Space Force Saturdays INTERPLANETARY POLICE "Space Trap" Part 1

Tanya, the Space Siren has another cunning plan...

...and only Bruce Warren (and his little brother Terry) can stop her nefarious scheme in this tale from Buster Brown Comic Book #29 (1952)!

 What do they find?

(We know, but we ain't talking!)

You'll have to be back next Saturday to discover the startling secret!

The eagle-eyed among you will notice a redesign of the police uniforms and spacecraft from the previous story.

Reed Crandall, who finished the pencils over Ray Bailey's layouts, revamped them in a jauntier, more "Flash Gordon" style rather than the utilitarian "Space Cadet" look they initially had.

Crandall took over full penciling as of the next issue.

Written by Hobart Donovan.

Penciled by Ray Bailey and Reed Crandall

Inked by Ray Willner.

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics 

Reading Room BLAST-OFF "Little Earth"

This is a classic example of an unheralded gem by two graphic-story masters...

...that has been reprinted only once, and in a limited-edition trade paperback, so most of you have never seen it!

Oddly, the GCD lists it as penciled by Reed Crandall and inked by Al Williamson, but Teddy I at pencilink.blogspot.com reverses the credits!
Personally, I think both artists, in typical Fleagle Gang-style worked at both tasks in various panels.

The writer is Larry Ivie, who scripted several dozen stories for Marvel, DC, Tower, King, and Warren in the 1960s, and also published Monsters and Heroes, a competitor to Famous Monsters of Filmland!

According to the Kirby Museum, this story was intended for Harvey's never-published Race for the Moon #5 in 1958, but remained unused until 1965, when it ran in the Harvey one-shot anthology Blast-Off!

Reading Room TWILIGHT ZONE "Joiner"

Submitted for your approval, we present a cover-featured comic story...

...that would've been too expensive to produce during the show's initial run, and featuring a protagonist all this blog's readers can identify with!

The first few issues of a Twilight Zone title were produced by Dell Comics, featuring ex-EC Comics artists!

(All the tales in this issue were illustrated by George Evans and Reed Crandall!)

Beneath a nicely-rendered George Wilson-painted cover lurks...

In Dell's Four Color #1288 (1962), writer Leo Dorfman and artists George Evans & Reed Crandall deliver a "revenge of the nerd" tale any sci-fi fan from the 1990s (or earlier) would appreciate.

Today, thankfully, nerds are the mainstream!

Fraternal organizations with funky garb like the "lodges" shown in this story were popular until the late 1980s-early 1990s.

To give you an idea of how they were portrayed in pop culture, go HERE.

Note: this was the second of four Twilight Zone issues produced by Dell Comics before they split into two companies, Dell and Gold Key, with almost all the ongoing movie-TV tie-in licenses moving to Gold Key.

There were 92 issues of the second Twilight Zone series from 1963 until 1982, with no stories adapted from the show itself...though some share similar plot elements!

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Atomic Kommie Comics

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Twilight Zone

by Walter (The Shadow) Gibson

Adapting episodes from the TV series along with several original tales!

Steve Reeves IS Hercules in HERCULES & HERCULES UNCHAINED

Skip the pablum and have some peplum today with...

at
Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™ 
as we go to sunny Italy for a solid six days of posts featuring the comic adaptations of two sword and sandal (with a hint of sorcery) sagas starring the one-and-only Steve Reeves!
HERCULES

...featuring the manly art of John Buscema
and...
HERCULES UNCHAINED

 ...with muscular renderings by Reed Crandall and George Evans!

The testosterone will be oozing off your screen!
(which could be kind of messy...)

PLUS: You can see and compare the actual movies to the comic adaptations!

The Greatest HERCULES of All is Coming to RetroBlogs™!

We hope you've enjoyed five days of...

at Crime & Punishment™ this week
and we want you to join us next week as

Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™ 
goes to sunny Italy for a week of posts featuring two sword and sandal (with a hint of sorcery) sagas starring Steve Reeves...

...featuring the manly art of John Buscema
and...

...with muscular renderings by Reed Crandall and George Evans!
The testosterone will be oozing off your screen!

Heroes of the Golden Age Return...

I'm ecstatic to finally see Alex Ross' Project SuperPowers!
It's everything I hoped in a Golden Age revival; respectful to the original material, but willing to tread new ground. Beautiful covers, nice inside art (though I hear the artist will, unfortunately, be leaving soon.), clever writing.
Two words: BUY IT!

And, if after reading Project SuperPowers #0 (Available now! BUY IT!), you have a craving for kool kollectibles based on the ORIGINAL 1940s versions of the characters, pop over to Atomic Kommie Comics: Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics where their classic cover art has been digitally-restored and remastered onto goodies ranging from messenger bags to t-shirts to mousepads to blank sketchbooks to Lord-Knows-What-Else. It's NOT Alex Ross, but it IS some of the best comics art ever from greats like Mac Raboy, Lou Fine, Reed Crandall, and Alex Schomburg, among others! Plus: multiple cover images for a number of characters including Black Terror, Fighting Yank, The Face (Mr. Face), Miss Masque (Masquerade), Samson, The Flame, Green Lama, The Owl,and Frankenstein (F-Troop)

One more time: BUY PROJECT SUPERPOWERS!