Sunday, May 26, 2024

The 2024 RetroBlog "Time-Lost" Blogathons are Coming July 1st...

This summer's theme is never-reprinted tales from at least three decades ago!
To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of The Shadow (the Movie)a re-presentation of the 2-issue adaptation of the film by the man who visually-defined He Who Knows What Evil Lurks for several generations of readers, Mike Kaluta (along with writer Joel Goss)...plus we're providing comparisons between the comic and the movie (with film clips) in...
We're doing an intra-blog crossover right here at Atomic Kommie Comics between Wednesday Worlds of Wonder and Space Heroine Saturdays with a graphic novel featuring the interstellar adventures of StarFawn by writer Byron Preiss and illustrator Stephen Fabian...unseen since 1976!
(That's almost half a century!)
Plus:
Travel back almost a full century (1936) to the origin of the first (radio/movie serial/Golden Age) Green Hornet and Kato in a time-lost tale from 1991!
Confused?
You won't be after you read it in

Crime and Punishment!

And, Of Course...
...There'll be a Book-Length Gothic "Beach Read" Novel from half a century ago in
True Love Comics Tales
It's Gonna be a Sizzling Summer!

Saturday, May 25, 2024

Space Force Saturdays ATOM-AGE COMBAT "Puzzle"

Since it's Memorial Day weekend...
...we thought we'd run a tale of interplanetary conflict between Earth and Mars!
Note: the last page was the inside back cover of the comic, so it's black-and-white, a standard cost-saving technique back then by printing the front and back inside covers one, or sometimes, two-color.
Illustrated by Dick Ayers, this tale from Fago's Atom-Age Combat #3 (1959) touches on an interesting idea.
Someone's keeping us from leaving Earth...but they're also keeping others from approaching Earth!
Were they protecting us from them...or them from us?
Since this was the final tale in the final issue of the series, we'll never know the answer...
BTW, this was the second series called "Atom-Age Combat"!
The first was published by St John Comics with five issues in 1952-53 and a one-shot in 1958.
Fago Publications bought the title when St John dropped it's comic line, continuing the numbering from the one-shot and producing two issues.
Fago itself only lasted from 1958-59.
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Friday, May 24, 2024

Friday Fun GET LOST! "Dr Jerkyll Became Mr Hide"

It's more "inspired" by the Robert Louis Stevenson tale than an adaptation...

...since it's set "present day" (1950s) and the dear doctor is a psychiatrist!
MikeRoss' Get Lost was one of numerous MAD comic clones that popped up in the mid-1950s when that humor comic became one of the hottest titles on the market...literally flying off newsstands!
The company, created by writer/artists Mike Esposito and Ross Andru (the "MikeRoss" of the company name) was meant to be a showcase for their talents.
They edited, wrote, and illustrated almost all the material, including this tale from #1 (1954).
Unfortunately, they debuted just as the legendary "Seduction of the Innocent" scandal (where comics were blamed for juvenile delinquency) hit the public consciousness!
All MikeRoss published were Get LostHeart and Soul (a romance comic) and a couple of 3-D books using modified Heart and Soul artwork.
Sadly, the company never really got off the ground as distributors became leery of handling any comics, much less titles from a brand-new, unproven company!
MikeRoss folded within a year, and the creators returned to working for others, enjoying long careers in the comics business both as a team and individually until they passed away!

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Thursday, May 23, 2024

Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Filbert's Frightful Future!"

After Mighty Thor began his run in Journey into Mystery as of #83......
...and before Norse mythology-related backup series like Tales of Asgard began, the one-shot shorts like this never-reprinted tale continued to fill the back of the book until the inventory was used up!
Don Heck penciled and inked this story from Marvel's Journey into Mystery #85 (1962).
Stan Lee plotted it, but experts are not sure if he scripted it.
Lee usually co-signed the later shorts he scripted, but only Heck's signature is here.
Just about everything Lee didn't script at this point was handled by his brother Larry Lieber.
(Stan's birth name is Stanley Leiber. He used "Stan Lee" on his comics work because he wanted his real name on the Great American Novel he planned to write.
When he finally realized he would be forever known for his comics and not any prose novel he might write, he legally changed his name to "Stan Lee".)
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featuring the Thor stories that appeared in front of the never-reprinted tales we present!
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