Reading Room TWILIGHT ZONE "Calling..." & "Journeys into..."

Though the original Twilight Zone comic never adapted any of the TV episodes...

...it did use a stellar lineup of talent to craft some really good new stories as well as science featurettes like this George Evans-illustrated one from Dell's Four Color #1288 (1962)...

...and this Evans-penciled/Reed Crandall-inked piece from Dell's Four Color #1173 (1961).

Besides these talented guys, other artists on the early issues included Frank Frazetta, Mike Sekowsky, Frank Giacoia, Alex Toth, Frank Thorne, Don Heck, and Angelo Torres!

Though neither Dell nor Gold Key followed the Comics Code, they didn't allow the creatives to go back to the relatively-unrestrained horror material most of the artists (especially the EC alumni) had done previously!

Sadly, trademark and licensing constraints have prevented these stories from being reprinted, but you'll be seeing them re-pesented here and at our fellow RetroBlogs!

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Boris Karloff's

Tales of Mystery Archives

Volume 1

(which is available in reprint, and features many of the same artists as the Twilight Zone comic)

Monday Medical Madness TWILIGHT ZONE "Plague"

Submitted for your approval...

...a tale so frightening, it couldn't be told on TV...but it did appear in comic books...in The Twilight Zone!

There wasn't a sequel to this never-reprinted story by writer Leo Dorfman and illustrator Joe Orlando (with an assist from Mike Sekowsky) from Gold Key's Twilight Zone #20 (1967)!

Perhaps it's best we never know,,,

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Andromeda Strain

by Michael Crichton

and the sequel

Andromeda Evolution

by Michael Crichton & Daniel H Wilson

Monday Mars Madness TWILIGHT ZONE "Mars: Dead or Alive"

55 years ago, when I saw this painted George Wilson cover on the comics rack of my local candy store...

...I just had to read it!

(BTW, the model posing as the astronaut is Steve (Doc Savage) Holland!)

Written by Dick Wood and illustrated by Nevio Zaccara, the cover-feature (though not lead story) from Gold Key's Twilight Zone #17 (1966) offered a somewhat-plausable explanation (in those pre-Mars Rover days) as to why we hadn't seen signs of life on Mars.
Wood and Zaccara also collaborated on the never-reprinted Explorers in the Unknown strip that ran in Gold Key's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea comic.

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Twilight Man

Rod Serling and the Birth of Television

Reading Room TWILIGHT ZONE "Joiner"

Submitted for your approval, we present a cover-featured comic story...

...that would've been too expensive to produce during the show's initial run, and featuring a protagonist all this blog's readers can identify with!

The first few issues of a Twilight Zone title were produced by Dell Comics, featuring ex-EC Comics artists!

(All the tales in this issue were illustrated by George Evans and Reed Crandall!)

Beneath a nicely-rendered George Wilson-painted cover lurks...

In Dell's Four Color #1288 (1962), writer Leo Dorfman and artists George Evans & Reed Crandall deliver a "revenge of the nerd" tale any sci-fi fan from the 1990s (or earlier) would appreciate.

Today, thankfully, nerds are the mainstream!

Fraternal organizations with funky garb like the "lodges" shown in this story were popular until the late 1980s-early 1990s.

To give you an idea of how they were portrayed in pop culture, go HERE.

Note: this was the second of four Twilight Zone issues produced by Dell Comics before they split into two companies, Dell and Gold Key, with almost all the ongoing movie-TV tie-in licenses moving to Gold Key.

There were 92 issues of the second Twilight Zone series from 1963 until 1982, with no stories adapted from the show itself...though some share similar plot elements!

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Twilight Zone

by Walter (The Shadow) Gibson

Adapting episodes from the TV series along with several original tales!

Arlene Martel (Sax) 1936-2014

It took an article in the NY Times for me to learn Arlene Martel had passed away.

She wasn't a household name, like Robin Williams or Lauren Bacall, but to several generations of sci-fi fans she was...

...the smiling woman who ominously-intoned "Room for one more, honey." in the nightmares of a hysterical woman in the classic Twilight Zone ep "Twenty-Two".

...an innocent woman caught in a battle inside a deserted building between a time-traveler from the future and aliens determined to kill him and destroy the secret that would save humanity in the equally-classic Outer Limits episode "Demon with a Glass Hand"...

...and, most memorably, T'Pring, the Bride of Spock in the (I hate to use the word, but it does apply) classic Star Trek ep "Amok Time"!

Besides appearances on other genre shows like Man from U.N.C.L.E., Wild Wild West, and Battlestar Galactica, she also appeared in comedies, Westerns, and crime shows, and was still working on-and-off in movies and tv until her passing.

Fantastic Femmes--Danica McKellar

The cute next-door neighbor girl on Wonder Years has grown up into an amazing woman!
Besides a steady stream of tv movies and several ongoing roles in series including The West Wing and her own series, Inspector Mom, Danica's written two books; Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail and Kiss My Math: Showing Pre-Algebra Who's Boss to promote interest in mathematics among teen girls.
She's truly a Fantastic Femme!

Genre appearances include...
Inspector Mom (Maddie Monroe also Writer / Producer)
HeatStroke (Caroline)
Hack! (Emily)
Shin Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams [VG] (Various Voices)
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance [VG] (Susan Storm Richards aka Invisible Woman)
X-Men Legends [VG] (Jubilee aka Jubilation Lee)
EverQuest II [VG] (Lolla Cotgrove / Pona)
Path of Destruction (Katherine Stern)
CyberChase "Designing Mr Perfect"
Quiet Kill / Nightmare Boulevard (Pet Shop Girl)
Static Shock (Freida Goren)
Century City "Without a Tracer"
Game Over (Elsa / Renee)
Justice League (Sapphire Stagg)
Babylon 5 "The War Prayer"
Captain Planet & the Planeteers "A Formula for Hate"
SideKicks (Lauren)
Twilight Zone [1985-87]
"Her Pilgrim Soul" (Teen Nola), "Shelter Skelter" (Deidre Dobbs)

Check out..
Danica's Official WebSite
Official WebSite for her book Math Doesn't Suck...
Official WebSite for her book Kiss My Math

Other actresses to play Invisible Woman / Invisible Girl aka Susan Storm-Richards...
Fantastic Four / Fantastic Four the Video Game / Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Jessica Alba
Fantastic 4 [1967] Jo Ann Pflug
The Fantastic Four [1978] Ginny Tyler
The Fantastic Four [1994] Rebecca Staab (adult) Mercedes McNabb (child) [live-action film, never officially released]
Marvel Action Hour: Fantastic Four [1996-97] Silver Surfer [1998] Lori Alan
Spider-Man [1996] Gail Matthius
Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes [2007] Lara Gilchrist
Video Games: Erin Matthews, Grey DeLisele

Other actresses to play Jubilee aka Jubilation Lee include...
X2: X-Men United / X-Men: the Last Stand Kea Wong
X-Men [2000] Katrina Florece
X-Men: Evolution Chiarra Zanni
Generation X Heather McComb
X-Men / Spider-Man [1992] / Marvel vs. Capcom [VG] Alyson Court

Fantastic Femmes--Kandyse McClure

Note: this page has been updated with NEW info 
HERE!

Last night, just as we were about to keyboard Kandyse into our Fantastic Femmes section of the blog, her character, Anastasia Dualla, committed suicide in BSG's final season opener, "Sometimes a Great Notion".
(We hope Dee reappears, at least in flashbacks, in some of the remaining eps.)
She's been an appealing presence on the show from her relatively minor role in the mini-series to her character's increasing importance in the plotline, and her gut-wrenching departure is a scary reminder that almost no character is safe...