Reading Room OUTER SPACE "Repair Stop"

Today's comics creators have lost the ability to tell a straightforward story...

...in a short story format!

It wasn't always this way....

Written by Joe Gill and illustrated by Steve Ditko, this efficent, effective tale from Charlton's Outer Space #18 (1958) sets up the minimal plot, conveys multiple points of view, and delivers a satisfying ending...all within four pages!

If it was done today, it'd be a book-length tale!

You'll note Ditko's heavy use of pen, rather than brush for inking, resulting in a less-lush, less organic "feel" and a lot more cross-hatching instead of feathering than his work only a year later, when he was transitioning from Charlton over to Atlas/Marvel.

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Volume 6

Outer Limits

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Reading Room OUTER SPACE "Planet Which Had Everything--Almost!"

Here's a tale that takes a concept from one of H.G. Wells' novels...

...a concept which was based on real-life events from Earth's history!

Yep, it's the classic ending from War of the Worlds!

Note: The movie version of Wells' First Men in the Moon also incorporates the "germs kill aliens who haven't been exposed to them" concept, but it's not in the original novel!

As to real-life, European settlers inadvertently brought a plague to North America and caused an epidemic that decimated a number of native tribes that had contact with them.

While the writer of this tale from Charlton's Outer Space #1 (1968) is unknown to me, the art is by Charles Nicholas and Vince Alascia.

Reading Room OUTER SPACE "For Amusement Only"

Ever wonder if all the natural disasters we experience...

...are truly "natural" in origin?

"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;

They kill us for their sport."

King Lear Act 4, Scene 1

"Submitted for your approval...
A tale by writer Joe Gill and artist Steve Ditko from Charlton's Outer Space #18 (1958) that Repugs would love since it disproves "global warming".
But, it replaces it with something else cons don't believe in...life on other worlds!
A conundrum that may never be solved...at least not in...The Twilight Zone!"

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Steve Ditko Archives Volume 5

Dripping with Fear

...which reprints this tale and numerous other long out-of-print short stories illustrated by Ditko!

Reading Room OUTER SPACE "Third Planet"

Some stories are truly a "product of their time"...

...such as this Silver Age story that reflects the pacifist attitudes of the 18-30 year-olds of the era.

That's how the tale ended in the idealistic 1960s.

If they re-did it today, in the far more cynical 2020s, one (or both) commanders would have had a strike force ready to attack the second the other side disarmed.

This tale from the Charlton one-shot Outer Space (1968) was illustrated by Pat Boyette.

As to who wrote it, it could have been Boyette (who had already proven himself as a writer with several stories for Charlton's anthologies as well as a couple of issues of Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt), or Joe Gill, who co-created several pacifist heroes including Peacemaker with Boyette, and GunMaster with Dick Giordano!

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Reading Room OUTER SPACE "His Own Little World"

After co-creating Spider-Man and Dr Strange, Steve Ditko left Marvel in 1967...

...for reasons still unknown to all but the parties involved.

For the next few years, he went on to work for everyone but Marvel, including Charlton, where he returned to Captain Atom, created a new Blue Beetle, and did a plethora of one-off tales like this one!

Is this device a matter-creator (which would create items from scratch) or a teleporter (which would move already-existing things from their origin point to Rudd's location)?

If it created things purely from his brain-patterns, it would look exactly like the photograph, no matter how old the pic was!

Maybe I'm just over-thinking the whole thing.

At any rate, this story from Charlton's one-shot Outer Space #1 (1968) was penciled and inked by the extremely-busy Ditko, but the writer is unknown.

BTW, the printing on this particular issue was pretty bad.

In fact, Charlton was noted for the poor quality of it's printing,  since they used old printing presses that were designed to print boxes and other packaging that used cardboard and plastic, not newsprint!

When the story was reprinted over a decade later, it came out somewhat cleaner, as you can see HERE.

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Reading Room OUTER SPACE "Far Away Voices"

Here's one of those kool "slice of everyday life...except it isn't" tales...

...that Steve Ditko's ability to render average, everyday people made believable!

Oh, !@#$%&*!

This rarely-seen tale from Charlton's Outer Space #20 (1958) is a wonderful example of the variety of types of people Ditko could do, each distinctive and memorable in his own right!

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Reading Room OUTER SPACE "Greater Jovians"

We ran a Steve Ditko story about Jovians a couple of weeks ago...

...now here's another one from the same issue of the same comic, but with totally-different Jovians!

Why did the editor run the two stories one-after-another in the same issue?

Why didn't he space them out a couple of issues apart?

We'll never know the answer!

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Reading Room OUTER SPACE "Misfits"

Here's a Steve Ditko-rendered piece with some of the oddest aliens he's ever done!

Strangely, though the planet is said to be Jupiter, from space, it looks like Saturn!

This wasn't the only Ditko-illustrated tale in Charlton's Outer Space #20 (1959) to feature Jovians!
There's another one featuring quite different inhabitants of Jupiter who meet a far different fate on Earth!
Why didn't the editor just reletter "Jupiter" to "Saturn" in this tale, especially since both stories appeared one-after-another in this issue?

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Volume 6

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