Tales Twice Told STRANGE WORLDS "Lost Kingdom of Athala"

Here's a tale that would make a great "popcorn" CGI action flick!

It's hokey, doesn't make much sense, but boy, it's loaded with action and it looks great!

Written by Gardner Fox, penciled by Joe Orlando & Wally Wood, and inked by Wood, this fast-paced story from Avon's Strange Worlds #4 (1951), would make a great Saturday afternoon flick, thanks to current state-of-the-art special effects!

EXTRA: Here's the b/w inside cover for this issue, which featured an illustrated preview of all the stories in the issue by Wally Wood.

Note the heavy use of "craftint" texturing which Wood used to create a distinctive "look" for his art...

The script was re-used, almost verbatim, in 1970 by Eerie Publications, but the artwork for the retelling was nowhere near as good.

You'll see that version on Thursday!

Lunar Reading Room / Tales Twice Told STRANGE WORLDS "A Nation is Born"

Here's the original Golden Age version of a Bronze Age story...

..we ran on Tuesday!

Illustrated by Golden Age journeyman Rafael Astarita, this tale appeared in Avon's Strange Worlds #4 (1951) and was reprinted in IW's Strange Planets #9 (1959).

It was then re-illustrated, with only minor changes to the script (including a re-titling), in Eerie Publications' Strange Galaxy V1N8 (1971) as we showed on Tuesday.

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Monday Mecha Madness STRANGE WORLDS "My Job...Catch a Robot"

The Title of this Story is Misleading...

...but you'll have to read to the end to discover how and why!

Illustrated by Joe Sinnott, this never-reprinted story from Atlas' Strange Worlds #3 (1959) involves a search for a human criminal among the mechanical men!
Sort of Blade Runner, but in reverse!
Sadly, the writer is unknown.

Next Week: the Return of...

Reading Room: STRANGE WORLDS "Weapon Out of Time"

Barbarians, advanced technology, and beautiful, half-clad women...

...we're obviously back in the retro-cool era of the Golden Age of science fiction!

So, if the fountain was "Old Faithful", where would nearby Anthor be located?

And, what happened to Anthor and it's inhabitants, who obviously weren't around when Paleoindians first migrated across the Beringia land bridge between Asia and North America around 12,000 years ago (or earlier)?

Yeah, I know it's "just a comic book story", but I can speculate, can't I?

Was this meant to be the first in an ongoing series about Prof Chalmers and his time-viewer/matter analyzer?

Art for this wild story from Avon's Strange Worlds #2 (1951) is by Wally Wood.

The writer is unknown, but it's theorized to be Gardner Fox, who created comics' first barbarian, Crom, for Avon the previous year.

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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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Reading Room STRANGE WORLDS "Invasion from the Abyss!"

Alien Invasions of Earth are a Popular Story Concept...

...even when the "aliens" are from inside the Earth, rather than outer space!

This story from Avon's Strange Worlds #3 (1951) was a "Fleagle Gang" production.

The "Fleagles" were a group of artists including Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, Roy Krenkel, Wally Wood, Angelo Torres, and George Woodbridge who would help each other out on tight deadlines by doing a "jam" with individuals penciling and inking different pages and even different panels on a single page, producing some absolutely-amazing visuals!

Trivia: the group was named by EC Comics editor/writer/artist Harvey Kurtzman.

The idea of advanced beings living inside the Earth and invading/reconquering the surface was very popular in the early 1950s.

Richard Shaver and 1930s-40s pulp magazine editor Raymond A Palmer caused a media firestorm with a series of stories presenting a theory that combined the "civilization inside the Earth" concept with another pop culture phenomenon...flying saucers!

Numerous readers wrote in, claiming that they had actually seen creatures and vehicles exactly as described in the stories!

The "Shaver Hoax" (as it came to be known) influenced 1930s-50s sci-fi/fantasy ranging from the two-part pilot episode of the TV's Adventures of Superman "Superman and the Mole Men" to movie serials like The Phantom Empire and movies like Brain Eaters!

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