Space Force Saturdays SPACE BUSTERS "Empress of Belzar"

Space Busters was a war/military comic...set in the future.

Think of it as a less-sophisticated version of Starship Troopers, sorta "Sgt Fury or Sgt Rock in Space"!

Interestingly, it featured a woman (albeit a non-combatant) as a regular member of the front-line team.
(A rarity in comics until the late 1980s)

As to the plot...the planet Belzar has invaded our Solar System, managing to conquer everything from Pluto to Mars, with Earth next in line.

However, Earth's military is about to launch a counter-attack...

Unlike the other strips we've been running, this wasn't a spacegoing police force, but a "marines in space" series.

(BTW, for those who were wondering, Space Busters wasn't "inspired" by Robert Heinlein's Hugo Award-winning Starship Troopers since it pre-dates it by more more than half a decade!)
Illustrated by EC Comics mainstay Bernie Krigstein (who was also the artist on ZD's Space Patrol, based on the TV series), this premiere tale from Ziff-Davis' Space Busters #1 (1952) was likely scripted by editor Jerry (Superman) Siegel!

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Friday Fun FUNNYMAN: the Other SuperHero from the Co-Creators of Superman!

 

What do you do after you've created the ULTIMATE comics character...and lost the rights to him?

Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster faced that problem in 1947!
When they sued DC Comics (then National Periodicals Publications), they lost all the assignments (both individually and as a team) they were working on.

To pay the bills, they solicited work from other comics companies both on existing characters and, in one case, creating a NEW character...FunnyMan for Magazine Enterprises!

FunnyMan was Larry Davis, a comedian looking for a shtick.

His girlfriend / agent June suggested a publicity stunt with Larry dressing in his trademark clown outfit, "accidentally" coming upon a (staged with actors) "crime scene" and disarming and capturing the "criminals" using his props, all the while being photographed by conveniently-placed cameramen.

As you might have guessed, Larry stumbled on a real crime in progress, and thinking it was the pre-planned stunt, captured a real criminal!

When he discovered he had captured an actual criminal, Larry decided to continue battling crime, using mocking humor and embarrassing tricks to punish evildoers!

Trivia:

The editor at Magazine Enterprises who bought FunnyMan was Vin Sullivan, who also bought Superman from Siegel & Shuster when he was an editor at National Periodical Publications!

Larry Davis, FunnyMan's civilian identity, was based on movie / radio comedian Danny Kaye!

It was a clever idea, and pretty well executed.

Unfortunately, it didn't catch on.

The book only lasted six issues.

There was also a short-lived newspaper strip.

After FunnyMan failed and Siegel & Shuster lost their lawsuit, they went their separate ways.

But...FunnyMan has NOT been forgotten!

There's a book about the character--Siegel & Shuster's Funnyman: the First Jewish Superhero from the Creators of Superman by Thomas Andrae and Mel Gordon!

Besides the actual comic stories, there's a wealth of background info about Siegel & Shuster, the Danny Kaye connection, as well as the cultural influences that inspired the character!

Plus: we've brought FunnyMan back with a line of kool kollectibles (including mugs, t-shirts, iPad bags, etc.) in our Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics™ collection!

So why not get a gift set of the new book and one of our collectibles for the pop culture aficionado in your life?
What could it hurt? ;-)

Monday Mars Madness: When the Co-Creator of Superman Helped Mars Invade Earth...TWICE!

The writer who co-created the most famous alien in pop culture...

...tried twice in the 1950s to introduce ongoing Martian superheroes to comics (and potentially other media)!
First up was Lars of Mars!

What if 1950s sci-fi shows like Captain Video or Space Patrol were real?

