Space Hero Saturdays FANTASTIC COMICS "Space Smith and the Floating Island in the Lost Sun"

One of the Truly Difficult Things About This Feature...

...is coming up with titles for Fletcher Hanks' almost-always untitled stories!

How do you convey some of the truly weird goings-on?

This Space Smith tale from Fox Features' Fantastic Comics #5 (1940) could've had several different titles including "The Hopping Men of the Floating Island!" or "The Hopping Men of the Lost Sun!"!

We decided on the title based on the two locations shown in the story!
But, like most of Fletcher Hank's stories, there's so much going on that it's hard to pin down one or two aspects.

Best to just go along for the ride and enjoy!

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I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets!

by

Fletcher Hanks

Space Hero Saturdays COSMIC CARSON "Iako's Attack!"

This totally-inaccurate cover from Fox's Science Comics #4 (1940) by Joe Simon...

...featuring characters who never appear in the strip (except for the hero) marks Cosmic Carson's only cover appearance ever!

Ah, but it's who's on the inside that counts...and for this issue, it's Jack (King) Kirby, who penciled and inked this story!

("Michel Griffith" was a Fox Comics pen-name that anybody who wrote or drew this strip used!)

Though this Cosmic Carson tale from Fox's Science Comics #4 (1940) ends on a cliffhanger, the story in the next issue neither resolves nor even mentions it, or the current plotline and characters!
Not surprising, since Kirby had been moved to other strips in the next month's production cycle.
Cosmic Carson, in and of itself, was one of the worst, most inconsistent, poorly-plotted and illustrated strips (with this one exception) in the history of comic books.
(And that's saying a lot!)
So enjoy this appearance, since it's the only one Cosmic Carson will make in any RetroBlog!

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Reading Room ROCKET SHIP X "Robot Rebellion"

We're DOOMED, do you hear me?

DOOMED, because tomorrow will bring a...

...as shown in this never-reprinted tale from Fox's Rocket Ship X #1 (1951).

It's actually a decent little tale whose creators, regrettably, are anonymous.

Think James Cameron read it as a kid?

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Space Hero Saturdays FLICK FALCON IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION "Return to Mars"

We Have Already Seen...

...now that you're caught up, watch as, unarmed and with Adele by his side, Flick prepares for another journey.

Writer-penciler Don Rico's wild imagination goes full-speed, combining science fiction and fantasy elements with equal aplomb in this never-reprinted tale from Fox's Fantastic Comics #2 (1940).

It's interesting to note the three-armed slavers introduced last time aren't native to Mars, as Flick thought...though no mention is made about whether the giants they control are Martians or not. 

Also, rather odd for a kids' story, is the fact that sexual attraction can be used to break the alien slavers' control!

Inker Claire Moe (who usually scripted, penciled and inked her own material for Fox, Centaur, and Novelty), helped out probably due to a tight deadline.

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Space Hero Saturdays FANTASTIC COMICS "Space Smith and the Headless Men of the Gold Comet"

Newspaper comics had Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, and Brick Bradford...

...but comic books had the even wilder exploits of adventurers like Space Smith!

Wow!

Dianna's no mere helpless female sidekick, as this tale from Fox's Fantastic Comics #4 (1940) proves!

Fletcher Hanks was no stranger to visualizing assertive women.

His Fantomah strip in Fiction House's Jungle Comics presented a jungle heroine with super-powers on a par with Wonder Woman (whom she pre-dated by a year)!

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I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets!

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Fletcher Hanks

Space Hero Saturdays FANTASTIC COMICS "Space Smith and the Leopard Women of Venus"

Prepare yourself for a redefinition of "space opera" as we again enter the imagination of Fletcher Hanks!

BTW, if you want to even vaguely understand what's going on, read HERE and HERE before continuing...

Some call Fletcher Hanks the "Ed Wood of comics", but there's no mistaking the sheer imagination behind the deceptively-primitive art.

When comic books featuring new material (they were initially comic strip reprints) first appeared in the late 1930s, it was an "anything goes" market as publishers would run whatever they could lay their hands on from comic strip and pulp magazine professionals as well as talented (read "cheap") amateurs.

Some, like Siegel & Shuster, Simon & Kirby, and Finger & Kane created what would become American icons.

Others. like Hanks, were like mayflies, briefly appearing...then disappearing, leaving little behind.

Even comics geeks had forgotten about Hanks' material, which sat un-reprinted for over half a century, until Fantagraphics produced a couple of books collecting his work from the various anthology titles it appeared in!

We're now presenting the entire Space Smith series in Space Hero Saturdays, including Hanks' work and the later, more conventional tales by others (including a few surprise contributors).

Watch for them...

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I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets!

by

Fletcher Hanks

Space Hero Saturdays FLICK FALCON IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION "To Mars and Back"

You know the scientist-hero of this strip is stark-raving bonkers...

...when, after seeing a test item come back through his teleporter inside-out, he leaps into the device!

This premiere tale from Fox's Fantastic Comics #1 (1939) ends right there.

No "To Be Continued" caption or anything else.

The next page begins another strip, Sub Saunders.

But fear not, Flick Falcon will return for 20 more issues of Fantastic Comics!
Unlike Brick Bradford or Doctor Who, both of whom used other people's tech to jaunt around the Universe (and eventually the Multiverse), Flick created his own mode of travel, avoiding tedious (and dangerous) interplanetary travel by ship.
BTW, "Orville Wells" was a pen-name, probably inspired by Orson Welles, who had, only a few months before, panicked America with the legendary War of the Worlds radio show.
The artist (and probably writer) was Don Rico, who would become one of the premier creatives working in 1940s-50s comics before turning to writing novels.
(You can read one of his wildest comic tales HERE!)
Unlike contemporary Fletcher Hanks, whose Stardust and Space Smith strips also premiered in this issue, Rico's never received the attention and acclaim his equally-offbeat work deserves.
(That's not to put-down Hanks in any way.
His wild creations are equally as deserving of critical study by aficionados of sci-fi/fantasy.)
BTW, this never-reprinted tale was Rico's very first published comics work.

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