Reading Room UNKNOWN WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION "Hunter and the Hunted"

This is a tale that requires careful study...

...since, according to it's author, only one person has ever figured it out on first reading!

Originally published in the one-shot fanzine Abyss in 1970, Marvel's Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #2 (1975) reprinted the tale after it's writer-artist, Mike Kaluta gained pop culture fame as the illustrator of DC Comics' revival of the pulp hero The Shadow!

UWoSF Editor Roy Thomas commented that Kaluta “…congratulated [him] for being one of the few human beings he’s met who actually figured the story out on first reading.”

Have you figured it out, dear reader?

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The Studio

A long-OOP trade paperback featuring the work of Kaluta, Jeffrey Jones, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Berni Wrightson when they shared a NY loft in the 1970s!

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder ROBBIE

Here's a kool project that, unfortunately, never reached fruition.

You'd think combining elements of Little Nemo in SlumberLand with Flash Gordon should've been an easy sell in the 1960s.

But, this two-page labor of love by writer Len (Mars Attacks) Brown and Al (Flash Gordon) Williamson was presented to the syndicates at a time when the only adventure strips were "legacy" series with an already-existing following.
So, it was consigned to the dustbin of history, published in the same 1962 issue of the b/w fan/prozine Fantasy Illustrated that last Thursday's "Life Battery" originally-appeared in.
They've popped up several times since, at least once at original art size!

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Al Williamson

Hidden Lands

Reading Room I'LL BE DAMNED "Nest Egg"

Here's a sci-fi strip meant for Major Publications' Web of Horror #4...

...but, since that magazine ended with #3, it found a home in Mark Feldman's I'll be Damned #2, a year later!

Note the word balloon coming out of the big black hole in the title lettering where a photostat of "Webster" (the monstrous spider host of Web of Horror) would have been pasted-up.

Instead it's a word balloon coming out of a literal black hole!

Written by Alan Simons, penciled by Steve Hickman, inked by Robert L Kline (1-3) & Dan Adkins (4-6), this never-reprinted tale is an example of the high-quality material in fanzines of the late 1960s-early 1970s, much of which (sadly) has never been seen since the mags were limited to mail order and comics convention sales!

(There were no comics shops, and no such thing as the internet at that time...hard to conceive, I know!)

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Sense of Wonder

My Life in Comic Fandom

Friday Holiday...FUN? "Twas the Night Before Christmas"

Long before he was famous...

...a certain now-legendary writer-artist was just another aspiring young comics creator presenting work in fanzines to show people what he could do!

Before The Dark Knight Returns!
Before 300!
Before Sin City!
Here's Frank Miller murdering Santa Claus!
A never-reprinted tale from the incredibly-HTF fanzine APAFive #39 (1974)!
A sign of things to come?
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Marvel Universe by Frank Miller
Omnibus

Space Hero Saturdays FLASH GORDON "Even Legends May Die"

I'm a fan of literally everything relating to Flash Gordon...

...and this never-reprinted short from the HTF fanzine Heritage (1971) is one of the best Flash stories ever!

You can tell writer/artist Estaban Maroto is a serious Alex Raymond fan, right?

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On the Planet Mongo

Compete Flash Gordon Library

Volume 1

Perez Reading Room HOT STUF' "Uncle Sal and Cousin John Go Planet-Tripping"

This illustration by the late George Perez is not related to the story below...

...it's just incredibly-kool.

Note that the above was created only four years after the tale below was produced for Sal Quartuccio's fanzine/prozine Hot Stuf' #1 (1974).
Before websites like DeviantArt, such zines (sold at conventions and the then-new comic book stores) were the primary way for fans-turning-pros like George Perez to get their work out into the public's eye!

Written by Hot Stuf' editor Bob Keenan and inked by Bob Garrison, this was one of George Perez's earliest published tales.
And, to answer an obvious question, there was never a sequel to this "Harold and Kumar Meet Conan the Barbarian"-type story!

Perez was working as an assistant to already-established artist Rich Buckler (who also had a story in this issue) at the time, and George's first Marvel work, the final Gullivar Jones of Mars story (shown HERE) was published a couple of months after this!

The rest, as they say, is history...

Reading Room REALITY "Quasar!"

Long before the internet and DeviantArt, up-and-coming artists were published in fanzines...

...to get their work in front of an audience, receive feedback, and make a few bucks!

Originally-drawn for Web of Horror (which explains the spider-like host of Web, Webster, introducing and concluding the story), this early tale by Steve Hickman ended up in the first issue of Reality, a fanzine published in 1970 by 15-year old Robert Gerson.

When Web died after only three issues, a number of writers and artists had no market for their material without losing all the rights to it, so, in order to get it published to make a few bucks for their labor (and retain the copyrights), they let a young entrepreneur use the stories in his fanzine, which was sold at conventions and in used book stores and head shops alongside underground comics.

(There were no comic book shops back then.)
Hickman spent a few years working in the comics field before moving on to commercial art, particularly sci-fi/fantasy book covers, with over 400 titles to his credit!

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Empyrean

Art of Stephen Hickman

Monday Mars Madness GRAPHIC SHOWCASE "Eyes of Mars"

In the pre-Internet days...

...comic creator wanna-bes had to print samples of their work in "fanzines", then sell them at comic conventions and through mailing lists.

Here's the very first published efforts of a wanna-be who made good...

The Edgar Rice Burroughs-inspired creator of this story from CCCS's Graphic Showcase #1 (1967) is none other than Mike (The Shadow) Kaluta!

The strip was probably intended as weekly installments in a high-school/college paper, but was repurposed for use in the fanzine.

Graphic Showcase ran three issues, with "Eyes of Mars" appearing in all three.

You'll see them in the future...

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Michael Wm. Kaluta: Sketchbook Ser

ies

Volume 1