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

Friday, July 17, 2026

Space...Hero??? Saturdays NORGE BENSON "Gang of Hoodlum Penguins"

 Since We're Suffering through a Heat Wave...

..let's return to frigid Pluto for another interplanetary adventure with Norge Benson, as we discover that some penguins on Pluto speak perfect English, and others talk with Brooklyn accents...just like on Earth!
Think I'm joking?
Read on...
So, what'd youse tink?
Or for dose...I mean "those", who don't speak Brooklynese..."What did you think?"
I'll warn you now, future installments only get loonier!
Illustrated by Al Walker, who spent his entire comics career at Fiction House, this second appearance in Planet Comics #13 (1941) presents a somewhat less snarky (though no less humorous) version of the "Earthman on Pluto" concept shown in the earlier Cosmo Corrigan strip, mixing alien versions of both Arctic and Antarctic animals with total disregard to anything even remotely resembling exobiology!
But it is fun, and that's all that matters!
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Planet Comics
Volume 4

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Monday, July 13, 2026

Monday Mecha Madness WEIRD THRILLERS "Menace of R Day"

In the 1950s, it was believed that war could be ended by 1999...
...and that other menaces would threaten the Earth, instead!
This somewhat-hokey, but entertaining, sci-fi tale from Ziff-Davis' Weird Thrillers #1 (1951) was both penciled and inked by Ross Andru.
Andru would later partner with Mike Esposito with Ross as the penciler and Mike doing the inking.
Whether this was because Esposito was faster at inking than Ross, or Andru enjoyed doing only pencils is unknown.
Considering Andru seemed pretty damn good at inking, it's a pity he eventually gave it up.
BTW, the writer of this never-reprinted tale of mechanical mayhem is unknown.
Next Week: the Return of

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Tuesday, July 7, 2026

Reading Room LOST WORLDS "City That Escaped From Tomorrow"

In the 1950s, the popularity of sci-fi in tv and in movies carried over to comics...
...with a plethora of sci-fi anthology titles from almost every publisher, most of which ran material equal to the bulk of pulp and paperback science fiction of the era.
This never-reprinted tale from Standard's Lost Worlds #5 (1952) was penciled by Ross Andru and inked by Mike Esposito and Jim Mooney.
The writer is unknown.
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Thursday, June 25, 2026

Reading Room: WEIRD TALES OF THE FUTURE "Plaything"

Ever feel like you're totally-insignificant?
Well, there might be a very good reason, as shown in Key's Weird Tales of the Future #6 (1953)!
"As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods. They kill us for their sport."
–Shakespeare "King Lear"

While the writer is unknown, the artist was Tony Mortellaro, who did hundreds of tales in various genres for Key and Atlas/Marvel, (where he became Associate Art Director under John Romita in the 1970s).

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Monday, June 22, 2026

Monday Mecha Madness SPIRIT OF FRANKENSTEIN "A Monster is Born"

There have been several ongoing series that combined horror and sci-fi...
...such as the strip which premiered with this tale from ACG's Adventures into the Unknown! #5 (1949)!
The "monster" here is not Frankenstein's Monster, nor are any of the scientists members of the Frankenstein clan.
Though it's defined as a "robot" it appears to be more of an android!
But, if the strip's creators say it's a robot, that's good enough for me!
Writer Richard Hughes and artist Charles Sultan invoked the "spirit" of the Frankenstein Monster Monster concept with a creation run amok and ran amuck with it for several issues from #5 to #16.
Rest assured it'll be back...
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Adventures Into the Unknown!
Volume 1

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Saturday, June 20, 2026

Best of Space Force Saturdays MARS COMPANY in "Winner"

In the early 1970s, DC experimented with pulp-style illustrated prose tales...
...in genre (sci-fi, horror, western, and romance) titles!
Written by Denny O'Neil, and rendered in retro 1950s Buck Rogers style...
...by Murphy Anderson, this never-reprinted text feature from DC's Strange Adventures #227 (1971) seems more a tribute to classic 1940s-50s "hard" sci-fi pulps instead of a then-current "new wave" science fiction tale!
Since it featured the last story about Earth's interplanetary fighting force, Mars Company, we felt it would be the perfect "capper" to the SpaceBusters saga, which Murphy re-conceived just before its' cancellation!
Murphy seemed to be DC's "go-to" guy when they needed retro-style material in the 1960s-70s!
He was the artist for Silver Age revival try-outs of Golden Age characters in Brave & Bold (Starman & Black Canary) and Showcase (Dr Fate & HourMan and The Spectre), as well as the first few issues of The Spectre's own Silver Age title!
Anderson was also the initial artist on DC's Bronze Age version of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars, as well as filing-in where needed on other Burroughs strips including Korak and Beyond the Farthest Star!
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Saturday, June 13, 2026

Space Hero Saturdays SPACE MOUSE "Master Mind" & "Believe It or Not"

This short-lived, but entertaining, series was uneven...
...with some stories, like this one from the back cover of Avon's Space Mouse #1 (1953) featuring the heroic character as a thief, obviously adapted from a different strip...
...and this one, from the inside cover of Avon's Space Mouse #3 (1953) showing him both in "hero mode" and cleverly breaking the "fourth wall"!
Writer/artist Frank Carin was an experienced pro who started as an animator the Fleischer Brothers and TerryToons, then moved over to comics in the early, writing and/or illustrating several hundred stories and covers for everybody from Timely/Atlas to Magazine Enterprises, to Nation-Wide, to Harvey, to, of course, Avon, and finally, to Gold Key!
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(covering the studio where Frank Carin got his start)
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