Holiday Reading Room PICTURE STORIES FROM THE BIBLE: NEW TESTAMENT "Story of Jesus: Part One"

The origin tale of Jesus Christ has, usually, been presented tastefully, even reverently!

Here's the most-reprinted comic book version of all...

The story continues with a caption mentioning that Mary and Joseph escaped and then takes up with Jesus as a 'tween.

Originally published by All-American Comics under the DC Comics logo in 1942, later editions were done by EC Comics after publisher MC Gaines sold his rights to most of the All-American line to National Allied Publications who combined the two groups into National Periodical Publications.

(National Allied and All-American had been marketing and distributing their books together, usually using the DC Comics logo, which was the result of an earlier buyout of Detective Comics Inc by National!)

Retaining the rights to the Picture Stories series, Gaines used it as the cornerstone of his new EC Comics imprint.

Note: EC Comics, now famous (or infamous) for its horror/sci-fi titles and MAD was originally conceived as Educational Comics with lots of wholesome, young-kid oriented material like Tiny Tots Comics and Land of the Lost!

Don't remember them?
Their sales (except for the Picture Stories of the Bible) were pitiful.

That's why "Educational" Comics became "Entertaining" Comics, though they continued reprinting Picture Stories (but without the EC logo on the front after the whole "Seduction of the Innocent" scare...)

Note: the entire Picture Stories series (including this tale) was written by Montgomery Mulford & Edward Wertheim and illustrated by Don Cameron!

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Space Hero Saturdays FLASH GORDON "and the Space Pirates" Part 2

When Last We Left Flash Gordon (Ahh-ahhh!)...

...wow, the opening caption covered the plotline perfectly!

You'll note Flash is wearing a more ornate outfit while Patch's clothes are the same, but mis-colored (as is her hair, which was silver/white in the previous chapter)!

The story concludes next Saturday!

Illustrated by Gil Kane, replacing Wally Wood.

The writer is unknown.

Though Flash had his own comic at this time, this three-parter appeared in the back of The Phantom's book from the same publisher, King Comics, a division of King Features Syndicate.
(All the King Comics books did this, presumably to expose their target audience to other titles they might not otherwise read.)
Interestingly, Flash's own book ran backup stories of Mandrake the Magician (who also had his own book) and Secret Agent X-9 (who didn't have a book at the time)!

The particular tale appeared in the back of King's The Phantom #19 (1966).

Pearl Harbor Day Special: UNCLE SAM "Ruthless Invaders!"

Six months before Pearl Harbor, this comic book story predicted the event...

...in Quality Comics' National Comics #18, cover-dated December 1941!

Remember that comic books used to be cover-dated 2-4 months before the actual on-sale date, and that the actual production time for a comic is anywhere between 1-3 months!

So this comic was on sale in September or October of 1941, and the story was written by Will Eisner and drawn by Lou Fine sometime between May and August of that same year!

Eerie, eh?

Note: they didn't get some of the details quite right...

Guam is hit at the same time as Pearl Harbor.

This one is weirdly close to reality!

Guam was attacked and conquered the very next day, Dec 8th!

Aircraft bomb Guam and battleships shell Pearl Harbor.

In reality, aircraft bombed Pearl Harbor and battleships shelled Guam just before it was invaded!

A German invasion fleet heads for New England!

Plus, the attacks on Pearl Harbor and Guam were part of a coordinated plan by Japan and Germany!

In reality, Germany had no such trans-Atlantic fleet available.

Hell, they couldn't even invade England, only 35 miles away from Axis-occupied France across the English Channel at it's closest point!

And, the Germans were less than happy to discover they now had to deal with America, along with England and Russia!

Hitler had hoped to keep the US out of the war for at least another year.

However the Nazis did honor their pact with Japan and declared war on the USA less than a week after Pearl Harbor.

Space Hero Saturdays FLASH GORDON "and the Space Pirates" Part 1

Ya Want Full-On Space Opera?

