Friday Fun BARBIE & KEN "Handsome Couple"

For girls of the late 1950s thru early 1970s, Barbie and Ken dolls were fashion icons...

...so it was inevitable that there would be a comic book about their adventures!

 But, as it turns out, Barbie and Ken were secretly married the entire time!

It's true!

Here's the whole story from Dell Comics' Barbie & Ken #1 (1962)...

Surprised?

Tales Twice Told STRANGE WORLDS "Sabotage on Space Station 1"

Tuesday, we presented a 1970s tale with a 1950s flavor...

...now you'll see where that "flavor" came from!

Damn, we humans are good at this sort of world-saving stuff, eh?

This Norman Nodel-illustrated tale from Avon's Strange Worlds #7 (1952) could have been the basis of an episode of Space: 1999 or Classic Star Trek with just a couple of tweaks!

As to why it was reworked...

Eerie Publications had been using photostats and negatives from defunct comics companies as the source material for their b/w magazine line.

About a year in, they started using South American artists eager to break into the comics market and American artists like Dick Ayers and Chic Stone (who were losing work as the Silver Age ended and comics companies cut back their lines) to re-do old stories with a more contemporary style.

Some illustrators totally-redid the art, using new "camera angles" and clothing/technology designs reflecting contemporary tastes.

In this particular case, artist Cirilo Munoz just lightboxed and re-inked the Nodel artwork!

Editor Carl (Golden Age Human Torch) Burgos eliminated the opening captions and modified a couple of captions and dialogue balloons, but otherwise left the unknown writer's original script intact.

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Mysteries in Space

The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics

Reading Room WORLD AROUND US "Great Houdini"

For kids in the 1950s-60s, the go-to for fast and accurate info (if you didn't have an encyclopedia in those pre-Internet days) were the World Around Us comic series...

...and that's where we'll find the longest and most accurate graphic retelling of the life of Houdini!

(And the artwork was great source material for covers of reports about the subject matter.)

World Around Us #25 (1960) was subtitled "Illustrated Story of Magic" and featured a number of tales about magicians though the ages.

BTW, the World Around Us series, despite featuring artwork by a who's who of Golden and Silver Age greats including Jack Kirby, Reed Crandall, Gerald McCann, Gray Morrow, Dick Ayers, Sam Glanzman, George Evans, and Angelo Torres, has never been reprinted!

The Houdini tale was illustrated by Norman Nodel, who is best-known for his artwork for the "Doctor No" movie adaptation that appeared in Classics Illustrated in England, but in DC's Showcase Comics in America!

You can read the American version and see the changes made between the British and US editions HERE.