Wednesday Worlds of Wonder PHANTASMAGORIA "Parasite!"

Kenneth Smith is a Remarkable Comics/Sci-Fi/Fantasy Creative!

Besides having a Doctorate in European Political Philosophy, Kenneth R Smith is a talented writer-artist who's done covers for paperbacks, magazines, and comics, themed illustration portfolios, spot illustrations for magazines and several comic stories.

Here's one from the second issue of his self-published magazine, Phantasmagoria...

Beautiful work.

His comics/sci-fi/fantasy career was short, but he produced spectacular material!
And he's happily-worked in his chosen field of interest, where he's a respected figure, both simultaneously and then full-time!
Would that we all could achieve that!

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Phantasmagoria

Complete Series

by Kenneth R Smith

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Reading Room BLACK CAT MYSTIC "MysteryVision!"

Here's a tale that could've inspired the movie They Live! as well as several Twilight Zone eps...

...plus it has a rather unique aspect we'll explain at the conclusion...

"We take our leave of Herman Scudder, who discovered that "reading" people can be as easy as reading an eye-chart...in the Twilight Zone..."

(Sorry, instinctively channeled Rod Serling for a moment...)

Pencils and inks for this never-reprinted story from Harvey's Black Cat Mystic #57 (1956) are by Jack Kirby, who rarely inked his own work since editors felt his time was better-spent penciling at a rate of up to four pages per day!

(Yes, I said per day!)

Probably written by either Kirby himself, or studio co-owner/creative partner Joe Simon.

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Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio

featuring images shot directly from the original art!

Baker Reading Room OUT OF THIS WORLD "Return of the Pied Piper"

A Corrupt Politician Who Steals Public Funds!

As common back in 1959, when this never-reprinted story was published, as today, 65 years later!

Written by Joe Gill, penciled by Matt Baker (with only a single beautiful woman in sight) and inked by Vince Colletta, this story from Charlton's anthology Out of this World #13 (1959) is dependent on the reader being familiar with the classic fairy tale of "The Pied Piper of Hamlin"!
Wonder how many kids today know about the tale and would get the "punchline"...

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Matt Baker

Art of Glamour

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Monday Madness STUART TAYLOR IN WEIRD STORIES OF THE SUPERNATURAL "Faustus"

Despite the title, the series is actually sci-fi about a time traveler and his machine...

...who occasionally run into mystical menaces.

IIRC, The Time Tunnel TV series did the same thing, encountering Merlin, the ghost of Nero, and others along with the usual silver-skinned Irwin Allen aliens...

This series started in Jumbo Comics #1 (1939) as Diary of Dr Hayward, illustrated by Jack Kirby under the house pseudonym "Curt Davis" (which was used for every story in the series).

With #5, Lou Fine assumed the art chores, and several issues later the title changed to Weird Stories of the Supernatural as lab assistant Stuart Taylor took center stage and old Doc Hayward became a supporting character.

(In fact, the series title sometimes listed "Stuart Taylor" above the "Weird Stories..." logo, playing up the action-hero aspect, as it does here.)

As of #15, a rotating lineup of artists contributed art but no other "big names" worked on the series which continued for almost the entire run of Jumbo, ending at #140 (1950).

This particular never-reprinted story is from Jumbo Comics #111 (1948) and was produced by the Iger Studio, which supplied almost all of Fiction House's comic material during this period!

Reading Room BLACK CAT MYSTIC "A Weemer is the Best of All!"

"Whimsical" is not a word you usually associate with Jack (King) Kirby...

...but in this case, it's perfectly appropriate!

Though Jack Kirby both penciled and inked (a rare occurrence) this tale from Harvey's Black Cat Mystic #59 (1957), the identity of who wrote it is unknown, but it's probably Kirby himself or ex-partner Joe Simon who was the editor of the book at Harvey Comics!

BTW, Black Cat Mystic, despite the title, was a science-fiction, not horror, comic!

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Simon & Kirby Library

Science Fiction
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Reading Room JUNGLE JIM "Wizard of Dark Mountain"

When Jungle Jim returned to comic books in new stories during the 1960s...

...the usually "realistic" high adventure strip jumped head-first into all-out sci-fi/fantasy!

Written and laid-out by Bhob Stewart, pencilled by Steve Ditko, and inked by Wally Wood. this cover-featured story from Charlton's Jungle Jim #22 (1969) was prepared for the character's previous publisher, King Comics, but ended up at Charlton when King Features Syndicate dropped in-house comic book publishing.

You can read Bhob's account of how this story was produced HERE.

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Official Jungle Jim Annual
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Reading Room WORLD OF SUSPENSE "Very Old Man"

Despite Marvel Entertainment's extensive reprinting program...

...there's an incredible amount of Timely/Atlas material that hasn't seen the light of day since the 1940s-50s!

This is one such tale...

Edited (and likely plotted) by Stan Lee, and penciled by Sol Brodsky, this never-reprinted story from Atlas' World of Suspense #8 (1957) is a typical morality tale from the Comics Code-controlled era.

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3