Friday Fun TALES CALCULATED TO DRIVE YOU BATS "Hip Van Wrinkle"

There is nothing more frightening to a beatnik, hippie, or hipster...

...than to be considered "establishment" or "uncool"!

This tale from Archies's Tales Calculated to Drive You Bats #5 (1962) demonstrates that "kool" is all a matter of perspective!

Best-known as the creator of Li'l Jinx, writer-artist Joe Edwards masterfully-adapted to the Dan DeCarlo-esque "house" style of Archie Comics to become one of their (almost-always anonymous) mainstays for decades, from the Golden Age (1940s) through the Modern Age (1980s).
Consider that when he wrote and illustrated this tale, he was already in his 40s (as were almot all comic creatives at that time), not a young adult and "with it", as they said back then!
Does it still read as "legit"?
Think about it...

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Best of Archie's Mad House!

Reading Room WEIRD ADVENTURES "Man Who Lived Backwards!"

What if someone tried to prevent you from reaching tomorrow...

...and the only way you could move forward was to kill him in the past?

Check out this never-reprinted tale from Ziff-Davis' one-shot Weird Adventures #10 (1951) for the answer!

So, even though Paul had a change of heart, and tried to save David, his rival for Peggy died anyway, and Paul ended up with the woman they both loved!

What's the moral?

You can change history, even if you don't intend to?

Being good, even if it may be to your personal detriment, will be rewarded in the end?

Ah, well, I guess there are some things we're not meant to understand...

It may be just as well that both the writer and artist are unknown.

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Volume 3

Tales Twice Told STRANGE WORLDS "Lost Kingdom of Athala"

Here's a tale that would make a great "popcorn" CGI action flick!

It's hokey, doesn't make much sense, but boy, it's loaded with action and it looks great!

Written by Gardner Fox, penciled by Joe Orlando & Wally Wood, and inked by Wood, this fast-paced story from Avon's Strange Worlds #4 (1951), would make a great Saturday afternoon flick, thanks to current state-of-the-art special effects!

EXTRA: Here's the b/w inside cover for this issue, which featured an illustrated preview of all the stories in the issue by Wally Wood.

Note the heavy use of "craftint" texturing which Wood used to create a distinctive "look" for his art...

The script was re-used, almost verbatim, in 1970 by Eerie Publications, but the artwork for the retelling was nowhere near as good.

You'll see that version on Thursday!

Reading Room DO YOU BELIEVE IN NIGHTMARES? "Man Who Crashed into Another Era"

Here's a short story featuring dinosaurs, and illustrated by Steve Ditko...

...just before his stint on Gorgo!

Ok, so it was the old "It's only a dream" scenario.

You got to admit, it's well-done!

From St John's Do You Believe in Nightmares? #1 (1957), a short-lived anthology produced just before St John went out of business.

It's a New Year! Are You Ready for "A-DAY"?

Are you scared because you think the world is on the brink of war?

HA!

Back in the 1950s, we lived with the concept on a daily basis...and even told comic book tales about it!

This never-reprinted tale from Ziff-Davis' Amazing Adventures #1 (1950) offered some interesting, and (to some) subversive messages.

Illustrated by long-time pro Ogden Whitney, it shows how, unfortunately, human nature can destroy a potential Utopia...while ignoring how current technology wasn't (and still isn't) up to keeping "cheap" atomic power reasonably safe.

Something to ponder, even more than seven decades later...

Best of Reading Room UNKNOWN WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION "Behold the Man" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

Art by Frank Brunner

Time traveler Karl Glogauer journeys to Palestine almost 2,000 years in the past to confirm the existence of Jesus Christ.

With his time machine damaged beyond repair and discovering he's gone a decade too far back, the now-stranded Glogauer encounters John the Baptist...

Published in the British sci-fi magazine New Worlds (which Moorcock himself edited) in 1966, the non-linear story running two parallel plot/timelines won the Nebula Award for "best novella".

Moorcock expanded it to novel length...

Art by Robert Foster

...and it is that currently OOP version which is best-known to American audiences and served as the basis of this never-reprinted adaptation in Marvel's Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #6 (1975) by writer Doug Moench and artist Alex Nino.

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Behold the Man
by Michael Moorcock

Best of Reading Room UNKNOWN WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION "Behold the Man" Part 1

With Christmas behind us and New Year's Day just ahead...

...we're going to re-present a controversial (albeit award-winning) time-travel tale about the guy whose birthday we just celebrated!

To Be Concluded...

Thursday!

In the 1960s, science fiction experienced an influx of a "New Wave" of writers who wanted to go beyond "hard" sf and experiment, both in form and in content, with a more literary/artistic sensibility.

New Wave writers often saw themselves as part of the modernist tradition, writing "soft" or metaphysical stories instead of the technology-oriented or "hard" sf of Asimov, Heinlein, et al.

The leading proponent of the movement was Michael Moorcock, editor of the British magazine New Worlds as well as an established and successful "hard" sf writer.

to be continued...

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Behold the Man
by Michael Moorcock