Space: the Final Frontier...for Christmas Gifts!

Since the 1890s, and the heyday of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, science fiction-themed presents had a place under the Christmas tree and in Xmas stockings for the young (and young at heart)!
Continuing that entertaining tradition, Atomic Kommie Comics™ is proud to offer our line of retro-design sci-fi/fantasy collectibles, The Future WAS Fantastic!™, for both kids AND adults!
We're talking 12-month calendars, messenger bags, mugs, magnets, t-shirts, sweatshirts and other goodies featuring some of the niftiest illustrations from the comic books, pulp magazines, and movie posters of the 1930s-1960s, all digitally-restored and remastered!
Spaceships with wings and big fins!
Ray Guns that zap an army in a flash!
Slimy Aliens!
Killer Robots!
Heroes in bubble-helmeted tight spacesuits!
Heroines in even tighter space suits!
Never did the future look so...stylish!
If you're looking for something in the vein of Star Wars or Star Trek (You did know that George Lucas wanted to remake Flash Gordon, but King Features didn't want to trust a young director whose biggest credit at that point was American Graffiti, didn't you?), here's some of the stuff that provided the visual inspiration for today's hi-tech flights of fantasy!
Enjoy, and may your rocket tubes never overheat...

Bugs & Other Creepy Crawlies 2015 12-Month Calendar

A kool kombination of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror, Bugs & Other Creepy Crawlies of Comics and Pulps™ features numerous six, eight, and multi-legged arthopods in a dozen nightmarish scenarios from the wildest 1930s, 40s, and 50s comic book and pulp magazine covers we could find, all digitally-restored and remastered directly from the original periodicals!A perfect wall decoration for an entomologist or a pest control technician (We called them "exterminators" in the good 'ol days.)

Look for this cover...

at our 2015 12-Month Calendar section!

Order now, before it comes creeping after YOU!

Best of Reading Room: RACE FOR THE MOON "Invasion"

Some people called early television "just radio with pictures"...

...a premise taken to an obvious extreme in this tale...

Unfortunately, the technological level of tv fx in 1958, when this story was published in Race for the Moon #1, make the events of the story highly unlikely.
The primary reason the inspiration for this story, the 1938 War of the Worlds radio hoax by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre of the Air, worked was because peoples' imaginations ran wild, fueled by sound effects and well-written dialogue!
The "visuals" were in their heads!
Nonetheless, the unknown writer and artist Bob Powell did their best in only five pages.
And, the comic's intended audience, kids aged 9-15, could accept the premise, especially if they had no knowledge of the Welles radio show, which wasn't often rebroadcast until old radio show reruns made a comeback in the mid-1960s on college radio stations and lp albums.

NOTE: This story is a radically toned-down version of a tale that appeared a decade earlier!
Tomorrow we'll show you how it ORIGINALLY looked...pre-Comics Code, which has NEVER been reprinted!

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Reading Room: JET POWERS "Thing from the Meteor"

We ran this tale in our old, smaller format, but it deserves a bigger presentation...

More 1950s alien invaders, this time with a never-reprinted tale from Magazine Enterprises' Jet #1 (1950)!

Of course,  if the insectoid alien invaded today, Earth would've been totally-screwed since both lead-based paint and DDT are now banned!
It's a tale that '50s state-of-the-art special effects would've been hard-pressed to do convincingly, but for illustrator Bob Powell, it took only his talented pencil and brush to make you believe a sentient insect could...dare I say it...rule the world!

And check out...

SpaceMan Jet's

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Reading Room: EXPLORERS IN THE UNKNOWN "Runaway Asteroid""

These are the voyages of the Hunter I, it's ongoing mission...

...to fill four pages per issue of Gold Key's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

The Hunter I crew had adventures set in the near-future of the late 1990s-early 2000s, much like then-current films like Green Slime, Wild Wild Planet, and Battle in Outer Space.

With only four pages per issue, there was little character development (or even names) for the crew, but lots of action!

The entire never-reprinted series was written by Dick Wood, and this tale from VttBotS #15 (1969) was illustrated by Jose Delbo, who entered the business in 1965, worked for practically everybody at one point or another, and retired in 1996 with over 800 stories and covers to his credit.