Now, Here's SPACE OPERA!

...starring the one-and-only Flash Gordon as rendered by EC Comics legend Wally Wood!

The story continues next Saturday...with a different artist!

Illustrated by Wally Wood and his studio.

Wood (and writer Harvey Kurtzman) had previously-done the hysterical MAD comic book parody "Flesh Garden" (which you can read HERE), but this is his only "official" Flash Gordon work...which is a really shame, because is there's anybody who deserved a chance to do at least one continuity featuring the character, it's him!

The writer is unknown.

Though Flash had his own comic at this time, this three-parter appeared in the back of The Phantom's title from the same publisher, King Comics.

The particular tale appeared in the back of King's The Phantom #18 (1966), which was actually the first issue of the series from King Comics.

(They just continued the numbering from the previous publisher, Gold Key!)

SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS

He's the Jolly Old Elf in a red suit!
They are BIG Green Men from Mars with an even BIGGER robot!
Before Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, they were the ingredients for the weirdest Christmas movie ever!

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians was filmed in 1964 in that bastion of the cinema, Long Island (in an unused aircraft hangar).

Starring a host of tv and b-movie actors including handsome-but-stiff Leonard Hicks as the Martian Leader (and kids' father) Kimar, 60s villain/voiceover artist Vincent Beck (who did lots of work for Irwin Allen's sci-fi shows) as the film's mustache-twirling villain, Voldar, and John Call as a pretty damn convincing Santa Claus, the flick is touted as the debut of future talentless chantuse Pia Zadora as Martian Kid Girmar. Thankfully, she has rather limited screen time.

As an example of low-budget filmmaking, it's actually pretty effective.

Every penny (what few of them they had) is up on the screen.

They make good use of stock footage (from Dr. Strangelove, no less).

And the use of then-popular Wham-O Air Blaster toy guns as the Martian weapons was either a stroke of marketing genius or clever use of limited funds. Either way, sales of the guns shot thru the roof after the film hit the kiddie matinee circuit!

If you're between 3-9 years old, the flick's a lot of fun.

If you're between 10 and whatever the local drinking age is, it'll drive you nuts, especially the theme song!

If you're over the local drinking age, do so before watching! It's available on a host of public domain dvds as well as one of the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 snarkfests.

BTW: The image above is from the comic book tie-in, which you can read in three parts...

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

There was also a single of the theme, a spoken-word LP album of the movie's dialogue, and a novelization!

Now I can't get that damn theme our of my head..."Hoo-ray for Santy Claus..." AARRRGGGHHH!

An early Christmas gift from us to you:
The Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version of the film (don't tell Dr Forrester)...

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Space Hero & Heroine Saturdays BUZZY BEAN AND HIS FLYING SAUCER "Secret of Planet 5"

When Last We Left Our Two 'Tween Astronauts...

...are they saved, or just out of the frying pan and into the fire?

Sadly, Buzzy and Betty's adventures ended with this never-reprinted story from Good Comics' Johnny Law: Sky Ranger #4 (1955) since the company went out of business after the book was printed and distributed.

Trivia: After Good Comics folded, Publisher/Editor/Art Director Edmond Good became Art Director of Tupperware and remained in the post until he retired in the 1970s!

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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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Monday Mecha Madness CAPTAIN SCIENCE COMICS "Robots of Ra"

For sheer weirdness (not to mention incomprehensibility), few stories can top this tale...

...from the back of Youthful's Captain Science #2 (1951)!

You'll note the art style for this never-reprinted story varies wildly from page to page.

The credited artist, Walter Johnson, depended heavily on assistants to produce a high volume of pages for the various comics companies (including Avon, St John, Fiction House, and Youthful Publications) he supplied art to!

The work of several different illustrators with varying levels of draftsmanship is apparent on this one story, including one or more who swipe from both Flash Gordon's Alex Raymond and Phantom Lady's Matt Baker!

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