The Robots are Coming! THE ROBOTS ARE COMING!!!

Last Week, We Re-Presented a Warning About the Dangers of AI Run Amok...

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday
Then, on Friday, we relieved your tension with a tale of a benevolent, self-aware robot...

Friday
Tomorrow, we return to a trio of robots who show us the best robots may be ones under direct human control!

Don't Miss It!

Monday Mecha Madness NIGHTMARE "Massacre of Mankind!"

Look at this tale and tell us...if you can...when was it created?

Was it

The Golden Age (1940s)?

The Atomic Age (1950s)?

The Silver Age (1960s)?

or

The Bronze Age (1970s)?

The answer will surprise you!

One hint: The artist who drew it worked in all four eras!

It was written and laid-out in the 1950s, but penciled and inked in the 1970s!

Scripted by Walter (The Shadow) Gibson and laid-out by Gene Fawcette back in 1952, the tale was fully-penciled and inked by Bill (Sub-Mariner) Everett for Skywald's b/w anthology Nightmare #2 (1971)!

It's actually the first chapter in a three-part tale, but the other two parts were never re-done!
You'll see the complete original tale starting TOMORROW!

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Heroic Tales

Bill Everett Archives Volume 2
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Friday Fun RIOT "Advertisements"

Several people have complained my post about Bill Everett's Marvin the Mouse was too harsh...

...but I submit these never-reprinted pages from Atlas' Riot #5 & #6 (1956) demonstrate Everett could do humor...and in a variety of styles!

Spoofing actual ads from Kleenex, Wildroot Cream Oil, Ford Motors, Westinghouse Electronics and TWA (I have no idea what the bike ad relates to), artist Bill Everett demonstrates his mastery of the page, even imitating the art style of Little Lulu's creator Marjorie Henderson Buell!
The mystery of why his work on Marvin Mouse was, to put it mildly, substandard may never be discovered!
Trivia: Atlas was a bit of a trend-follower, rather than a trend setter, as it became in the Silver Age as Marvel!
Trying to capitalize on EC's success with MAD, Atlas launched four different satire/parody anthologies...Crazy, Riot, Snafu, and Wild, only one of which lasted to seven issues!

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Fire & Water

Bill Everett, the Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics
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Space Hero Saturdays SKYROCKET STEELE "Chapter 2"

Three Years Ago, We Left Space Hero Skyrocket Steele in a Cliffhanger...

...but we're going to correct that oversight starting now!

Great!
Another Cliffhanger!
But we're not gonna wait three more years to present the next chapter!
Skyrocket will return next month!

This second chapter in Steele's space-spanning saga by writer-artist Bill Everett appeared in Centaur's Amazing Mystery Funnies V1N3(a) in 1938.
And there's a simple reason for the weird numbering, which we'll explain when you return next month!
Trivia: Pop culture historian and prolific genre author Ron (Star Hawks) Goulart utilized the name (but nothing else from Everett's strip) for a hysterically-funny novel about 1940s sci-fi movie serials...

(click for bigger image)

...which, while available on Amazon (as seen below) can't be found as this 1980 first edition with a kool cover by noted artist Carl Lundgren!
Snarky Note: I bought it in 1980,when it came out!
That and Goulart's very HTF Tremendous Adventures of Bernie Wine...

...a PG-13/soft R mass-market novel about a young (and extremely horny) comic book artist in NYC, are among my favorite Goulart books in my collection (and I have a lot of them, including ghost-written standalones and series)!

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Skyrocket Steele
by Ron Goulart
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Frightful Friday Fun CRAZY "Drag-ula!"

No, it's not a tale of a transvestite Transylvanian...

...(that's Rocky Horror Picture Show) but our final Dracula tale is a humorous look at the original "bat man" from Atlas' CRAZY #2 (1954)

As was usual with the lead tale in Atlas' CRAZY, this tale was lovingly-rendered by the amazing Bill Everett!

Heck, Bill might even have written it, since he had a number of scripting credits already!

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Sincerest Form of Parody
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Friday Fun MARVIN MOUSE "Not-So-'Honest John' "

The creator of Prince Namor: the Sub-Mariner, Bill Everett, was an amazing writer/artist...

 ...who could do almost anything he was asked to do.

Unfortunately, funny animals, weren't exactly his "cup of tea"!

This never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Marvin the Mouse #1 (1957) was scripted by Stan Lee and illustrated by the aforementioned Bill Everett.

I believe Everett was instructed to make the characters as different as possible from other cartoon mice such as Mickey and Mighty, which resulted in rodents who looked more like rats than mice!

Bill had shown a knack for humor as shown HERE and HERE, but this was a major disappointment!

A caption at the end of the book read "And remember, every issue Marvin Mouse magazine brings you the best in laughs, adventure, and fun ... don't miss a single issue!"

No problem!

The book ended up a one-shot and the already-completed stories intended for #2 became filler in the backs of other humor titles.

(Editor Stan Lee was very frugal and didn't let anything go to waste!)

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Sincerest Form of Parody

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Holiday Reading Room JOURNEY INTO UNKNOWN WORLDS "They Wait in the Shadows!" & JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Monsters on Mercury!"

No Matter Where Humans Travel in the Universe...

...they will find a way to celebrate joy and happiness even under the most stressful of circumstances, as in this tale behind a very misleading (but extremely-kool) Bill Everett cover!

Illustrated by Bob Forgione and scripted by an unknown writer, this story from Atlas' Journey into Unknown Worlds #47 (1956) is more "hard" science-fiction and less "science-fantasy" than this later tale by a pair of Silver Age legends following the same basic plot...

This long-forgotten Stan Lee/Steve Ditko (You've heard of them, right?) tale from Atlas' Journey into Mystery #78 (1962) amps up the humans' paranoia, but plays down scientific accuracy!
(Even in 1962, we knew Mercury was unlivable for humans without extensive protective equipment and clothing!)

But, to be fair, both tales are equally-good at getting the Yuletide message across, eh?

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Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories