Showing posts with label avon comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label avon comics. Show all posts

Saturday, January 3, 2026

Space Hero Saturdays SPACE MOUSE "Beauty Contest!"

In the 1950s, both funny animals and sci-fi were popular comics genres...
...so, it was inevitable that someone would combine the two!
Though it is the cover-featured story in Avon's Space Mouse #1 (1954), "Beauty Contest", written and illutrated by Frank Cairn, is not the origin of the Rocketing Rodent.
That tale, "Atomic Attack", comes later in the book...and we've already presented it in Space Hero Saturdays, HERE.
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(covering the studio where writer/artist Frank Carin got his start)

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Reading Room CAPTAIN SCIENCE COMICS "When Time Stood Still"

It's the gift that keeps on giving...
...a trip through time and space on New Year's Eve!
Illustrated by Myron Fass, this never-reprinted tale from Avon's Captain Science Comics #4 (1952) is a classic example of how weird and wild (and totally-illogical) 1950s sci-fi can be!
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Vol 3
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Tuesday, November 25, 2025

Reading Room: STRANGE WORLDS "Weapon Out of Time"

Barbarians, advanced technology, and beautiful, half-clad women...
...we're obviously back in the retro-cool era of the Golden Age of science fiction!
So, if the fountain was "Old Faithful", where would nearby Anthor be located?
And, what happened to Anthor and it's inhabitants, who obviously weren't around when Paleoindians first migrated across the Beringia land bridge between Asia and North America around 12,000 years ago (or earlier)?
Yeah, I know it's "just a comic book story", but I can speculate, can't I?
Was this meant to be the first in an ongoing series about Prof Chalmers and his time-viewer/matter analyzer?
Art for this wild story from Avon's Strange Worlds #2 (1951) is by Wally Wood.
The writer is unknown, but it's theorized to be Gardner Fox, who created comics' first barbarian, Crom, for Avon the previous year.
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Vol 3
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Sunday, October 5, 2025

Halloween Reading Room PHANTOM WITCH DOCTOR "Out of the Deep!"

 Avon's Phantom Witch Doctor (1952) was a unique one-shot...
...with a lead story featuring the title character and a trio of totally-unrelated tales (including this one) backing it up!

Whether the creature is a Lovecraftian-type Elder-God, a stranded alien, or just a sentient life-force is never really explained.
Another unsolved puzzle is who the writer and artist(s) for this short story were.
But what's life without a few mysteries, eh?
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Thursday, September 11, 2025

Reading Room / Tales Twice Told STRANGE WORLDS "Sabotage on Space Station 1"

...now you'll see where that "flavor" came from!
Damn, we humans are good at this sort of world-saving stuff, eh?
This Norman Nodel-illustrated tale from Avon's Strange Worlds #7 (1952) could have been the basis of an episode of Space: 1999 or Classic Star Trek with just a couple of tweaks!
As to why it was reworked...
Eerie Publications had been using photostats and negatives from defunct comics companies as the source material for their b/w magazine line.
About a year in, they started using South American artists eager to break into the comics market and American artists like Dick Ayers and Chic Stone (who were losing work as the Silver Age ended and comics companies cut back their lines) to re-do old stories with a more contemporary style.
Some illustrators totally-redid the art, using new "camera angles" and clothing/technology designs reflecting contemporary tastes.
In this particular case, artist Cirilo Munoz just lightboxed and re-inked the Nodel artwork!
Editor Carl (Golden Age Human Torch) Burgos eliminated the opening captions and modified a couple of captions and dialogue balloons, but otherwise left the unknown writer's original script intact.
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Saturday, August 30, 2025

Space Hero Saturdays SPACE DETECTIVE COMICS "Cargo from Mars"

A non-sensationalistic title hides a damned good detective story...

...that appeared in back of a science fiction detective's comic book!





Illustrated by Gerald McCann, this well-written little tale by a currently-unknown author was hidden in the back of this 1952 Avon Comics comic book...

...about the ongoing adventures of a private investigator "fighting crime in a future time"!

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