Reading Room FANTASTIC WORLDS "Invaders"

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

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

This tale from Standard's Fantastic Worlds #5 (1952) was drawn by Alex Toth and Mike Peppe, though the writer is unknown.
(Page 7, Panel 6 is apparently a redraw by Carmine Infantino!)

BTW, though it's #5, this is actually the first issue of the title!

There was no #1-#4!

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A Safety Tip from The Fighting Yank for the 4th of July...

Here's the word, kids, from The Fighting Yank himself...

Art by Mort Meskin

...from the final issue of his 1940s series, Standard's Fighting Yank #29 (1949)

Art by Alex Schomburg

And here's the patriotic cover from that issue!

Reading Room LOST WORLDS "Visitors from Space" and "Space Platforms--Way Stations of the Future!"

Besides comic stories, comic books often ran one-page features like these...

Standard's Lost Worlds #5 Art by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito

...based on historical or scientific information available at the time...

Standards' Lost Worlds #6 Art by Rocco Mastroserio

...or speculation about future developments, again, based on then-current knowledge!

(I love that third panel, showing spacesuit-garbed scientists on a balcony on the satellite!)

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Friday Fun JETTA OF THE 21st CENTURY "Jet-Heeled Prom" and "Zingbats"

Like most comics of the era, Jetta of the 21st Century had text stories...

...to qualify for second-class (magazine) mailing rates!

The text stories featured other characters from the "Jetta-verse"!

Written by "Dixon Wells" (a pen-name used only for Jetta text stories), this never-reprinted piece from Standard's Jetta of the 21st Century #7 (1953) would've made a pretty good comic story.

Perhaps it was scripted by Dan DeCarlo?

Also included in this final issue of the series was this one-pager totally-unrelated to the "Jetta-verse"...

No credits are available for this short, which probably was meant for one of Standard's sci-fi comics, Lost Worlds or Fantastic Worlds!

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Dan DeCarlo's Jetta

Reading Room LOST WORLDS "First Man to Reach the Moon"

In this 1952 tale, Mankind doesn't reach the Moon until 2021!

For the record, most sci-fi stories of the era show a manned Moon landing occurring by 2000!

While we don't know who wrote this story from Standard's sci-fi anthology Lost Worlds #6 (1952), the illustrations are by Art Saaf, a steady contributor to comic books from the beginning of the Golden Age to the end of the Bronze Age (1940-1980).

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Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3

Space Hero Saturdays FANTASTIC WORLDS "Space Treasure"

What's it like to be just another working stiff doing his job...but in outer space?

This tale from Standard's Fantastic Worlds #5 (1952) offers some insight...

Lovingly-rendered by Murphy Anderson, the story was created between his stints on the Buck Rogers newspaper strip, and certainly has the "look" of the legendary comic!

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Life and Art of Murphy Anderson

Reading Room FANTASTIC WORLDS "Asteroid God"

Some call Golden Age sci-fi "Westerns with ray guns"...

...but it could also be "jungle tales with aliens instead of natives", as this tale demonstrates!

John Celardo illustrated this story from Standard's Fantastic Worlds #7 (1953), the final issue of a short-lived anthology that featured artwork by Alex Toth, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Gil Kane, and Murphy Anderson, among others.

Cover Gallery FANTASTIC WORLDS and LOST WORLDS

They ran for a combined total of only five issues...

Art by Alex Toth

...but Standard's short-lived sci-fi anthologies Fantastic Worlds and Lost Worlds had some first-rate talent both on the covers and inside them!

Art by John Celardo

Plus, all five covers had something in common quite unique in publishing...

...none of the covers had anything to do with any of the interior stories!

Art by Alex Toth & Mike Peppe

Despite the captions, which did mention titles from stories inside the books...

Art by Mike Sekowsky & John Celardo

...the art didn't depict anything even close to what was in the tales!

But they sure look kool, don't they?

Reading Room LOST WORLDS "Men and Fire"

In 1952, outer space was the "final frontier"...

...and humans were going to tame it, no matter what the consequences!

This never-reprinted tale from Standard's Lost Worlds #6 (1952) was penciled by Ross Andru and inked by Andru and Mike Esposito.
The writer is unknown.

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