Cover Gallery SPACE ACTION

Here's the complete cover collection for Ace's Space Action...

Art by Lou Cameron

...which share something in common with the covers for Lost Worlds and Fantastic Worlds besides being science fiction-themed (We showed those covers HERE)!

Art by Matt Fox and/or Lou Cameron

Artist unknown

The answer?

None of the covers relate to any of the stories inside the books!

(But they're kool, eh?)

Space Hero Saturdays SKYROCKET STEELE "...in the Year 'X' "

Though best-known as the creator of Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner....

...Bill Everett's first published strip featured this Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers clone...

...Bill Everett's first published strip featured this Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers clone...

In this premiere chapter, the series starts "mid-stream", indicating events crucial to the plot occurred before we join Skyrocket and his buddies.

The captions and dialogue balloons are heavier than normal as expositional dialogue is used to clue the readers in on the situations in the "world of the future".

You'll also note the use of upper and lower-case lettering, unique, even then.

Everett's unique inking style is already developing, though crude in comparison to his later work.

To his credit, Bill doesn't swipe layouts from Alex (Flash Gordon) Raymond, Hal (Tarzan/Prince Valiant) Foster, or any of the already-established masters of the graphic storytelling form as so many of his comic book contemporaries do!

He's not afraid to try his own "camera angles" to tell the story...not always succeeding, but experimenting and learning!

Trivia: Though the character debuted in this tale which appeared in Centaur's Amazing Mystery Funnies #2 (1938), he was the cover feature of issue #1...

....where no sign of him can be found inside of the book!

No one knows why!
Trivia: Pop culture historian and prolific genre author Ron (Star Hawks) Goulart utilized the name (but nothing else from Everett's strip) for a hysterically-funny novel about 1940s sci-fi movie serials...

(click for bigger image)

...which, while available on Amazon (as seen below) can't be found as this 1980 first edition with a kool cover by noted artist Carl Lundgren!
Snarky Note: I bought it in 1980,when it came out!
That and Goulart's very HTF Tremendous Adventures of Bernie Wine...

...a PG-13/soft R mass-market novel about a young (and horny) comic book artist in NYC, are among my favorite Goulart books in my collection (and I have a lot of them, including ghost-written standalones and series)!

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Skyrocket Steele
by Ron Goulart

Space Heroine Saturdays TARA "Death that Grew!"

You think COVID-19 was bad?

How about a disease created as a biological weapon, as in this never-reprinted tale illustrated by Gene Fawcette?

The writer for this never-reprinted tale from Nedor's Wonder Comics #20 (1948) is (as usual) unknown.

This was the final issue of Wonder Comics...but not then end of the adventures of the Queen of the Space Pirates!

Tara will return with a final tale from another Nedor comic as well as several illustrated text features we haven't run yet, and a cover art gallery!

Check out the

Tara: Queen of the Space Pirates™

Collectibles Store

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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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3

Holiday Reading Room EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Easter Sunday"

Our final Walt (Pogo) Kelly post for Easter...

...is a never-reprinted piece from Four Color Comics: Easter with Mother Goose #220 (1949).

We hope you've enjoyed our presentation of these long-lost pieces by one of the field's masters.

Now go eat a chocolate bunny and some marshmallow chicks!

Reading Room WEIRD TALES OF THE FUTURE "Beginning or the End!"

Let's start with ACTION and LOTS and LOTS of SPACESHIPS...

Is that an opening splash page or what?

The rest of the story isn't quite so frantic, but it is interesting...

Oops!

The writer of this never-reprinted story from Key's Weird Tales of the Future #6 (1953) is unknown, but the artist is Eugene E Hughes, who had a brief career in comics working exclusively for Key Publications, then disappeared from the art world (comic books/strips/commercial art) entirely!

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Mysteries in Space

The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics

Easter Egg-citement with Walt Kelly!

April Fools Day is this coming Saturday...

...but we don't believe in waiting to play an April Fools Day trick on you!

This centerfold from Dell's Four Color Comics: Easter with Mother Goose #103 (1946) is a splendid example.

Can you find the bunnies, chicks, and eggs hidden in the art?

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Exciting Easter

Collectibles Shop

Monday Madness REAL FACT COMICS "Rookie of the Year" & PICTURE NEWS "California Flash"

For the past few weeks, we presented a fictional tale about a ballplayer facing prejudice...

...today, it's the "real deal" with the guy who broke the racial barrier in Major League Baseball!

The story from DC's Real Fact Comics #14 (1948) presents the story in a straightforward, if slightly patronizing, manner.

The following tale from Parents Magazine's Picture News #4 (1946) by writer/artist Charles Wessel, predates his being called up to the majors.

Note it does contain a couple of racial stereotypes common to the era, and may be NSFW.

There was also an official Jackie Robinson comic book from major comics publisher Fawcett that lasted six issues (longer than most other comics based on real-life sports figures) from 1949-52.

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Buy the Cover of The Never-Reprinted Premiere Issue...

...of Jackie's Own Comic as a Collectible Poster or Print!

Digitally-restored and remastered from a scan of the actual original cover!