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!

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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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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Reading Room WEIRD WONDER TALES / STRANGE TALES "When a Planet Dies!"

The current "deep freeze" covering the USA reminded me of the splash panel from this story...

...from Marvel's Weird Wonder Tales #22 (1973), which was actually a reworking of this (literally) kool splash page from a cool story from Atlas' Strange Tales #97 (1962)!

While the art is credited to Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers, who wrote it is not entirely clear.

A number of people, myself included, think it's scripted by Kirby!

Bonus: Here's the original art for the cover from a previous issue of Weird Wonder Tales that supplied the Dr Druid figure on the reworked splash page above...

Art by pencilers Jack Kirby and John Romita Sr (Dr Druid's face), and inker Joe Sinnott.

Now, here's the original art for the Strange Tales story's splash page...

A Marvel production artist "flipped" a photostat of the Dr Druid figure from the Weird Wonder Tales cover and replaced the bearded aliens with it on a photostat of this splash page!

No original art was harmed in the making of the new splash! page!

Reading Room SPACE ADVENTURES "You Are the Jury"

We Close Out 2024 with a Trial...

...unlike any we've ever seen...with the stakes being the survival of the planet Earth, itself!

What would you decide, considering the state of the planet (and the USA) as of December 31, 2024?

Illustrated by Steve Ditko and scripted by an unknown writer, this tale from Charlton's Space Adventures V1N11 (1954) presents an interesting dilemma.

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(Which reprints this story)

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Monday Madness STUART TAYLOR IN WEIRD STORIES OF THE SUPERNATURAL "Faustus"

Despite the title, the series is actually sci-fi about a time traveler and his machine...

...who occasionally run into mystical menaces.

IIRC, The Time Tunnel TV series did the same thing, encountering Merlin, the ghost of Nero, and others along with the usual silver-skinned Irwin Allen aliens...

This series started in Jumbo Comics #1 (1939) as Diary of Dr Hayward, illustrated by Jack Kirby under the house pseudonym "Curt Davis" (which was used for every story in the series).

With #5, Lou Fine assumed the art chores, and several issues later the title changed to Weird Stories of the Supernatural as lab assistant Stuart Taylor took center stage and old Doc Hayward became a supporting character.

(In fact, the series title sometimes listed "Stuart Taylor" above the "Weird Stories..." logo, playing up the action-hero aspect, as it does here.)

As of #15, a rotating lineup of artists contributed art but no other "big names" worked on the series which continued for almost the entire run of Jumbo, ending at #140 (1950).

This particular never-reprinted story is from Jumbo Comics #111 (1948) and was produced by the Iger Studio, which supplied almost all of Fiction House's comic material during this period!

Space Hero Saturdays BUZZY BEAN AND HIS FLYING SAUCER "Mystery of the Meteor"

Though it's been a couple of months since we looked in on Buzzy Bean...

 ..it's been mere days for him and his sister...

This never-reprinted second tale in the all-too-brief series appeared in Good Comics' Johnny Law, Sky Ranger #2 (1955).

Written by publisher Edmond Good and illustrated by Robert Martinott, the story completes the "set-up" for further adventures, which we'll present in the future.

Buzzy Bean Will Return...

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Best of Space Heroine Saturdays AURORA OF JUPITER "Man Who Wanted a World!"

The Dreaded Deadline Doom Caught Us on Black Friday and Small Business Saturday...

...so we decided to re-present our first Space Heroine's one and (sadly) only appearance in the back of the obscure PL Publishing one-shot Captain Rocket Comics #1 (1951)!

Ironically, future sci-fi/fantasy novelist Harry (Stainless Steel Rat) Harrison both scripted and rendered this tale, which might have inspired later characters such as Barbarella!
The art combines several different styles on different pages so it could've been a rush job with a group effort to meet the deadline, which matches Harrison's recollections that he had some assistance on a couple of stories.
PL Publishing was an American publisher who printed and distributed their books in Canada.

As a result, very few copies of any of their eight short-lived titles ever reached fans in the US!

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