Monday Mecha Madness STAR TREK "Planet of the Robots"

WhenYou Think of Artificial Intelligence in Star Trek....

...you think of androids or non-humanoid sentient computers, not robots!

Captain Kurt?

The Enterprise lands on a planet?

Spock shouting?

Lt Bailey, who was left on the Fesarius with Balok in the episode "Corbomite Maneuver" is still aboard the Enterprise?
And...robots??

It was 1969.

Star Trek had not yet aired in England.

The publisher of the wildly-successful weekly comic magazine TV Century 21, which featured strips based on the various Gerry Anderson-produced series (Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, etc.), decided to launch a new weekly magazine showcasing the currently-running Anderson series, Joe 90.

Entitled Joe 90: Top Secret, it also featured a couple of two-page strips about imported American TV series, Star Trek and Land of the Giants.

Since those shows hadn't yet aired in England, the writers and artist Harry Lindfield were working off whatever print material and photo reference was sent from America.

(Apparently nobody gave them a copy of Stephen Whitfield's Making of Star Trek, which explains things like the Enterprise being unable to land on a planet's surface.)

The storylines usually ran six weeks, but could go longer if required.

Because the Trek strip had the centerfold slot, it allowed for panels running thru what would be the interior gutters on any other page, giving them a wide Sunday newspaper-strip feel and layout.

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1979-1981
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Star Trek: the Newspaper Comics
1981-1983
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Friday Fun YAK YAK "How to Win Friends"

Sometimes, we need to get away from current events...

...and just enjoy a good laugh, courtesy of legendary writer/artist Jack Davis!

From Dell's Four-Color Comics #1186 (1961)

Dell gave MAD mainstay Jack Davis his own title in the Four Color Comics series, to do with as he pleased.

The series, Yak Yak (subtitled "A Pathology of Humor") only ran two issues, but they were pure Davis, who wrote, penciled, inked, and colored the whole project as well as providing painted covers for both issues!
It's never been reprinted, except for excerpts here and there.
Hopefully, somebody will do so in the near future...

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Reading Room OUT OF THIS WORLD "The World Awaits"

We know Steve Ditko as the co-creator of The Amazing Spider-Man...

...but he was equally-adept at visualizing insects as well as arachnids!
(Yes, there is a difference!)

This lovely Ditko-rendered story from Charlton's Out of This World #12 (1959) would really have benefited from some Stan Lee-esque scripting rather than Joe Gill's stilted prose, which renders the ending rather...dull.

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Good Friday KING OF KINGS "Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday"

You may be wondering "Where's Parts 1 & 2?"...

Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus Christ

...and the answer is; we haven't run them yet!

Since it's Good Friday, we're presenting the Dell Comics adaptation of the final part of the 1961 movie, covering the period from Palm Sunday to the Resurrection.

We'll run the first part around Christmas, and the second shortly after that.

While the writer for this movie adaptation from Dell's Four Color Comics King of Kings #1236 (1961) is unknown, the artist is Gerald McCann, a pulp artist who moved to comics in the early 1950s and did numerous Classics Illustrated covers and stories including "Abraham Lincoln" and "Ben-Hur".

Who says comics ain't educational?

Holiday Reading Room AMAZING ADULT FANTASY "Beware of the Giants!"

It's not often you see Stan Lee's signature on cover art...

...(behind the giant boot) perhaps because it was probably meant as the title page for the following story (and, to tell the truth, I think the splash page below would've been a better cover)...

Hah!

Bet you thought I had forgotten St Patrick's Day, eh? 

This Stan Lee-scripted/Steve Ditko-illiustrated piece from Atlas' Amazing Adult Fantasy #14 (1962) has one fatal flaw...the clothing and architecture are more mid-European (Germany/Austria/Switzerland) than Celtic (Irish/Scottish)!

BTW, one of the rarely-noted aspects of this series were the kool individualized contents pages for each issue...

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Friday the 13th Fun TIPPY'S FRIEND GO-GO "Egg-Head in Friday the 13th"

One of the better Archie clones of the 1960s was Tippy Teen, who had both her own book...

...and two spin-off titles featuring a Riverdale-like ensemble of supporting characters who had their own features, including Egg-Head...who was called that only because he wore glasses and looked like a nerd!

If the story doesn't make much sense, the fact it was from Tower's Tippy's Friend Go-Go #15 (1969), which was the last book of the series and the company was already winding down to close the doors a month later, might have loosened the editorial standards a tad...

You'll note the art appears exactly like the Archie Comics "house look"!

That's because the Tippy Teen books were illustrated almost entirely by moonlighting Archie artists, though which particular one did this tale is unknown!

BTW, Egg-Head was not the only Tower Comics character to bear that name!

One of the original members of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad (a non-superpowered backup team for the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents) was named...Egghead!

I'm not sure how "well-trained" and "highly-skilled" the "super-brilliant strategist" was since he died in his second appearance...

Lunar Reading Room FOUR COLOR COMICS "Maybes About the Moon"

As the Artemis II Moon Shot is Postponed Until April...

...we're presenting a never-reprinted feature from the days before we had even landed on the moon the first time!

This never-reprinted short from Dell's Four Color Comics #1253 (aka Space Man #1) appeared in 1962, just as our Mercury space program was getting under way, so it's a lot of speculation.

Illustrated by Jack Sparling, but the writer is unknown.

BTW, even though it appeared in Four Color Comics, it's in black and white because it appeared on the inside back cover.

The inside covers of comics used to be printed with only one color, black, instead of the four colors CYAN, YELLOW, MAGENTA, and BLACK (CYMK), that make up all the colors in standard comic printing, as a cost-saving measure!

Space Hero & Heroine Saturdays KIDNAPPED BY A SPACE SHIP! "Part 1-Off to the Stars!"

 In pop culture, lots of kids besides comics' Buzzy Bean went into space...

...as early as 1970, according to this tale from Treasure Chest V14N11 (1959)!

Oops!

We'll find out how this liftoff happened when the story continues next month!

Writer Frances Crandall followed the accepted concepts of space travel postulated by scientist Wener Von Braun and, illustrated by Chesley Bonestell in various books and magazines like Conquest of Space, and popularized in numerous 1950s movies like Destination Moon and Angry Red Planet!

Artist Fran Matera was also the art director/art editor for Treasure Chest, but is best known for his long run on the Steve Roper and Mike Nomad newspaper strip.

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3
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