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Reading Room: EXPLORERS IN THE UNKNOWN "Prisoners of the 'Jelly' Planet" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Universe-Spanning Travelers...

...since the comic presented the background so well, I'll just sit back and enjoy the conclusion along with you...

Though Chief Rollan was now part of the crew, he didn't appear again!
(Not that "again" was very long, since next issue would be the strip's final appearance!)
The Hunter I crew had adventures set in the near-future of the late 1990s-early 2000s, much like then-current films like Green Slime, Wild Wild Planet, and Battle in Outer Space.
This never-reprinted tale from VttBotS #14 (1968) was written by Dick Wood (who wrote the entire series) and illustrated by Nevio Zaccara (who remained the strip's artist until the final chapter).

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Reading Room: EXPLORERS IN THE UNKNOWN "Prisoners of the 'Jelly' Planet" Chapter II

When Last We Left Our Interstellar Explorers...

OK, since the comic itself synopsised the plot, let's just continue...

It's nice to see a situation where we out-gun aliens.

Usually, aliens have superior weaponry/tech and we have to be sneaky to triumph over them...

You'll see the conclusion tomorrow, unlike the original readers of this story in 1968 who had to wait three months for the next four-page chapter (VttBotS was a quarterly book)!
The Hunter I crew had adventures set in the near-future of the late 1990s-early 2000s, much like then-current films like Green Slime, Wild Wild Planet, and Battle in Outer Space.
This never-reprinted tale from VttBotS #13 (1968) was written by Dick Wood (who wrote the entire series) and illustrated by Nevio Zaccara (who remained the strip's artist until the final chapter).

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Reading Room: EXPLORERS IN THE UNKNOWN "Prisoners of the 'Jelly' Planet"

These are the voyages of the Hunter I, it's ongoing mission...

...to fill four pages per issue of Gold Key's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

You'll see the continuation tomorrow, unlike the original readers of this story in 1968 who had to wait three months for the next four-page chapter (VttBotS was a quarterly book)!
The Hunter I crew had adventures set in the near-future of the late 1990s-early 2000s, much like then-current films like Green Slime, Wild Wild Planet, and Battle in Outer Space.

With only four pages per issue, there was little character development (or even names) for the crew, but lots of action!

This tale from VttBotS #12 (1968) was written by Dick Wood (who wrote the entire series) and illustrated by Nevio Zaccara (who remained the strip's artist until the final chapter).

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Reading Room: EXPLORERS IN THE UNKNOWN "Uncertain Lift-Off"

When Last We Left Our Heroes...

I just love it when the comic itself does all the plot synopizing for me!

Considering this three-part story took nine months to tell (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was a quarterly book), it's a pretty lame finale.

This tale from VttBotS #11 (1968) was written by Dick Wood (who wrote the entire series) and illustrated by Nevio Zaccara (who remained the strip's artist until the final chapter).

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Reading Room: EXPLORERS IN THE UNKNOWN "Mystery of the Magnetized Planet"

The previous chapter in the series' first multi-part storyline presented a classic concept...

...along with a couple of surprises!

Be here for the nail-biting conclusion, tomorrow!

Hey, be grateful you aren't reading this as it was published in the 1960s, since the comic book it appeared in, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, was a quarterly title, so you'd be waiting three months for the next four-page story instead of one day!
This tale from VttBotS #10 (1967) was written by Dick Wood (who wrote the entire series) and illustrated by Nevio Zaccara (who remained the strip's artist until the final chapter).

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Reading Room: EXPLORERS IN THE UNKNOWN "GraveYard of Space"

Space, the Final Frontier!

These are the voyages of the starship Hunter I...

...as it travels interstellar space in the early 1970s!

Be here tomorrow for the astounding continuation!

The concept of a space junkyard or "Sargosso Sea of Space" is something of a cliche.
Various books, comics, movies, and tv series have used the concept, usually to good effect.
My particular favorite was the Space: 1999 episode "Dragon's Domain"...

You might want to FastForward to 14:00, when the derelict spaceships are first detected...

This tale from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea #9 (1967) was written by Dick Wood (who wrote the entire series) and illustrated by Nevio Zaccara (who remained the strip's artist until the final chapter).

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Comics Collectibles Store!