Monday Madness BLACK CAT MYSTERY "Colorama"...Before and After the Comics Code!

One of the most notorious stories in 1950s comics went thru some changes...

Art by Howard Nostrand

 ...when it was reprinted after the Comics Code Authority came into existence!

Actually, the theory that "Black" has all the colors together is true only in printing!

It's called "subtractive color", and when you combine all the inks in four-color printing (CYAN, MAGENTA, and YELLOW) as solid colors, they DO produce a BLACK effect on the printed page!

However, the effect that light produces when it's reflected from objects around you (or generated from a tv or computer screen) is called "additive color" and when all the colors are added together, they produce WHITE!
But, at the point where this story appeared in Black Cat Mystery #45 (1953), there were no computer screens and what little commercial tv existed was almost totally b/w!

When the story was reprinted in Black Cat Mystery #61 (1958), the Comics Code insisted on some alterations, beginning with the cover...

Art by Bob Powell from Page 1 with additional art by Howard Nostrand

...adapted from the first panel on Page 1, but featuring a character not seen in the story itself, and with the protagonist shown in the rear-view mirror wearing glasses he doesn't wear until the end of the story!
Quite frankly, there's nothing too gross or disgusting about the original cover, so why it wasn't used is unknown...

Page 1 in the reprint is unaltered.

Page 2 has only one minor change; the policeman's less-snarling expression in Panel 5...

There are no changes on Page 3

Page 4, on the other hand, has a major change...the optometrist survives!

 

And the final page is unchanged.

Script and art are by Golden Age great Bob Powell.

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Ten-Cent Plague

Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America

Reading Room: DAN HASTINGS "Radium Raiders from Earth's Core"

Originally a Flash Gordon clone, even using Alex Raymond art swipes....

...by the time the wandering strip took up residence in Scoop Comics, it had gotten away from interplanetary adventures to intraplanetary tales!

I suspect this tale from Dynamic's Scoop Comics #1 (1941) was meant to be an interplanetary adventure with several panels redrawn/relettered to make it a "civilization at the earth's center" story.

Both writer and artist(s) are unknown.

Originally proposed as a newspaper strip packaged by the Harry A Chesler Studio in 1937, Dan Hastings was reworked into comic book format when comics using new material instread of strip reprints took off in 1939!

The series went thru several different publishers, starting at Chesler/Dynamic, moving to Centaur, then MLJ (later Archie), finally back to Chesler/Dynamic, with minor modifications to cast and premise at each company.

This tale was the first of his final run at Chesler/Dynamic, where he faced more Earth-bound foes, including thinly-disguised Axis surrogates (with more advanced tech than the real-life Germany and Japan).

Tales Twice Told STRANGE GALAXY "Planet of Horror"

Remember "Last Expedition", our "Tale Twice Told" from Tuesday?

Well, here it is again, right down to the original captions, dialogue balloons and character names!

Eerie Publications editor Carl Burgos thought the story from Fiction House's Planet Stories #72 (1953) was good enough to have Argentinian artist Oswal re-draw it almost 20 years later for the b/w magazine Strange Galaxy V1N8 (1971)!

(In fact, all the stories that appeared in the Eerie Publications line-up were either actual reprints or re-drawn versions of 1940s-1950s tales from defunct publishers!)

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Sci-Fi Art: a Graphic History

Tales Twice Told PLANET COMICS "Last Expedition"

In space, things are not always as they seem...

...as this story of the rescue of personnel from a science research colony aptly demonstrates!

This tale from Fiction House's Planet Comics #72 (1953) was illustrated by Bill Benulis, but the writer is unknown.

That's a pity, because Eerie Publications editor Carl Burgos thought the story was good enough to re-do almost 20 years later...as we'll see on Thursday!

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Mysteries in Space

The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics

Reading Room AMAZING ADULT FANTASY "Why Won't They Believe Me?"

Stan (the Man) Lee felt a good story...

...such as this one from Atlas' Amazing Adult Fantasy #7 (1961), was worth repeating...

Scripted by Lee and illustrated by his Spider-Man and Dr Strange co-creator Steve Ditko, the tale was typical of the "gotcha" snap-ending stories made popular in mass culture by Rod Serling on The Twilight Zone, but done, in comics, a decade earlier in the EC Comics horror and sci-fi/fantasy books (though usually with more gore).

Lee re-used (and expanded) the plot almost a decade later when he re-did it with another Silver Age legend, as you'll see tomorrow...

Reading Room DAN HASTINGS "Enemy That Wouldn't Die!"

Previously, we showed you a one-off sci-fi story from the 1950s...

...which, it turns out, was a reworked tale from the 1940s!

This original version of the twice-told tale featured ongoing hero Dan Hastings and appeared in Dynamic's Dynamic Comics #20 (1946), illustrated by Ralph Mayo.

Such reuse of already-paid material was not uncommon for some of the smaller comic publishers and packagers.

Sometimes art was reused several times, with totally-rewritten dialogue and different characters, as was done in this case!

BTW, I covered Dan Hastings' history along with another story HERE.

Reading Room ZIP-JET COMICS "Space Doom"

Here's a one-shot tale in the Flash Gordon / Buck Rogers vein...

...that's not quite what it seems to be.

Did I say "in the Flash Gordon / Buck Rogers vein"?

Numerous panels are swiped almost verbatim by artist Ralph Mayo from those strips!

Quinto, the villain, looks like Ming the Merciless with five o'clock shadow!

When I came across this tale from St John's Zip-Jet Comics #2 (1953), I had the feeling it was an older story that was reworked.

(In fact, the entire Zip-Jet run consisted of modified reprints, with a couple of new covers and splash pages tossed in!)

Be here Thursday to see the original version of this tale!

Why not tomorrow?

It's a sacred day on our calendar!

Stop by and find out...