Easter Reading Room EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Hickory and Dickory Help the Easter Bunny"

Though the rodent duo in this tale are named after the classic nursery rhyme "Hickory, Dickory, Dock"...

...the nursery rhyme featured only a single, anonymous, mouse...and there's no one named "Dock" in this story, either!

Walt (Pogo) Kelly scripted and illustrated this story from Dell's Four Color Comics #220: Easter with Mother Goose (1949), which was the mouse duo's second (and last) appearance!
The first was several months earlier, in Dell's Four Color Comics #201: Christmas with Mother Goose (1948), where they assisted (as you might have guessed) Santa Claus!
You'll see that one this Christmas...

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Walt Kelly's Fables and Funnies

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Reading Room UNUSUAL TALES "Look into the Future"

One of Charlton Comics' defining traits was...

...using montages of interior art as their covers.

Usually, the cover would utilize several different stories' art, but in this case, they played up the final story in the issue!

A morality play in a sci-fi/fantasy context.

Rod Serling was a master of this concept, as he displayed weekly on the original Twilight Zone.
This never-reprinted story from Charlton's Unusual Tales #27 (1961) illustrated by Steve Ditko (and probably written by Charlton mainstay Joe Gill) follows the concept to a "T", within the limitations established by the Comics Code Authority.
If it had been done pre-Code, Simms would've come to a horrific (and graphic) end...

Holiday Reading Room AMAZING ADULT FANTASY "Beware of the Giants!"

It's not often you see Stan Lee's signature on cover art...

...(behind the giant boot) perhaps because it was probably meant as the title page for the following story (and, to tell the truth, I think the splash page below would've been a better cover)...

Hah!

Bet you thought I had forgotten St Patrick's Day, eh? 

This Stan Lee-scripted/Steve Ditko-illiustrated piece from Atlas' Amazing Adult Fantasy #14 (1962) has one fatal flaw...the clothing and architecture are more mid-European (Germany/Austria/Switzerland) than Celtic (Irish/Scottish)!

BTW, one of the rarely-noted aspects of this series were the kool individualized contents pages for each issue...

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Amazing Adult Fantasy Omnibus
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Space Hero Saturdays FANTASTIC COMICS "Space Smith and the Crustaceans of Ganymede"

Space Smith Doesn't Seem to be Quite Himself...

...as another artist fills-in for Fletcher Hanks, bringing a rather Buck Rogers-esque feel to the strip!

While the scripting on this story From Fox's Fantastic Comics #7 (1940) has that Fletcher Hanks "feel", the art, definitely, is not Hanks!

It looks like the artist is trying for the same look as Dick Calkins' original Buck Rogers newspaper strip, which was incredibly-popular at the time!

The next issue would feature a totally-Fletcher Hanks tale....for the last time!

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Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Complete Newspaper Dailies
Volume 1: 1929-1930
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Friday the 13th Fun TIPPY'S FRIEND GO-GO "Egg-Head in Friday the 13th"

One of the better Archie clones of the 1960s was Tippy Teen, who had both her own book...

...and two spin-off titles featuring a Riverdale-like ensemble of supporting characters who had their own features, including Egg-Head...who was called that only because he wore glasses and looked like a nerd!

If the story doesn't make much sense, the fact it was from Tower's Tippy's Friend Go-Go #15 (1969), which was the last book of the series and the company was already winding down to close the doors a month later, might have loosened the editorial standards a tad...

You'll note the art appears exactly like the Archie Comics "house look"!

That's because the Tippy Teen books were illustrated almost entirely by moonlighting Archie artists, though which particular one did this tale is unknown!

BTW, Egg-Head was not the only Tower Comics character to bear that name!

One of the original members of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad (a non-superpowered backup team for the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents) was named...Egghead!

I'm not sure how "well-trained" and "highly-skilled" the "super-brilliant strategist" was since he died in his second appearance...

Tales Twice Told WEIRD WORLDS "Creature"

What happens when you take a 1950s comic story, and redo the art...

...but re-use the original dialogue and captions...a couple of decades later?
Read for yourself...

With a script taken almost verbatim from the (then) 20 year-old tale "Lost Kingdom of Althala" (which we showed you Tuesday), this story from Eerie Publications' Weird Worlds V1N10 (1970) had a complete redo on the art by Argentine illustrator Oscar Fraga, whose work in the American comics market was exclusively for Eerie Publications and consisted solely of re-illustrating 1950s stories!

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The Worst of Eerie Publications
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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!