From Tomorrow"

In the 1950s, the popularity of sci-fi in tv and in movies carried over to comics...
...with a plethora of sci-fi anthology titles from almost every publisher, most of which ran material equal to the bulk of pulp and paperback science fiction of the era.
This never-reprinted tale from Standard's Lost Worlds #5 (1952) was penciled by Ross Andru and inked by Mike Esposito and Jim Mooney.
The writer is unknown.
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