Space Hero Saturdays SPACE MOUSE II "Secret Weapon"

Space Heroes take many forms...not all of them human!

 ...as shown in this never-reprinted introductory tale from Dell's Four Color Comics: Space Mouse #1132 (1960).

Writer Carl Fallberg and artist John Carey did such an amazing job on this intro to the character, that when it was adapted in 1963 into a cartoon short (May be NSFW/NSFS due to racial stereotyping of Siamese cats using "Asian" accents) directed by Alex Lovy shown HERE, most (but not all) of the plot, script, and visuals were kept intact!
Though the cartoon didn't result in a Space Mouse TV series (or even additional cartoon shorts featuring the character), it did spawn a number of additional comic book stories as well as a five-issue Space Mouse comic!

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(Which has the Space Mouse "Secret Weapon" cartoon!)
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Friday Fun with SPACE MOUSE II!

He's not this rodent...

...whose strip ran through several Avon Comics funny animal titles in the early 1950s!

In 1959, a year after Avon ceased publishing comics, Dell Comics introduced a new Space Mouse...

...who was published as a Walter (Woody Woodpecker) Lantz project, though Lantz had no input into the character's creation or direction!

Note: In many cases, I'm skeptical of the accuracy of Wikipedia articles, the one about this character (click HERE) rings true, so, unless anyone can disprove it, I'm sticking with it!
Movie-tv animator/comic book artist John Carey designed the character and illustrated almost all his appearances including covers, stories, and one-page features and text pieces!
Along with the cover shown above, here's a few examples of Carey's work from Space Mouse's premiere in Dell's Four Color Comics: Space Mouse #1132 (1960)...

The b/w pages are from the inside covers of the comic, which were printed without color (or just black and one other color) to save money...a standard practice in comics until the 1970s.

Ironically, the last page would've benefitted from using color to play up the bulls-eye/target joke!

Tomorrow in
Space Hero Saturdays...
The Introductory Comic Story!
Plus
A Link to the Animated Version
(which is not available on YouTube!)
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(Which has the Space Mouse "Secret Weapon" cartoon!)
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Friday Fun FUNNY TUNES "Space Mouse in 'Mister Fix-It' " and "Peter Rabbit in 'Parking Space!' "

Let's get back to non-disease-oriented humor...

...with a decidedly Earth-bound Space Mouse one-pager...

...and an oddly space-bound Peter Rabbit short!

I'd say somebody gave the artist for these pieces from Avon's Funny Tunes #1 (1953) the wrong scripts...except the writer and artist are the same person...Frank Carin!

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Friday Fun SPACE MOUSE "Land of the Giants!"

While the similarly-named 1960s-70s tv series had some "juvenile" (to put it politely) stories...

...they didn't even come close to being this silly!

So, the heroic Space Mouse just wanted to go somewhere and "make out" with his girlfriend?

Creator/writer/artist Frank Carin might want to reconsider the example this tale from Avon's Peter Rabbit #30 (1955-56) set for impressionable young children of the 1950s!

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Friday Fun SPACE MOUSE "Genius at Work" & "Great Hero"

Besides the four-color stories in the book, the b/w inside covers were used for one-page features...

...although this first one, with its' vaudeville-level humor could've been used for any character...and probably previously had by writer-artist Frank Carin!

The second one shows something unusual in that Space Mouse apparently runs an interplanetary gas station in his spare time!

Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder!
Both these never-reprinted one-pagers are from Avon's Space Mouse #1 (1953), which cover-features a different space beauty pageant story!

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Friday Fun SPACE MOUSE "Tasty Planet"

Along with comic tales, comic books ran text features...

...in order to qualify as magazines and get special low mailing rates!

Here's the never-reprinted story from Avon's Space Comics #4 (1954)!

It reads like it was probably written by series creator Frank Carin.

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Friday Fun SPACE MOUSE "Hunter"

The Dreaded Deadline Doom caught up with us this week...

...so we're re-presenting the first Space Mouse story we ran last year, right after a slew of Martian related posts celebrating the 80th Anniversary of Orson Welles' 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast, which explains the following caption...

Thought the Martian invasion stuff was over for the year?

Guess again, Earthling!

Even funny animals battled Martians!

Not a Dream!

Not a Hoax!

Not an Imaginary Story!

(though it is the ending of the movie Invaders from Mars, which came out the year before this never-reprinted tale from Avon's Space Comics #4 [1954] appeared!)

If I were a cynical sort, I'd say writer/artist Frank Carin copped that finale...

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Fleischer Story

A history of the Cartoon Studio in the Golden Age of Film Animation

(covering the studio where Frank Carin got his start)

Friday Fun SPACE MOUSE & PETER RABBIT "Cold Reception"

Occasionally, Space Mouse would team up with Peter Rabbit...

...as seen in this never-reprinted summer-oriented story from Avon's Peter Rabbit #18 (1953)!

Since writer-artist Frank Carin did both strips, and the Mouse and Rabbit appeared in backups in each other's books, it seemed only appropriate they occasionally visit each other's strips!

BTW, I apologize for the poor color registration on the pages, but this was the only scan available, and, as I pointed out, this story has never been reprinted, so there was no better source material to work from!

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