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...

Reading Room UNUSUAL TALES "Edge of Fear"

 Will Those Using Artificial Intelligence Do So with Intelligence and Ethics?

This story from Charlton's Unusual Tales #10 (1958) offers one take on the matter!

Writer Joe Gill and artist Steve Ditko told a fascinating tale about AI-augmented human intelligence over a half century ago that seems to be unfolding today...with vastly different results!

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Steve Ditko Archives

Impossible Tales

Volume 4

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Monday Mecha Madness (Continued) SPACE ADVENTURES "Imitation People" Conclusion

Though it doesn't look like a love story...
...that's what this cover-featured tale from Charlton's Space Adventures V2N4 (1968) most definitely is!
We Have Already Seen...

Scientist Warren Simms' human-looking robots populate Earth II, a planetoid on the edge of the Solar System that serves as a first line of defense against alien incursions.

Simms' robots are programmed to mimic human behavior and emotions...but some of them (his aide Clarissa, particularly) seem to be transcending their programming!

While meeting with Earth's Grand Council to acquire additional funding and resources, Clarissa makes a startling revelation...

Don't you just love a happy ending?

Since the Simms robot is, for all intents and purposes, Simms, we could say that love is eternal and transcends death.

But, what of his soul?

Writer Joe Gill and artist Jim Aparo don't address that matter in this never-reprinted tale.

But that doesn't mean we can't speculate about it, eh?

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Charlton Arrow #4
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Monday Mecha Madness SPACE ADVENTURES "Imitation People" Part 1

Do Robots/Androids Have Souls?

Can they feel "real" (not programmed) emotions?

What does this Don (the Con) Trump wannabe have in mind?

This Joe Gill-scripted, Jim Aparo-illustrated, never-reprinted story from Charlton's Space Adventures V2N4 (1968) will be concluded ...tomorrow!

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Charlton Arrow #4
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Friday Fun ABBOTT & COSTELLO COMICS "Comics Convention!"

Like Jim Starlin, Roy Thomas, Berni Wrightson, and numerous others... 

...writer/artist Grass Green was part of the first generation of fanboys-turned-pros in the 1960s.

What few people knew was that Grass was one of the few Black fanboys!

While he occasionally worked in mainstream comics, as shown in this never-reprinted tale from Charlton's Abbott & Costello Comics #16 (1972), Green found his greatest professional success as the first Black underground/alternative comix writer/artist!

From the early 1970s to the late 1990s, Grass did quite a bit of work for Kitchen Sink, Renegade, Rip Off, and Fantagraphics' Eros imprint.

Sadly, Grass passed away from lung cancer in 2002.

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Black Comics

Politics of Race and Representation
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Reading Room COMIC READER "Invasion!"

Here's a single image that conveys an entire story...

...a, sadly, never-completed tale meant for one of the Charlton sci-fi anthologies of the late Silver Age.

Probably abandoned when Jim Aparo joined editor Dick Giordano when he moved over to DC, it's typical of the detailed work Aparo produced for them, despite the awful printing that would obscure a lot of the time-intensive rendering.

The Comic Reader was a late 1960s-early 1970s newszine/fanzine, available at comic conventions and by subscription.

The covers were almost always exclusives, either pieces done to promote current projects (a Manhunter cover by Walt Simonson during the character's revival in Detective Comics) or unpublished work like this one that editor-publisher Paul Levitz felt deserved exposure to an appreciative audience!

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder JUNGLE JIM "Winged Fury"

In the 1960s, the usually-staid Jungle Jim series jumped into high adventure/fantasy...

...with lost civilizations, mutants, aliens, even mystical menaces, threatening the Don Moore/Alex Raymond-created hero!

Scripted by Bhob Stewart, penciled by Steve Ditko and inked by Wally Wood, this never-reprinted (in color) tale from Charlton's Jungle Jim #27 (1969) was a classic example of how to update a series properly, unlike say, DC's attempt to make the 1940s aviators, the Blackhawks, into super-heroes from that same era!

Trivia: Though the cover looks like just a modification of Ditko/Wood's art on Page 5, panel 1, its actually a redraw by editor Sal Gentile, a pretty good artist in his own right!

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Official Jungle Jim Annual
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Friday Fun / Trump Reading Room HILLBILLY COMICS "MacSleezys: New York AND Bust"

When Last We Left Don the Con's Typical "Deplorables"...

...heck, I'll let the writer present a synopsis of the tale for me...

Written and illustrated by Art Gates, this tale from Charlton's Hillbilly Comics #2 (1955) was part of a brief trend in comic books during the Li'l Abner series' greatest popularity in the mid-1950s!

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Best of Li'l Abner

by Al Capp
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