Reading Room SPACE ADVENTURES / UNUSUAL TALES "They Say It Really Happened"

Here's a kool one-pager by writer Joe Gill and artist Dick Giordano...

...originally presented in Charlton's Space Adventures #4 (1953) in b/w (it was on the inside cover, which is usually black line/grayscale or two-color)!

But when it was reprinted two years later in Charlton's Unusual Tales #1 (1955), it was in color.

As you can see, the gray tones were left intact, giving the color art a really unique look. 

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Charlton Arrow #4

A tribute to this kool, eccentric, comics company!

Reading Room SPACE ADVENTURES "A Better World than Ours"

A never-reprinted tale with roots in Western (ie European, not Wild West) culture...

...particularly the repressive 18th-19th centuries!

This Joe Gill-scripted and Eccio-rendered tale from Charlton's Space Adventures V2N8 (1969) has it's roots in exhausted European 18th and 19th Century sailors' obsession with primitive island societies which they considered to be the incarnation of an innocent "paradise"!

Of course, being a Comics Code Authority-approved book, the creators couldn't present what Selig was probably doing besides "fi-shing"...

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Charlton Arrow #4

featuring non-superhero stories from the long-gone and greatly-missed publisher!

Reading Room SPACE ADVENTURES "Imitation People" Part 1

Do androids have souls?

Can they feel "real" (not programmed) emotions?

What does this Don (the Con) Trump wannabe have in mind?

This never-reprinted story from Charlton's Space Adventures V2N4 (1968) will be continued at our "sister" RetroBlog; True Love Comics Tales...

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Charlton Arrow #4

Best of Reading Room SPACE ADVENTURES "Tale About Time: There Shall Be an Ending!"

When Last We Left Our Hero...

Art by Pat Boyette (left) and Jim Aparo (right)

...reporter Paul Mann is plucked from 1967 by the Esroms, peaceful humans from the year 4000 AD who travel in time machine/spacecraft that are mistaken for "flying saucers".

Mann and the Esroms pursue the Honjnosians (evil humans also from 4000 AD) to the time before the Big Bang when Paul falls out of the ship into the ether of the pre-universe...

You'll note the use of the "breaking the fouth wall" storytelling technique with Mann addressing the reader in several panels, (with one panel of other characters thinking Paul's a bit looney).
Denny O'Neil using his "Sergius O'Shaughnessy" pseudonom scripted this conclusion to the book-length tale from Space Adventures #2 (1968).
The art is by the highly-underrated Pat Boyette with what looks like minor redrawing by Jim Aparo in several panels featuring Paul Mann to maintain visual continuity.
Sadly, there were no further adventures of Mann and the men from 4000 AD...

Best of Reading Room SPACE ADVENTURES "Tale About Time: Race to the End of Time"

We have Already Seen...

...actually, the characters are handling the plot synopsis shtick pretty well, so I'll just let them explain...

Not to be negative (ouch), but things aren't looking good for Paul Mann.

If you want to see how he escapes from the edge of Time and Space, be here tomorrow!

Denny O'Neil (using his "Sergius O'Shaughnessy" pseudonom) scripted this "part 2 of 3" in Space Adventures #2 (1968).

The amazing art is by none other than Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange!

At this point, Ditko had left Marvel and was freelancing for Charlton, Tower, ACG, and Warren, working in every genre imaginable, producing some of the best work of his career, much of which has, sadly, not been reprinted!

Best of Reading Room SPACE ADVENTURES "Tale About Time: The Quest Begins"

Remember the phrase "Everything you think you know is wrong!"...

...because this sequel to the three-parter we just ran HERE, HERE, and HERE will define the concept!

The questions continue to pile up, and one of the most famous artists of the Silver Age takes over the storytelling....tomorrow!

(Not that Jim Aparo was any slouch, but this guy is known even outside comics!)

This sequel to the story from Space Adventures #60 (1967) was by the first story's scripter, Denny O'Neil using his "Sergius O'Shaughnessy" pseudonom, and appeared almost a year later in Space Adventures #2 (1968).

No, that's not a typo.

This is "Volume 2" of Space Adventures, which had been cancelled the year before with #60!

However, while this is Vol 2, #2, it's the first issue of the revival since there was no Vol 2 #1!

Geez, the time travel paradoxes in this story are easier to explain than comic book numbering!

Best of Reading Room SPACE ADVENTURES "U.F.O.: Secret of the Saucer"

Rural reporter Paul Mann had heard many stories about locals seeing flying saucers...

...now he's encountered an alien who saved him (and the town) from a biolgical weapon stolen by a Communist spy.

Now,  Mann is taken into the flying saucer where he's about to (as we said in the 60s) "blow his mind"...

The finale of this book-length tale from Charlton's Space Adventures #60 (1967) was deliberately left open-ended.
A sequel, also using the artist "round-robin" concept, and also written by Denny O'Neil using his "Sergius O'Shaughnessy" pseudonom, appeared almost a year later.
Luckily for you, it'll be here tomorrow!
The art for this chapter was by up-and-comer Jim Aparo, who started at Charlton and went to DC when editor Dick Giordano moved there and offered him, Pat Boyette, Steve Ditko, and writers Denny O'Neil and Steve Skeates work after Charlton cancelled all their super hero and adventure/sci-fi titles in 1968!

Aparo became DC's primary Batman artist during the 70s and 80s as well as handling other series like Aquaman and Phantom Stranger.