And the aliens were real aliens, including the TV show's hero who was a heroic Martian secret agent pretending to be an American actor playing a heroic Martian superhero?
That was the "meta-before there-was-meta" premise of the 1951 short-lived (two issue) series, Lars of Mars.
During his run, Lars battled other aliens, Commies, and crooks, while protecting his "secret identity" from his nosy producer (who bore a disturbing resemblance to Lois Lane).
That's not suprising since the writer was also the editor of the Ziff-Davis comics line...Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman!
Despite first-rate art by Murphy Anderson (who would later become a major Superman illustrator in the 1970s) the premise didn't sell.
So Siegel tried again the next year, adding a couple of twists to the concept!

Tarka, the Crusader from Mars, was the first Martian to commit murder in over half a century.
(It was actually manslaughter since it was an accidental killing while fighting with another man over a woman.)
Instead of being imprisoned, he was sent to Earth, where he (and the woman he was fighting for) were given cover identities as a businessman and his secretary.
The pair were given assignments by the Martian government with the caveat that if they failed, the Earth (with them still on it) would be obliterated rather than allow a threat they couldn't stop to spread to other worlds!

You can read the entire Lars of Mars series...including a never-reprinted conclusion (in 3-D, no less) by clicking HERE!
You can read the entire Crusader from Mars series by clicking HERE!

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Friday Fun AMAZING ADVENTURES "Adonis 2-PX-89"

This week's Valentine's Day-oriented entry is a weird combo of sci-fi and humor...

Art by Allen Anderson

...which was probably written by the man who created the Clark Kent/Superman/Lois Lane love/hate triangle...

This cover story from Ziff-Davis' Amazing Adventures #4 (1951) was illustrated by Henry Sharp who, during his decade in comics, illustrated only sci-fi or war stories!

Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel was the editor of the Ziff-Davis comics line, and wrote many of the stories that appeared in it, so it's not unreasonable to assume this tale, which contains many plot aspects common to those tales of Superman and Lois Lane, was scripted by the same writer!

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Reading Room WEIRD THRILLERS "Cycle of Time!"

Here's a sci-fi triple-treat: time travel, aliens, and dinosaurs!

This kool tale appeared in the HTF Ziff-Davis' anthology Weird Thrillers #2 (1951)!

Illustrated by Murphy Anderson, who was doing quite a bit of work for Z-D including the second issue of Space Busters and both issues of Lars of Mars as well as various one-shots like this.

We don't know who wrote this tale, but it might be series editor Jerry (Superman) Siegel.

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Reading Room LARS OF MARS 3-D "When Terrorists Die..."

Get out the 3-D glasses, kiddies...

...as we present the final, never-reprinted Lars of Mars tale...from 1987???

Eclipse Comics and 3-D expert Ray Zone were using a number of old comic strips as the basis for a series of 3-D comics.

But this was an entirely-new tale created specifically for Eclipse's Lars of Mars 3-D #1 (1987), as detailed below...

The rest of the book were reprints of "EarthShaker" and "Terror Weapon" modified to 3-D.

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Monday Madness FAIRY TALES "Belling the Cat" "Boy Who Cried Wolf!" "Lion and the Mouse"

A trio of never-reprinted one-pagers complete our Fairy Tales presentation...for now!

A short based on the classic folktale rendered in a very Walt Kelly-esque style from Ziff-Davis' Fairy Tales #11 (1951)!

Short but effective, this re-telling of the parable/fable, also from Fairy Tales #11, was the inside back cover feature, which is why it's b/w instead of four-color!

The inside front cover of Fairy Tales #10 (which is actually the first issue) presents an adaption of one of Aesop's Fables, not a "fairy tale", per se!

Fairy Tales will return in the first week of November.

But, beginning next Monday and running through October, we're running the never-seen-in-America Dracula humor strips from the original Spanish-language Dracula comic from 1971!

Note: the 12-issue magazine series was translated and reprinted in England, then the first 6 issues were packaged as a trade paperback by Warren (Creepy/Eerie/Vampirella) Publications!

But neither English-language version ran these one-pagers...despite the fact the strip is wordless!

Don't miss them!

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