Reading Room: STRANGE WORLDS "Death on the Earth-Mars Run!"

"Murder on a cruise ship" is a classic mystery story trope...

...but transposing the plot from an ocean liner to a space liner emphasized the "trapped with a killer" aspect!

This tale of murder and mayhem on the high seas in deep space appeared in Avon's Strange Worlds #8 (1952) and was rendered by Everett Raymond Kinstler, who eventually left pulps and comics for fine art (including several official portraits of US Presidents).
Unlike most pulp/comic artists who moved into fine art, Kinstler is happy to discuss and display his early work.
You'll note a lot of swipes of Flash Gordon art by Alex Raymond.
This wasn't unusual, since Raymond (along with Milton Caniff, Hal Foster, and Noel Sickles) were seminal inspirations for the first generation of comic book artists.
Note, the writer of the tale is, sadly, unknown.
When the story was reprinted in the back of Skywald's The Heap #1 (1971), the Comics Code forced a couple of odd changes...

Page 3 Panel 1

Making Santley's adopted daughter his stepdaughter and eliminating the "he signed for me" quote!

Page 5 Panel 1

Adding a "Space Police" sig to the note, emphasizing the "official" aspect of the order.

Why did they do it?

I have no idea!
As a special treat, be here Thursday, when we re-present the re-illustrated version of this tale from a b/w horror magazine from 1972!

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics 

Reading Room OUT OF THIS WORLD "Man-Eating Lizards!"

It's fun to see early work by a talent who would become one of the all-time greats...

...like this rarely-seen work by a then-teenaged Joe Kubert!

Note: may be NSFW due to racial stereotypes common to the era.

Oddly, the Pacific Islanders are colored green in this tale from Avon's Out of This World (1950) one-shot.

But when this story appeared several years earlier in Avon's Eerie Comics #1 (1947), they were various shades of brown and tan...

There's no explanation for the change to the coloring, especially since all the other color elements remained the same in both versions!

While artist Joe Kubert went on to become one of the icons of graphic storytelling, writer Edward Bellin disappeared from comics after scripting just this and one other story...which also appeared in that issue of Eerie Comics.

But that's not the end of the story!

Bellin (actually "Edward J Bellin") was an early pen-name for a writer already well-established in science-fiction/fantasy...Cyril M. Kornbluth...who was looking to expand beyond the prose market into other media, including comics, radio, and television.

Kornbluth had used the name on one of his earliest short stories, "No Place to Go", and decided to reuse it years later for his comics work.

Who sez comics ain't educational?

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Tribute to Joe Kubert

Creator & Mentor

Wednesday World of Wonder ROBOTMEN OF THE LOST PLANET "Chapter Three: Rise of the Humans!"

When Last We Left What Remains of Humanity...

Don't you love it when the story synopsizes itself?

(Note that inside front cover illustrator Mort Lawrence did an excellent job matching story artist Gene Fawcette's art style!)

So there's at least one universe where we don't end up enslaved by machines!

Yay!

This 1952 one-shot title from Avon Comics was scripted by Walter (The Shadow) Gibson and rendered by Gene Fawcette.

Avon did an amazing amount of one-time-only titles, probably more than any other publisher.

Some were adaptations of novels Avon's paperback division had published, like An Earth Man on Venus.

Others, like RobotMen, were original stories.

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Panic Pete!

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder ROBOTMEN OF THE LOST PLANET "Chapter Two: the Robots Rule the Earth!"

When Last We Left the Few Surviving Humans on a Post-Robot Apoocalyptic Earth...

...just five years and we've lost all sense of fashion?

(And what weapons were they using to kill the large mammals that provided those big pelts?)

Next Wednesday:

The Astounding Finale as We Witness...

Rise of the Humans!

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Panic Pete!

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder ROBOTMEN OF THE LOST PLANET "Chapter One: the Massacre of Mankind!"

Last week, we showed you a 1970s version of this robo-apocalyptic tale...

...now witness the sheer terror of the original 1950s version!

The art for this 1952 one-shot title from Avon Comics is by Gene Fawcette, an Avon mainstay who did everything from horror to Westerns to romance.
If you compare the two tales, you'll see the robots are totally different in this version.
They're based on a still-popular toy first marketed in the early 1950s... Obie the Popping Martian/Panic Pete/Bug-Out Bob!
Who came up with the idea is unknown, and there was no attempt at an actual tie-in between the toy and the comic...

Beyond that, the most unusual aspect of this tale is the scripter...Walter Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant", the primary writer of the legendary pulp character, The Shadow!

Yeah, that guy!

Gibson, a trained magician-turned writer did very little "hard" sci-fi during his long career...except in 1951-54, where he edited (and wrote under several pseudonoms) most of the contents of Charlton's short-lived pulp magazine (only two issues) Fantastic Science Fiction, as well as Charlton's Space Adventures comic for its' first eleven issues and co-creating and scripting Spurs Jackson and his Space Vigilantes for Charlton's newly-created Space Western Comics!
(Yes, it really existed, as shown HERE!)
He also wrote this comic and several other one-shots for Avon Comics.

For the record, Gibson also wrote two volumes of prose adaptations of Twilight Zone TV episodes (with a couple of original tales mixed in), but none of those were sci-fi.
BTW, while this was the only tale adapted into b/w in the 1970s, there were two more chapters of the man vs funky robot saga!
You'll see them next Wednesday and the Wednesday after that...

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Panic Pete!

Space Hero Saturdays SPACE DETECTIVE "SpaceShip of the Dead!"

We're about to join Avenger (aka Space Detective) and Teena...

...as they begin their final published adventure, fighting crime in a future time!

Don't worry Teena, you'll meet up with Beast Man and Vulcan Woman sooner than you think...like NOW, by clicking HERE for Part 2 and HERE for Part 3!

Though the writer and inker are unknown, the penciler of this kool 3-part tale (and the b/w inside front cover synopsizing this tale) from Avon's Space Detective #4 (1952) is Gene Fawcette.

Blending the hard-boiled gumshoe, sci-fi and superhero genres, Space Detective burst onto the comics scene in 1951.

Future-era wealthy philanthropist Rod Hathway and his secretary Dot Kenny fight interplanetary evil and helped the innocent as Avenger and Teena using the methods of 1940s gumshoes combined with the technology of the far future!

Blasters instead of revolvers!

Personal jetpacks instaed of taxis!

Stories, whose titles included "Opium Smugglers of Venus" and "Bandits of the Starways", delivered fast-paced action.
And you can read the complete four-issue Space Detective saga by clicking HERE!

Weird Trivia:

1) Despite the fact that neither character wore a mask, nobody ever commented "hey, ain't you that famous Hathway guy?" or somesuch.

(Maybe they were too busy looking at Teena's cleavage?)

2) Nobody ever calls Rod "Space Detective"! He's always called "Avenger".

3) The original user of the name "Avenger", a Doc Savage-style pulp/comic character, hadn't been published since 1944.

The trademark had lapsed, so it was used on this unrelated character from a different company.

This sort of thing is far more common in comics/pulps than you might think.
In fact, only a few years after the final issue of Space Detective, a new Avenger (a Russkie-smashing superhero) popped up, as shown HERE!
And, in fact, Rod Hathaway wasn't even the first "Space Detective"!
There was another one, Lance Lewis: Space Detective, published by Nedor Comics, a few years earlier, as shown HERE!

However, he was only a back-up strip, and never had his own book, though he was featured on the cover of Startling Comics for a while!

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics