Veterans' Day Special: Comic Books Played a Major Part...

...in shaping the public's impression of our troops during World War II!

Tribute to the Navy Air Corps
featuring F6F Hellcat fighters.
Issue #11

Tribute to the Army Air Force

featuring B-24 Liberator heavy bombers.
Issue #10

Tribute to the Marine Air Corps
featuring F4U Corsair fighters.
Issue #9

Among the classiest were these three beautiful covers for Aviation  Press' Contact Comics.
Spectacular, intense, eye-catching color highlights these poster-style pieces of art by artist LB Cole.
Each one paid honor to the aviation division of one of the three armed forces branches. (The Air Force as a separate branch didn't come about until after WWII)

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Black Light

World of L.B. Cole
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Reading Room / Tales Twice Told VOODOO "Goodbye...World!"

Tuesday we presented an odder (than usual) Silver Age tale...

 ...with a cover that seemed as if was from another story entirely.

Well, it was...sort of.

The story in Ajax's Midnight #4 (1957) was a reprint of a tale from Ajax's Voodoo #7 (1953), which was published during the height of the horror comics boom!

And, let's just say that Ajax's editorial packager, the Iger Studio, was not noted for its' subtle (or even tasteful) stories.

The heavy hand of the Comics Code Authority forced quite a few changes from this wild original version, as you will see from the splash panel onward...

Beyond little things like making the duo who are sent into space to spawn the new human race a married couple instead of a pair of unmarried co-workers, the harpies were redrawn as insect-like humanoids (which made a certain amount of sense), and the ending was totally-redone as a happy ending with humanity surviving the alien onslaught!

Personally, I prefer the original!

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Four Color Fear

Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s

Wednesday Worlds of Wolverton MARVEL TALES "Gateway to Horror"

For Halloween, we're devoting this feature to the demented delineations of Basil Wolverton...

...such as this sordid story from Marvel Tales #104 (1951)!

Marvel Comics (known as this point as Atlas Comics) embraced horror comics as much as any other publisher during the 1950s, occasionally pushing the borders of "good taste" with work by Basil Wolverton, Russ Heath, Bill Everett, Joe Maneely, Steve Ditko, and others.

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Creeping Death from Neptune

Life and Comics of Basil Woverton

Volume One: 1909-1941

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Reading Room / Tales Twice Told MIDNIGHT "Project Final X"

Will the world end in an ecological disaster...

...or will it be something much more sinister?

Now that you've read this story from Ajax's Midnight #4 (1957), you might be asking yourself if it seems like it was a tad...disjointed, and that it didn't make much sense at a couple of points.
There's actually a good reason for thinking that.
The clues are in the cover for that issue...

Look carefully at the differences between the alien you see on the cover and the ones in the story itself.

There is a reason behind it all!

Be here Thursday for the surprising, shocking explanation!

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Four Color Fear

Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s

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FLYING SAUCERS Cover Gallery

Here's the cover art by Gene Fawcette...

...to the story we've been running the past few Wednesdays.

Oddly, when the issue was reprinted a couple of years later, the art was altered...

...and I've never heard an explanation as to why!

For the record, I like the original cover better!

Space Hero Saturdays BUZZY BEAN AND HIS FLYING SAUCER

The US government finally admits we're using flying saucers...

But sci-fi fans have known the truth about flying saucers for years...nay, decades!

Here's a never-reprinted strip about a boy and his personal flying saucer from the 1950s...

...from a short-lived company that only put out two titles with a combined total of nine issues!

Artist Carl Hubbell (no relation to the Hall of Fame baseball player) illustrated over 300 tales from the late Golden Age through the Silver Age at almost every company in the business.

Sadly, the writer of this premiere installment of the series in Good Comics' Johnny Law: Sky Ranger #1 (1955) is unknown.

BTW, the company name was not a boast, since the publisher was Edmond Good, an artist with both newspaper and comic book credits from the beginning of the Golden Age to the end of the Bronze Age.

Buzzy Bean Will Return...

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3
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Reading Room SPACE ACTION "Silicon Monsters from Galaxy X"

If you're a cheesy sci-fi fan like me, you'll go for a story with a title like...

...'cause with a title like that, you're in for a fun (if not totally rational or even coherent) time!

While the writer is unknown, the art for this tale from Ace's Space Action #2 (1952) is attributed to "Jim McLaughlin", who had a short-lived comics career doing work primarily for Ace!

After Ace dropped comics in 1955 to concentrate on paperbacks, "Jim" did a couple of stories for Atlas/Marvel and a run on Dell's comic adaptation of TV's Gunsmoke!
Then "Jim McLaughlin" disappeared!
Totally.
Unlike most comic book artists who went on to do commercial art or newspaper strips, there's no trace of "Jim McLaughlin" after his brief foray into four-color publishing...and no background about his pre-comics career!
Here's another interesting point...his art style altered considerably during his career.
In this story, the inking looks a lot like the work of long-time artist Jim Mooney!
In fact, a number of panels resemble Mooney's work on the DC strip Tommy Tomorrow, which Jim Mooney was both penciling and inking during the same period as "Jim McLaughlin's" work for Ace!
In McLaughlin's later work (particularly his Gunsmoke art), while the layouts look similar, the inking style is totally-different!
Was "Jim McLaughlin" a pen-name for a penciler working with at least two (if not more) different inkers?

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Science Fiction Comics
Taylor History of Comics
Vol 3

Reading Room: SPACE ACTION "MIssion into Time"

Remember When This Happened 10 Years Ago?

...You Don't???
But, it was predicted in this tale published in the third and final issue of Ace's sci-fi anthology, Space Action (1952)!
Did they lie???

At least this tale, illustrated by Lou Cameron, offers an explanation as to why time travelers haven't come back to the past...AFAWK!

But, I find it difficult to believe the people of the future couldn't retrofit a vehicle with still-functioning (though centuries-old) technology with a control device.

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3
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