Showing posts with label science fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science fiction. Show all posts

Saturday, August 28, 2021

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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Saturday, August 14, 2021

Space Force Saturdays INTERPLANETARY POLICE "Meteor Menace" Conclusion


SHE BLEW UP YANKEE STADIUM!!!
(Of course, it's actually Yankee Stadium II, but readers in 1952 didn't know that!)
The Space Siren, after destroying several Earth landmarks with meteors, demands Earth's surrender lest she rain fiery death upon the planet!

While the peacekeeping organization is called the "Interplanetary Police" in the first three tales, it becomes the "Interstellar Police" for the last two!
Writer Hobart Donovan was the writer for the Buster Brown radio show this comic was spun-off from.
He wrote all the stories in the comic book, from sci-fi to western to funny animal!
Donovan was married to actress June Foray, best known as the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel!
Artist Ray Bailey began as an assistant to Milton Caniff on Terry and the Pirates and Male Call.
When Canniff left Terry and began Steve Canyon, Bailey went with him.
Finally going independent, Bailey launched several comic strips including the short-lived Vesta West, and Bruce Gentry, an aviation strip with sci-fi elements which was popular enough to have a 1940s movie serial based on it which features the first appearance of a flying saucer in the movies!
In the early 1950s, he was the artist on the Tom Corbett: Space Cadet newspaper strip at the same time he did the first two tales of this series!
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Saturday, August 7, 2021

Space Force Saturdays INTERPLANETARY POLICE "Meteor Menace" Part 1

Who would've thought that this never-reprinted, lost comic series classic appeared in...
...of all things, Buster Brown Comic Books?
THEY BLEW UP YANKEE STADIUM!!!
Of course, it's actually Yankee Stadium II, but readers in 1952 didn't know that...
Be here next
Saturday
for the planet-shattering (literally) conclusion!
(One spoiler...the Space Siren doesn't destroy any more historic stadiums!
Relieved?)
This short-lived series (only five stories) ran in Buster Brown Comic Book, a free giveaway anthology comic published quarterly from 1945 to 1956 to promote Buster Brown Shoe Stores.
Strips ran anywhere from three to twenty-four issues.
Since there were no letters pages, there's no way to tell how the popularity of the series was judged.
This tale in BBCB #28 (1952), written by Hobart Donovan and drawn by Ray Bailey, is the premiere, setting up the premise quickly and efficiently, adapting elements from various other space opera series including Buck Rogers and Space Patrol, and getting to the action post-haste.
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Thursday, January 21, 2021

Reading Room FANTASTIC WORLDS "Triumph Over Terror"

What if a science fiction writer was the hero of a sci-fi tale?
And, what if the scribe was, initially, just as ignorant of the situation as any other protagonist in such a tale?
This tale from Standard's Fantastic Worlds #5 (1952) was drawn by Alex Toth and John Celardo, though, ironically, the writer is unknown.
BTW, though it's #5, this is actually the first issue of the title!
There was no #1-#4, which was a pretty standard practice for the publisher during the late 1940s-early '50s!!
The publisher felt the audience would be more accepting of a book they believed was established and already had four issues out.
After all, they had no way of finding the "previous" issues!
Newsstands and drugstores just shipped back the previous month's comics (and other magazines) to the distributor!
No comic shops stocking back issues!
No internet they could search!
Trivia: the cover of the comic the kid is holding on page 1...
...is a variation of the cover (rendered by the story's inker, John Celardo) of the actual issue this story appears in!
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Saturday, September 7, 2019

Reading Room FANTASTIC WORLDS "Boy Who Saved the World!

The short-lived anthology Fantastic Worlds featured Earth-based stories...
...contrasting with the other anthology from Standard ComicsLost Worlds, which was a space-opera book.
This kid-friendly tale from Standard's Fantastic Worlds #6 (1952) was drawn by Alex Toth and Mike Peppe, though the writer is unknown.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Space: the FInal Frontier (for Christmas Gifts)!

Since the 1890s, and the heyday of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, science fiction-themed presents have found 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, mousepads, 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 can zap an entire 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 the stuff that provided the visual inspiration for today's hi-tech flights of fantasy!
Enjoy, and may your rocket tubes never overheat...

Saturday, February 4, 2012

At last...Astrid x 2!

While all the other major characters on Fringe have met their dimensional counterparts, the two Astrid Farnsworths hadn't...until last night!
Next to John Noble's Emmy-level performance as the two diametrically-opposite versions of Walter Bishop, Jasika Nicole's portrayals of the different, yet similar, Astrids meeting each other is one of the high points of the season.
If you missed it, catch the rerun of the ep, "Making Angels", when it airs or watch it on Fox's Fringe website.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Reading Room: SPACEBUSTERS "Frog Men against Belzar"

You thought the SpaceBusters story ended with the book's cancellation after #2?
Art by Bernie Krigstein, adapted from page 1.
Nope!
Though the publisher (Ziff-Davis) went out of business, the published (and unpublished) material ended up at several other companies, including St John Publishing.
This particular story features the uniform and weapon designs from SpaceBusters #1, before Murphy Anderson was brought on board for #2 and revamped everything to look more like his work on the Buck Rogers newspaper comic strip.
Bernie Krigstein illustrated this story, as he did all the tales in SpaceBusters #1.
Oddly enough, though the aliens invading Mars remained "Belzarians" and the Terrans were referred to as "Earthians", the heroes went through a name-change.
Blond and blue-eyed Captain Brett Crockett received a new name, becoming "Captain Andall", while his balding and mustached sergeant, Bolo, became "Sgt Bala".
And the nickname "SpaceBusters", used incessantly in the two issues of the series, is nowhere in sight...
The story saw publication three times in ten years, ironically making it the most-printed of all the SpaceBuster tales!
First in Daring Adventures #6 (1954) from St John (where it was not the cover feature).
Then, it was reprinted in Great Exploits #1 (1957) by Ajax/Farrell (who purchased some of St John's material when they left the comics business to concentrate on magazines), where it finally became the cover feature (as seen at the top of this post).
Finally, it was reprinted in 1964 by Super/IW Comics, with a new cover by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito.
Side note; I really enjoy playing detective, piecing together clues to discover "lost" items like this, or to correct historical inaccuracies like who really was the first Black superheroine.

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