Reading Room REALITY "Endless Chain"

Long before the internet and DeviantArt, up-and-coming artists were published in fanzines...

...to get their work in front of an audience, receive feedback, and make a few bucks!

Originally-drawn for Web of Horror, this early tale by Frank Brunner ended up in the first issue of Reality, a fanzine published in 1970 by 15-year old Robert Gerson.

When Web died after only three issues, a number of writers and artists had no market for their material without losing all the rights to it, so, in order to get it published to make a few bucks for their labor (and retain the copyrights), they let a young entepreneur use the stories in his fanzine, which was sold at conventions and in used book stores and head shops alongside underground comics.

(There were no comic book shops back then.)

Reading Room CAPTAIN QUICK & THE SPACE SCOUTS "Martian Canal Frog and the Jewel Flowers"

Let's strap on our rocket packs for another adventure with...

...who are still on Mars, as we saw last time!

Though the art for this never-reprinted tale from Prize Comics' Tom Corbett: Space Cadet V2#2 (1955) is credited solely to Marvin Stein at the Grand Comics Database, the layout appears to be by Jack Kirby, which would make sense since Simon & Kirby's studio was packaging the book for Prize.
Beyond being set in the near future, there was no connection to Tom Corbett.

Reading Room SENSATION MYSTERY "Vengeance of the Invisible Men"

Here's a kool, never-reprinted, 1950s sci-fi tale...

...using a combination of different genre cliches!

Illustrated by the legendary Murphy Anderson, this story from DC's Sensation Mystery #110 (1952) combines the following cliches:

Glasses that enable somone to see things nobody else can see!

Creatures from the center of the Earth rising up to attack up!

A heroic human in alien/creature form stopping the enemy from destroying/enslaving humanity!

All of which leads me to believe the unknown writer of this tale is Gardner Fox, who was also working for DC as well as being well-versed in such concepts because he was both an established pulp and paperback novelist and an avid sci-fi fan!

Reading Room ROCKET SHIP X "Our Atomic Future"

Remember when we thought the day after tomorrow would be...

...and all the world's woes could be solved with nuclear power?

If you're an older Baby Boomer, or one of the Greatest Generation, you might remember this tale from Fox's one-shot Rocket Ship X (1951) or something similar to it, since the unhindered (but safe) use of atomic power was being promoted as the ultimate solution to the world's oil/gasoline problems!

Oddly, when it was reprinted in Charlton's Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #5 (1956), only the first page was shown!

Sadly, no records exist to identify the writer and artist (or writer/artist) of this unfulfilled prophecy.

Reading Room BUCCANEERS "Black Roger: Who He Is and How He Came to Be"

While most movie/comic/pulp pirates battled along the Spanish Main...

...this freebooter set sail for the Barbary Coast!

When superheroes' popularity waned at the end of World War II, comics looked for other genres to fill the gap.

Taking their cue from movie box office sales, several publishers either premiered new books featuring swashbuckling scoundrels or converted ongoing titles from superheroes to pirates.

(In fact, Black Roger's premiere tale is from Quality's Buccaneers #19 (1950), which was the first issue under that title.

It had previously been Kid Eternity!)

While most of the strips were pretty blatant copies of various Errol Flynn or Tyrone Power pirate characters, this strip recombined elements of Captain Blood (Educated professional wrongly-convicted) and Zorro (masked avenger) along with our hero concentrating on a particular class of pirate...Moslem Arabs along the Barbary Coast of Africa!

Oddly, the particular group he battles this time out seem more Asian than Arab, a matter that's corrected in future stories.

Regrettably, both writer and artist(s) are unknown.

Black Roger appeared in every issue of Buccaneers during its'  9-issue run, never once making the cover (That was resereved for an Errol Flynn/Sea Hawk clone named "Captain Daring".

But you'll be seeing them all on this blog over the next few months.

Watch for them!