Halloween Reading Room PHANTOM WITCH DOCTOR "Out of the Deep!"

 Avon's Phantom Witch Doctor (1952) was a unique one-shot...
...with a lead story featuring the title character and a trio of totally-unrelated tales (including this one) backing it up!

Whether the creature is a Lovecraftian-type Elder-God, a stranded alien, or just a sentient life-force is never really explained.

Another unsolved puzzle is who the writer and artist(s) for this short story were.

But what's life without a few mysteries, eh?

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Horror Comics of the 1950s
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Space Hero Saturdays CRUSADER FROM MARS "Mission Through Space"

Lars of Mars wasn't the only Martian Sent to Fight Evil on Earth by Jerry (Superman) Siegel!

This guy, along with a female "friend and companion" was sent to Earth to do similar work...but for a very different reason!

If I follow the "logic" of this concept correctly, the Martians send a proven murderer (along with someone who may be either an accessory to murder or an innocent who had nothing to do with the crime except having a murderer obsessed with her) to fight evil on Earth.
Send a convicted killer with emotional control issues (and advanced weaponry) to a primitive planet and tell him to clean it up?
And then, when he screws up. send a fleet of flying saucers in to straighten out the mess.
(Martians apparently don't have a non-interference Prime Directive.)
Also note that the American military seems to be made up of idiot bureaucrats!
The writer for this premiere tale from Crusader from Mars #1 (1952) is unknown, but probably is the book's editor, Jerry (Superman) Siegel, who co-created another short-lived Martian crime-fighter, Lars of Mars, the year before.

The artist is believed to be Marvin Stein, but the layouts have a strong Jack Kirby feel to them.
Considering Stein was doing a lot of work for the Simon/Kirby studio at the time, and Jack was reputed to be very generous in terms of helping his friends, it seems likely he provided roughs for Stein to render full pencils and inks over.
BTW, you may note that Tarka wears a very Superman-style costume in this tale, but on the cover, and in the next (and last) issue, the colors are reversed.

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Pre-Code Classics

Lars of Mars / Crusader from Mars

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Reading Room COSMIC BOOK "UFO and the Perts vs Experts"

Feeling just a wee bit...paranoid?

Feel like the world just doesn't make any sense at all?

Well, you ain't alone, kiddo!

While it's been reprinted several times, this version from Wandering Star Press' Cosmic Book #1 (1986) is the only time it's been presented in color!

The Cosmic Book was a personal obsession for Pat Boyette who packaged it (as well as doing the covers and a couple of tales inside), then shopped it around to numerous publishers until Ace Comics agreed to co-publish it.

Though there were rumors of a second issue, sadly, it never appeared.

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Reading Room FANTASTIC WORLDS "Boy Who Saved the World!"

The short-lived anthology Fantastic Worlds featured Earth-based stories...

...contrasting with the other anthology from Standard Comics, Lost Worlds, which was a space-opera book.

This superb kid-friendly tale from Standard's Fantastic Worlds #6 (1952) was drawn by Alex Toth and Mike Peppe, though the writer is unknown.

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Taylor Illustrated History

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Reading Room / Tales Twice Told TERROR TALES "Flesh Ripper"

We Present Another Pair of Stories with the Same Script...

...drawn two decades apart, this time with the re-worked, gorier, version first!

Taking the script almost verbatim from the original 1953 four-color comic book, Argentinian artist Martha Barnes totally-redrew the story, using different "camera angles" and lighting effects as well as re-imagining the visuals for the creature in Eerie Publication's Terror Tales V6N6 (1974)!
It's damn near impossible to figure out where the tale was derived from!
But you'll see the original version...by one of the "Big Names" in the field...on Thursday!
Note: Martha Barnes was the premier female horror/crime/war illustrator in the Argentinian comics industry from the late 1940s to the late 1970s.
Besides Eerie Publications, she also did work for another American publisher, DC Comics, on G.I Combat!

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The Worst of Eerie Publications
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Reading Room / 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
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Best of Wednesday Worlds of Wonder SPACE CLUSTERS by Arthur Byron Cover & Alex Nino

It's a Time-Lost, Totally-Original, Never-Reprinted Graphic Novel...

 by noted sci-fi novelist Arthur Byron Cover and incredibly-unique graphic illustrator Alex Nino, which you've likely never seen!
It's Weird!
It's Wild!
It's the Very Embodiment of a World of Wonder!
So What Are You Waiting for?
Here are the Links...
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Reading Room / Tales Twice Told WEIRD WORLDS "Terror on Station One!"

Here's an early 1970s sci-fi space opera tale...

...that reads and "feels" like a 1950s sci-fi space opera story!
And there's a good reason for that!

Wonder why this Cirillo Munoz-rendered tale from Eerie Publications' Weird Worlds V1N10 (1970) feels so...out of date in an early 1970s magazine?

Perhaps because it's almost a line-for-line, panel for panel, re-do of a 1950s story!

Be here Thursday to see the original four-color version by a different artist!

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The Worst of Eerie Publications
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