Space Hero Saturdays FANTASTIC WORLDS "Ace of Space"

Not to be confused with Space Ace (who went through several different incarnations)...

...this guy is a Cold War fighter pilot-type transposed to a Star Wars setting!

Darn those aliens!

Sending robot "drones" to do their fighting instead of going man-against-lizard as God intended!

Though the scripter for this tale from Standard's Fantastic Worlds #7 (1952) is unknown, the artwork is by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, with a couple of panels redrawn by Mike Sekowsky!

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Reading Room SPACE WARS "Strange World"

A never-reprinted short story that could've been produced as an episode of the original Twilight Zone...

...from Charlton's Space War #22 (1963).

Was this a longer tale edited down to only three pages?

It certainly feels like it, since there are many unanswered questions like...

If these people are Tibetan, why are they dressed like the Flintstones...and why do they speak English?
How would they know anything about the Earth-Uranus War?
And why is it we have no idea how only Heffner survived?
Pencils by Dick Giordano, inks by Vince Colletta.
The writer is unknown, but the Grand Comics Database postulates Joe Gill as the most likely candidate.

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Reading Room OUT OF THIS WORLD "The World Awaits"

We know Steve Ditko as the co-creator of The Amazing Spider-Man...

...but he was equally-adept at visualizing insects as well as arachnids!
(Yes, there is a difference!)

This lovely Ditko-rendered story from Charlton's Out of This World #12 (1959) would really have benefited from some Stan Lee-esque scripting rather than Joe Gill's stilted prose, which renders the ending rather...dull.

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Space Hero & Heroine Saturdays ASTONISHING "Menace from the Moon!"

Congratulation to the Artemis Crew for a Successful and Safe Trip to the Moon and Back!

But what if something had happened while they were on the Far Side, totally out of communication with Earth?

OK, this tale from Atlas' Astonishing #5 (1951), written by Hank Chapman and illustrated by Cal Massey is a tad silly.

They claim the ship was lost five years earlier, yet speculate the crew was still alive and coming home?
C'mon, even a kid in the 1950s would find that concept...well...DUMB!!!
(And that's being polite!)

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Reading Room AMAZING ADVENTURES OF BUSTER CRABBE COMICS "Science Lore"

Who says comics ain't educational?

 

One and two-page featurettes, based on the science known at the time, offer fascinating insight into the mindset of the sci-fi/comics writers and what info they had to work with!

This never-reprinted, Pete Morisi-illustrated piece from Lev Gleason's Amazing Adventures of Buster Crabbe #3 (1954) is typical of the era, except for the fact all the spaceship designs, combining real and fictional vessels are from different eras!

Among them are a Mongo warship from the Flash Gordon comic strip, a ship from the movies Destination Moon and/or Conquest of Space, and what's described as a "WAC Corporal", but is rendered as a German V-2!

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Easter Reading Room EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Fun and Games"

Besides numerous single-page, two/three page, and longer stories...

...Dell's annual Easter with Mother Goose books by Walt (Pogo) Kelly usually included a game/puzzle page centerfold!

Three of the four issues from 1946 thru 1949 had them, and none have ever been reprinted!

...but we have them for your reading (and playing) pleasure, you lucky duckies!

Enjoy!

All written and illustrated by Walt Kelly, from Dell's Four Color Comics #103 (1946), #140 (1947) and #220 (1949)!

Reading Room WORLDS BEYOND "Twice Alive!"

Here's a horror story with a sci-fi slant...

Art by Sheldon Moldoff

...that the cover doesn't really convey, from the HTF anthology Fawcett's Worlds Beyond #1 (1951).

Did the writers of the movie Fantastic Voyage read this tale when they were younger?

The art is by comics legend Bob Powell, but the writer is unknown.

The cover, by Sheldon Moldoff, shows a cavern (with bats!) instead of the inside of a human being, and probably was meant for another story, but it conveys the mood of "Twice Alive", if not the plot points.

Worlds Beyond was retitled Worlds of Fear with #2 and ran for another nine issues.

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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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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...