Reading Room CAPTAIN JOHNER AND THE ALIENS "Alien Welcome"

As the first human visitors tour the aliens' home world...

...tbey discover the two species are not so different, after all!

Written and illustrated by series creator Russ Manning, the tale from Gold Key's Magnus, Robot Fighter #8 (1964) intrroduces more background about the alien homeworld, including weapons technology like the previously-unseen helmet-guns!

(In the first chapter, the aliens used hand weapons, like the Earthmen.

Perhaps, at home, among civilians, their police/soldiers don't want to display obvious weaponry...)

Reading Room CAPTAIN JOHNER AND THE ALIENS "Dream Makers"

The alien ship (with a crew partially-consisting of humans) reaches its' homeworld...

...where surprises await the Earthmen!

Note that we readers never see the Dream Makers' true forms.

This Russ Manning created/scripted/illustrated tale from Gold Key's Magnus: Robot Fighter #7 (1964) predates classic Star Trek's similarly-themed ep "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" by four years.

Reading Room CAPTAIN JOHNER AND THE ALIENS "Case of Nerves"

While we've been observing aliens serving on a human vessel...

...we've neglected the humans traveling on the alien ship!

Yes, its Tuesday, and we usually run CJatA on Mondays, but it was Memorial Day, and we took the day off!

Now on to the unusual art in this story from Gold Key's Magnus, Robot Fighter #6 (1964).

The areas of color without black lines are called "color holds".

Before computer coloring, they were incredibly-difficult to do properly!

Creator/artist Russ Manning used "keyline" (red line art) to indicate where the areas for color were to be...

...because red ink photographs like black ink on the printer's film and the original negative would have both the red and black lines as guides for the color overlay cutters to trim to.

(note Manning's instructions to the printer on the euuper-left of the page.

But once the colors were cut, the red ink areas would be erased on the black printer's film, leaving just the black line art and the color areas with no holding lines!

Reading Room CAPTAIN JOHNER AND THE ALIENS "Forced Landing"

Continuing the adventures of a combined human/alien crew...

...we see how working together can have unexpected benefits!

Writers Eric Freiwald & Robert Schaefer and creator/artist Russ Manning take a deceptively-simple story and add an unexpected twist with this tale from Gold Key's Magnus, Robot Fighter #5 (1963).
Nicely done...

Reading Room CAPTAIN JOHNER AND THE ALIENS "Suspense in Space"

We Rejoin Our Combined Human/Alien Team of Explorers...

...as they face a life-or-death situation!

It's amazing how writers Eric Freiwald & Robert Schaefer and creator/artist Russ Manning manged to tell a complete (and exciting) story in just four pages, as they did with this tale from Gold Key's Magnus, Robot Fighter #4 (1963).
Today's comic creators with their bloated "epics" could take a lesson from them!

Reading Room CAPTAIN JOHNER AND THE ALIENS "Matter of Judgement"

When Last We Left Our Astronauts...

With half his crew on an alien ship and half the alien crew on his, Johner heads home to Earth...

Written by Eric Freiwald & Robert Schaefer and illustrated by Russ Manning, this morality tale from Gold Key's Magnus, Robot Fighter #3 (1963) also sets up a potential menace in another group of aliens who are, in fact, hostile!
There's more space opera action to come, next week!

Reading Room CAPTAIN JOHNER AND THE ALIENS "Space Derelict"

When Last We Left Our Space-Going Adventurers...

...writers Robert Schaefer & Eric Freiwald and artist Russ Manning brings us up to speed and drop us right into the action!

With only 4-5 pages per issue to work with, the new writer/artist still did an amazing job of putting together short, yet satisfying, tales.

(Manning, who had written and illustrated the premiere tale had to drop the writing duties due to time constraints.)

BTW, this short from Gold Key's Magnus: Robot Fighter #2 (1963) was not reprinted in the 1967 Captain Johner and the Aliens one-shot, but was included in the 1995 two-issue mini-series from Valiant/Acclaim.

Reading Room CAPTAIN JOHNER AND THE ALIENS "First Contact"

Gold Key used 4-5 page "filler" series in their Silver Age comics...

...some of which proved popular enough to receive their own titles!

Based on concepts used in Murray Leinster's Hugo Award-winning story "First Contact" which premiered in Astounding Science Fiction May, 1945, this Russ Manning-written and illustrated series debuted with this tale in the back of Gold Key's Magnus: Robot Fighter #1 (1963), which Manning also scripted and drew.

The series continued until #29 (1971), when Gold Key increased the amount of advertising pages, eliminating the need for the shot backup stories in their books.

Gold Key tried the strip in it's own title with two one-shots reprinting some of the stories, but neither sold well.

When Valiant/Acclaim acquired rights to most of the Gold Key characters in the 1990s, they did a two-issue reprint of the first 14 stories in the hope of leading into doing new material based on the strip, but again, the books didn't sell.

We'll be re-presenting not only the already reprinted material, but the entire second half of the strip's run which hasn't seen the light of day since the Silver Age!

Watch for it!