Monday Mecha Madness STRANGE WORLDS "My Job...Catch a Robot"

The Title of this Story is Misleading...

...but you'll have to read to the end to discover how and why!

Illustrated by Joe Sinnott, this never-reprinted story from Atlas' Strange Worlds #3 (1959) involves a search for a human criminal among the mechanical men!
Sort of Blade Runner, but in reverse!
Sadly, the writer is unknown.

Next Week: the Return of...

Holiday Reading Room BIBLE TALES FOR YOUNG FOLKS "Nativity: the Birth of Jesus"

 Over the years, many  comics companies have published Bible-themed projects...

...such as Atlas Comics' Bible Tales for Young Folk which presented this never-reprinted story in its first issue!

The writer is unknown, but the penciler/inker is the legendary Joe Sinnott, best known for his inking of Jack Kirby and John Buscema on the Fantastic Four during the Silver Age.

(In truth, Joe's done an incredible amount of truly-spectacular work in comics, but that's the first thing most fans think of.)

Joe also did quite a bit of work for Treasure Chest, a comic distributed semi-monthly only to parochial schools during the school year (September thru June) that ran over 500 issues.

Oddly, none of Sinnott's stories for that series were Bible adaptations (which TC did a lot of).

Bible Tales lasted five issues in 1953 and '54, mixing New and Old Testament stories into each issue, illustrated by the cream of the Atlas (later Marvel) Comics crew including; Jerry Robinson, Don Rico, Syd Shores, Fred Kida, Bernie Krigstein, Bill Everett, Joe Maneely, and Gene Colan!

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder BRAK THE BARBARIAN "Spell of the Dragon!"

In the Bronze Age, Marvel adapted every barbarian/sword and sorcery character they could get...

...often giving the original prose writers (if they were alive) the chance to script the series themselves!

Author John Jakes commented...

I long ago admitted in print that I created Brak because there were simply no more Conan stories from Robert E. Howard, whose work I admired.

In my adolescent years I wrote – on notebook paper – further adventures of Batman and Superman because I enjoyed them but there weren’t enough of them in comic books to satisfy me. Somehow the other sword and sorcery strong men – Lin Carter’s, Michael Moorcock’s et al. – while deserving of praise in their own right, didn’t do it for me. I needed more Howard.
I invented Brak.

There were only three Brak comic tales, this one plotted and laid out by Dan Adkins and scripted by Jakes himself along with penciling by Val Mayerik and inking by Joe Sinnott.
(It seems to be an original tale, not an adaptation.)
Then a two-part adaptation of the (chronologically) first Brak tale, "The Unspeakable Shrine" by Jakes, Doug Moench, and Steve Gan.
Then...nothing!
No more new comics tales!
No reprints!
Next week, we're presenting an illustrated text feature from Savage Tales featuring background info about the character and author, John Jakes!
After that, the complete, unseen for decades two-part comic story!
Don't miss them!

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The (Complete) Adventures of Brak the Barbarian

Volume One & Volume Two

(includes a never-before-published conclusion to the series!)

Holiday Reading Room YOUNG DOCTORS "Dr Tom Brent: Christmas Comes in August!"

You have no idea how few medical-themed Yuletide comic stories there are...

...until you try to find one...and end up with a tale that's the victim of terrible printing!

This never-reprinted tale from Charlton's Young Doctors #6 (1963) unfortunately shows off the terrible printing Charlton Comics was famous for!

The publisher didn't utilize the printing companies literally every other comics publisher used.

Instead, to save money, they printed on old, second-hand printing presses.

But those presses had been constructed to handle cardboard and plastic packaging, not the much-thinner newsprint paper used for comics!

As a result, their comics had an amazing amount of smearing and off-register color, as you can see from the first page.

It's a shame, because the art by penciler Joe Sinnott and inker Vince Colletta deserves a better presentation!

BTW, Young Doctors was an anthology title featuring tales of all the MDs who had their own Charlton books at the time, including, of course, Dr Tom Brent, Young Intern!

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Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories

Holiday Reading Room MARVEL TALES "Man Without Fear"

"What holiday?"

Why, Halloween, of course!

Or...is it!

Is this never-reprinted story by writer Carl Wessler and artist Joe Sinnott from Atlas' Marvel Tales #140 (1955) a Halloween treat...or trick?

You tell us, kiddo!

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder SILVER SURFER: THE ULTIMATE COSMIC EXPERIENCE Preface and Creator Bios

Here's the text pieces from the long OOP graphic novel...

Judge for yourself as to the historical accuracy of the material.

Nice to see the rest of the creatives get a little attention.

But, Stan Lee realized the PR value to his audience of promoting the writers and artists like rock stars (as his promo for the first issue of Fantasy Masterpieces demonstrated), and pushed the image of a happy "bullpen" (with him as the lead creative, of course).

We hope you enjoyed seeing this long-lost bit of Marvel history, and suggest you bookmark this blog for a lot more HTF comics goodies...

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Silver Surfer

The Ultimate Cosmic Experience

by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder SILVER SURFER: THE ULTIMATE COSMIC EXPERIENCE Conclusion

When Last We Left the Sentinel of the Spaceways...

Original, unused cover by Jack Kirby & Mike Royer and published cover by Earl Norem

Caught by the CIA in an energy-absorbing trap, the Silver Surfer seemed destined for experimentation in a government laboratory, but something from space swoops down and frees him...

"Tamam Shud" means "ended" or "finished" in ancient Persian.

Bet a lot of you thought it was a quote from a writer named "Tamam"!

The actual quote is from Edward FitzGerald's famous translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Was Stan the Man poetic or pompous?

Next Wednesday, a follow-up with the text pieces from the graphic novel, including the bios of the creatives!

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Silver Surfer

The Ultimate Cosmic Experience

by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby