Reading Room RACE FOR THE MOON "Face on Mars"

The most famous story from Harvey's Race for the Moon anthology series...

...is this tale from #2 by writer/peniler Jack Kirby and inker Al Williamson which doesn't take place on the Moon...but on Mars!

Why is it so famous?

When NASA's Viking satellite reached Mars in 1976, it took this photo...

Keep in mind that this was the era of the Chariots of the Gods? fad, and to many, this pic was confirmation that aliens had either come thru the Solar System and stopped off not only on Earth, but Mars as well, or were from Mars initially!

And, there were those who remembered this little comic tale from their childhood.

The truth was a bit more mundane.
Click HERE for NASA's explanation.

To this day, there are still those who say it's a cover-up, that there is life on Mars, and that "the face" is a relic of their existence.

Judge for yourself.

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Mars in the Movies

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Lunar Reading Room: RACE FOR THE MOON "Thing on Sputnik 4"

Now That Aretmis II has Safely Returned...

...let's look at a tale created during early days of space travel, before Man had made it beyond the stratosphere, when we had NO idea of what awaited us "out there", but it was so kool to speculate...

From Harvey's Race for the Moon #2 (1958).
Beautifully-rendered by Jack Kirby and Marvin Stein.
It's both amazing and depressing to see what we hoped to achieve in the (then) near-future

Then to see what we actually did...

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Lunar Reading Room RACE FOR THE MOON "First Man on the Moon"

This Comic Was Published in 1958...

...but the date established for the events of this tale (which obviously shows technology beyond what was available at the time) is also 1958!

Was this Bob Powell-illustrated story part of the unpublished inventory for Harvey's cancelled early 1950s horror comics line?

That would explain the 1958 dateline, which would've been five years or more in the future!

In fact, the only material in the entire book that had been done specifically for Harvey's Race for the Moon #1 (1958) was the cover by editor Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, and Marvin Stein...

...which showed spacecraft then in development, and the intro page, also illustrated by Powell, which showed the Russkie Sputnik satellite, which had only recently been launched!

The rest of the issue consists of reprints from Harvey's early 1950s horror comics, re-edited to conform to the Comics Code Authority and one other previously-unpublished story, clearly set in the future, and also illustrated by Powell as seen HERE!
The two later Race for the Moon issues featured all-new material, mostly set in the near-future like the tale shown HERE.

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Lunar Reading Room RACE FOR THE MOON "Saucer Man"

From the era when actual space travel was brand new...

 ...and flying saucers were probably real, here's a tale from Harvey's Race for the Moon #3 (1958).

Pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Al Williamson, an absolutely magnificent combo, rivaling Kirby's pairings with Wally Wood and Joe Sinnott!

Science fiction was in a state of flux as real-world science began catching up with our imaginations.

Instead of far-future sagas with warp-drive ships, tales of "the day after tomorrow", when we would make our first landings on the Moon and Mars came into vogue.

That didn't mean that visitors from beyond our Solar System were left out, but the technology we used to respond to them (friendly or not) was much closer to "present-day" (1950s) tech than ray-guns and photon drives.

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Twice-Told Tale of Terror INVASION!

One of the best-known Mars invasion tales is Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio show...

Edited version

...which this twice-told tale "updates" to the television era!

But, it's radically-altered from it's first appearance, and the original version had never been reprinted!

First the toned-down version, then the original, scarier version...

Original version

 Note in the original version, both the wife and singer on tv show a lot more cleavage!

Edited version

Original version

Again, more cleavage in the original version...

Edited version

Original version

Oddly enough, the wife's cleavage is unchanged, but the look of terror in the last panel is toned down!

Edited version

Original version

Panel four in the original version is much more gruesome than the edited version. 
Note the dialogue balloon is unchanged, even though there's no actual weapons fire in the edited version!

Edited version

 This last page is radically-different! Prepare yourself!

Ready?

Proceed...but remember, I warned you...

Original version

Wow!

The edited pages were from Harvey's Race for the Moon #1 (1958), which was reprinted in Harvey's Shocking Tales Digest #1 (1981)

The original, never-reprinted, story was from Harvey's Witches' Tales #21 (1953)

As you can see, the Comics Code Authority insisted on some major redos, including most of the last page!

What do you think, fans?

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Bob Powell's

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Red China has Landed a Robot Craft on the Far Side of the Moon!

Pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Marvin Stein

We thought we'd be dealing with the Russkies on the lunar surface, but at this point, Putin has to buy rockets from North Korea!

Space Force Saturdays THREE ROCKETEERS "Long Long Years"

Introduced in Harvey's Race for the Moon #3 (1958)..

This team of intrepid explorers survived the book's cancellation to appear in other Harvey titles over the next decade!

Penciled (and possibly written) by Jack Kirby and inked by Al Williamson, the team's debut exemplifies the 1950's optimism that science and humanity's desire to explore the unknown would enable us to set up space stations and moonbases within a few decades!
Sadly, as of the end of the first quarter of the 21st Century, over half a century later, we ain't there yet!
Yeah, we have one small space station, but nothing like what we envisioned...

Now that's a space station!

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(which reprints all the Kirby Three Rocketeer stories!)
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Monday Madness RACE FOR THE MOON "Asylum"

A Twilight Zone-style story from Race for the Moon #1, illustrated (and possibly written) by Bob Powell!

With the world the way it is now, perhaps we should rename our planet from "Earth" to "Asylum"!

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