Space Hero Saturdays ROCKETMAN "Venus Afire" / SPURT HAMMOND "Fiery World"

Apparently, People Being Unwilling to Take in Refugees is Not a New Problem!

In fact, it dates back to the 1950s, when this tale was published...or an unspecified future, where this story is set!

This tale from Ajax/Farrell's Rocketman #1 (1952) ignores some basic science, like the fact that the homeless Venusians would have to pass Earth's orbit to get to Mars!

Perhaps that's because this story originally-appeared a dozen years earlier, when science in comic books was at a somewhat more primitive state!

And, please, no jokes about the lead character's name...

When this tale, part of an ongoing Spurt Hammond series (which ran in Planet Comics from #1 to #12), appeared in Fiction House's Planet Comics #8 (1940), the artist was identified through Fiction House records as Henry Kiefer.

But as for who modified the art at the Iger Studios for re-use in Rocketman, we have no idea!
In addition, the other three Rocketman stories were modified and re-used from earlier Iger Studio-provided art for other features...and other publishers!

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3

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Monday NSFW Madness VOODOO "Corpses of the Jury" & TERROR TALES "A Jury of Skeletons"

On the 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz...

...we're combining fictional horror with the real-life horrors of the Holocaust and concentration camps!

Warning: NSFW!

Memories of World War II and the Nuremberg Trials were still fresh in peoples' minds when this tale was published in 1953 in Ajax/Farrell's Voodoo #5.

There were stories aplenty of hidden Nazis being tracked down, but most involved them being tried and executed by Allied (American/British/French) law-enforcement, not spectral beings, and certainly not in so gruesome, yet poetic, fashion.

BTW, the identities of any of the Iger Studio creatives associated with this tale are, sadly, unknown!

Now, here's a b/w remake from the 1970s (using the same script), since the original couldn't be reprinted in color comics due to the Comics Code Authority!

South American artist Enrique Cristobal illustrated this redo from Eerie Publications' Terror Tales #V6N1 (1974), 21 years after the never-reprinted original's publication.

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Complete Maus

(Multiple Award-Winning Graphic Novel)

Reading Room / Tales Twice Told VOODOO "Goodbye...World!"

Tuesday we presented an odder (than usual) Silver Age tale...

 ...with a cover that seemed as if was from another story entirely.

Well, it was...sort of.

The story in Ajax's Midnight #4 (1957) was a reprint of a tale from Ajax's Voodoo #7 (1953), which was published during the height of the horror comics boom!

And, let's just say that Ajax's editorial packager, the Iger Studio, was not noted for its' subtle (or even tasteful) stories.

The heavy hand of the Comics Code Authority forced quite a few changes from this wild original version, as you will see from the splash panel onward...

Beyond little things like making the duo who are sent into space to spawn the new human race a married couple instead of a pair of unmarried co-workers, the harpies were redrawn as insect-like humanoids (which made a certain amount of sense), and the ending was totally-redone as a happy ending with humanity surviving the alien onslaught!

Personally, I prefer the original!

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Four Color Fear

Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s

Reading Room / Tales Twice Told MIDNIGHT "Project Final X"

Will the world end in an ecological disaster...

...or will it be something much more sinister?

Now that you've read this story from Ajax's Midnight #4 (1957), you might be asking yourself if it seems like it was a tad...disjointed, and that it didn't make much sense at a couple of points.
There's actually a good reason for thinking that.
The clues are in the cover for that issue...

Look carefully at the differences between the alien you see on the cover and the ones in the story itself.

There is a reason behind it all!

Be here Thursday for the surprising, shocking explanation!

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Four Color Fear

Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s

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Space...Hero?...Saturdays STRANGE JOURNEY "Captain Kiddeo Space Bum"

Is it humor?

Is it serious?

I can't decide...

...read the tale and judge for yourself!

The title is a variation of "Captain Video", a tv show which had been cancelled three years earlier when this never-reprinted tale appeared in Ajax-Farrell's Strange Journey #3 (1958).

Yet the story itself has nothing to do with Captain Video, not even as a spoof of it, like MAD's superb Captain Tvideo which you can read HERE!

The attempts at humor and wit are lacking in both, and the illustrations have none of the wonderful background detail (Called "chicken fat" by artist Will Elder) MAD's artists were famous for!

Plus, the art is so jammed-up, I have the impression the original (perhaps unpublished) story was longer, and re-edited to fit into the 5 page slot in an otherwise average sci-fi anthology.

We do know it's a product of the S M Iger Studio which packaged Ajax-Farrell's books, but not who the particular creatives were...

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