Reading Room WEIRD THRILLERS "Graveyard in the Antarctic"

The current cold wave reminded me of a recent TV mini-series about ill-fated Arctic explorers, The Terror! 

And here's a tiny true tale of frozen fear...from the back of Ziff-Davis' Weird Thrillers #4 (1952)!

Illustrated by Marvin Stein, it's purportedly based on a true story.

But I've been unable to verify it, as all of Levick's known studies were about penguins, not seals!

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The Terror

by Dan Simmons

Space Heroine Saturdays ALICE "Flying Saucers"

I always wondered what happens when someone takes the concept of "flying saucers" literally...

...as the amazing Dave Berg did in this Allen Anderson cover-featured tale from Ziff-Davis' Alice #11 (1953)!

And, yes, this strip is about an updated version of Lewis Carroll's Alice from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass!

Not quite the sort of "flying saucers" we usually present, eh?

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Alice in ComicLand

Featuring various comics incarnations of the Lewis Carroll character!

Holiday Reading Room SANTA CLAUS PARADE "Crystal the Snowflake"

Kris Kringle is considering getting out of the Yuletide business!

But if he does, who will take over the business?

Thankfully, the then-modern technology of the 1950s offered a solution as this never-reprinted story from Ziff-Davis' Santa Claus Parade (1951) by an unknown writer and artist(s) or writer-artist(s) demonstrates!

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Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories

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Monday Madness SANTA CLAUS PARADE "Benny Brown Bear's Christmas Sleep!"

Like Any Kid Before Christmas...

...Benny Brown Bear just can't wait!

But, since bears hibernate, he'll miss Christmas...unless someone wakes him up!

This never-reprinted story by Bill Walsh from Ziff-Davis' Santa Claus Parade (1951) didn't have a sequel, so we'll never know if Benny ever actually saw Santa!

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Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories

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Holiday Reading Room SANTA CLAUS PARADE "How the Reindeer Came to Fly"

Did You Ever Wonder About Santa's Flying Reindeer?

After all, reindeer don't usually do that sort of thing!

This never-reprinted tale has the answer...

Illustrated by George Peltz and scripted by a writer whose identity is lost to the mists of time, this story from Ziff-Davis' one-shot Santa Claus Parade (1951) provides an answer to a question that many kids perplexed their parents with!

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Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories
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Space Force Saturdays SPACE PATROL (TV) "Lady of Diamonds"

1950s Media was Loaded with Low-Budget Sci-Fi Series...

...including this one, a saga of those who protect the 30th Century space-lanes in both the video and audio realms!

Tonga later reformed and ended up as the Assistant Security Chief for the entire Space Patrol organization!

Space Patrol ran Monday thru Friday on tv and semi-weekly on radio from 1950 to 1955, using the same performers for both media.

This comic book adaptation from Ziff-Davis Publishing ran for only two issues in 1952, and was written by Philip Evans (who did a lot of movie and tv tie-ins and co-created Drift Marlo, about a special investigator at Cape Kennedy), and illustrated by Bernie Krigstein (who also did SpaceBusters, a comic series about intergalactic Marines which we presented as part of Space Force Saturdays) before moving on to EC Comics, where he achieved his greatest fame).
The book ended not due to poor sales, but because Ziff-Davis left the comic book business during the "comics cause juvenile delinquency" controversy of the early 1950s, deciding to concentrate on publishing magazines instead, and still continuing to this day as seen HERE.

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Space Patrol
Missions of Daring in the Name of Early Television
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Space Force Saturdays PERIMETER PATROL SERVICE "Mission to Malooka"

Meet the Perimeter Patrol Service in their never-reprinted premiere...

...from Ziff-Davis' Amazing Adventures #5 (1951)!

This story is a superb example of pulp/comic space opera of the era with all the classic elements:

Square-jawed heroes!

Rockets & ray-guns!

Literal bug-eyed monsters!

No scantly-clad women in this particular tale, but the other Perimeter Patrol Service sagas have them!

BTW, this premiere appearance is illustrated by Murphy Anderson, who had just finished his first run on the Buck Rogers newspaper strip.

He would later specialize doing sci-fi/fantasy at DC Comics, including Hawkman, Adam Strange, and Superman!

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Trump's Space Force

(either for yourself, or as a gift for a con friend/relative)
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Monday Madness AMAZING ADVENTURES "Cosmic Comics"

Ziff-Davis' 1950s sci-fi anthology Amazing Adventures...

...ran interesting "filler" pages including these humor strips by Harry Sahle from the first two issues.

Note the one above, from the inside back cover of #2, is b/w.

But the one above, from issue #1, while also an inside cover, is two-color!

Perhaps there were budget cuts between the printing of the two issues!
Sadly, these were the only two Cosmic Comic strips to run in any Ziff-Davis comics!