Showing posts with label sci-fi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sci-fi. Show all posts

Monday, February 10, 2025

Monday Madness OUT OF THIS WORLD "Xondu the Eternal"

A never-reprinted 1950s sci-fi tale by legendary Black artist Matt Baker...
..with a Twilight Zone-style twist ending!
OK, it's more a "Third from the Sun" than "To Serve Man" ending, but still, it's fairly effective!
(And kudos to those who didn't have to click on the links to understand what I was talking about!)
Penciled by Matt Baker and inked by Vince Colletta, this tale from Charlton's Out of This World #15 (1959) unfortunately suffers from both Colletta's rushed inking and the poor printing Charlton was notorious for.
(Unlike other comics companies, Charlton had their own printing press, which had been designed for packaging...including breakfast cereal boxes...not newsprint!)
The writer is unknown, but many believe it to be Joe Gill, who was rapidly making a name for himself with an impressive, and varied, body of work.
Penciler Matt Baker was one of the few Black comic book artists of the Golden and Silver Ages, and was easily the most prolific of them!
Though known for his "good girl" art, including the famous (and infamous) Phantom Girl stories, he handled every genre with ease, including horror, war, sci-fi, and romance!
Sadly, though, few of his stories featured Black characters...who were rare in comics until the mid-1960s!
You can read a short, but complete bio HERE!
He's also our featured artist this month in the Baker Reading Room at Atomic Kommie Comics, spotlighting his amazing cross-genre versatility!

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Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder HOT STUF' "Heartfelt Thanks"

Remember the movie Fantastic Voyage, about a surgeon and his support staff...
...miniaturized to enter a patient's body to perform a delicate operation?
This is like that...but only up to a point!
OUCH!
Didn't end quite the way it did in Fantastic Voyage, eh?
Written by Kathy Barr and illustrated by Ken Barr, this somewhat grisly tale from SQP's Hot Stuf' #8 (1978) was one of his last comic stories before transitioning to doing movie poster, magazine, and book cover paintings on a full-time basis.

Saturday, January 25, 2025

Space-Hero Saturdays CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT "On the Planet of Peril!"

There's always work for Captain Midnight in outer space!
Without an ongoing foe, the "Sentinel of the Spaceways" had a series of one-shot adventures involving alien races, and Earth colonies on other worlds, as shown in thi story from Fawcett's Captain Midnight #58 (1948)!
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Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder EPIC ILLUSTRATED "Arise, Awake"

Sometimes a "World" is Self-Contained...

...as it is for the protagonist of this never-reprinted story from Marvel's Epic Illustrated #16 (1983)!
Writer/artist Marc Hempel created this tragic tale for Marvel's Heavy Metal-style adult fantasy magazine which ran from 1980 through 1986.
Hempel's work encompasses numerous science fiction and fantasy projects including extended runs on The Sandman and Swamp Thing as well as his own creations like Mars.
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Saturday, January 18, 2025

Space Hero Saturdays JIM SOLAR: SPACE SHERIFF "Defeats the Moon Missile Men" Part 1

From the 1950s comes this weirdly-formatted, never-reprinted strip...
...that was available only as a giveaway inside various products!
Be here next Saturday for the thrillling conclusion!
Created by writer Walter (The Shadow) Gibson and artist E.C. Stoner (Blue Beetle), this 7" x 3.5" comic was part of the Vital Publications line of promotional giveaways distributed by a variety of merchants inside their products' packaging.
This particular one was included in packages of Rodeo All-Meat Wieners...
Back cover
There were apparently eight other Jim Solar comics, but they're very HTF since they were "self-covered (fragile newsprint covers, like the inside pages, instead of the heavy slick magazine paper most comics use for covers) and included with food products, whose juices would damage the paper!

Thursday, January 16, 2025

Reading Room OUT OF THIS WORLD "Antique Collectors"

What's "antique" really depends on your point of view...
...as this tiny tale (from 1959) demonstrates!
Cars from 1959 are extremely collectible now, and it's only 66 years later!
Both the writer and artist of this story from Charlton's Out of This World #13 (1959) are, sadly, unknown.
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Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Reading Room LOST WORLDS "Space Race"

If you think a high-speed auto race is fun...
...what if the race was between high-speed spacecraft?

This is the sort of story that proves the trope that most sci-fi of the Golden Age was just re-written Western stories.
Replace the horse or stagecoach with a spaceship, six-shooters with ray blasters, and Indians with aliens, and voila, a sci-fi story!
This never-reprinted tale from Lost Worlds #6 (1954) was penciled by John Celardo and inked by Bernard Sachs.
The writer is unknown.
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