Memorial Day is Coming...

Comic books played a major part in shaping the public's impression of both our troops and our enemies during World War II.
Among the classiest were these three beautiful covers for Contact Comics, an aviation-oriented title. Spectacular, intense, eye-catching color highlights these poster-style pieces of art.
Each one paid honor to the aviation division of one of the three armed forces branches. (The Air Force as a separate branch didn't come about until after WWII)

Tribute to the Navy Air Corps featuring F6F Hellcat fighters.

Tribute to the Army Air Force featuring B-24 Liberator heavy bombers.

Tribute to the Marine Air Corps featuring F4U Corsair fighters.

We at Atomic Kommie Comics™ have digitally-restored and remastered them on a line of kool kollectibles which would make perfect Memorial Day, Armed Forces Day,  Flag Day, or 4th of July gifts for the WWII veteran in your life.
Choose from t-shirts, mugs, magnets, BBQ aprons, and many other goodies.
(And have a look at the other World War II collectibles we offer at War: Past, Present & Future™ while you're at it!)

Reading Room TALOS OF THE WILDERNESS SEA "...to the Wilderness Sea!" Part 3

When Last We Left Our Post-Nuclear Armageddon Barbarian Prince...

(Bet you thought George RR Martin invented "warging" for Game of Thrones...)

Next Friday: Reunion!

Riding high on the success of the Sword of the Atom mini-series and follow-up annuals which re-imagined the hard sci-fi superhero in a barbarian adventure setting, Gil Kane (along with collaborator Jan Strnad) was given the go-ahead for another high-adventure series, this time based on a new character.

Planned as a 12-issue mini-series, cutbacks at DC dictated that the already-penciled and scripted first two issues be combined into a one-shot whose sales would determine if the project would continue.

Unfortunately, the unfamiliar character didn't attract a large enough audience (as The Atom had), and only the single, open-ended issue came about.
It's never been reprinted since its' publication in 1987.

Reading Room WORLD OF FANTASY "Brain Destroyer"

This title reminded me of Donald Trump...

...even though the story itself has nothing to connect it to the Republicans' hilarious "candidate" for President!

No matter whether you agree for my reason for running the story, it's still a long-lost, never-reprinted tale from Atlas' World of Fantasy #19 (1959) you probably would never have seen otherwise.
Plotted by Stan Lee, written by Larry Lieber, and illustrated by Carl Burgos, it's typical of the sort of stuff Atlas was running as it transitioned into what we would know as Marvel only a couple of years later.

Reading Room: SPACE CLUSTERS Part 2

We Have Already Seen...

...don't you love it when the book does the synopsizing for you?

To be continued...

NEXT WEEK!

Written by sci-fi novelist Arthur Byron Cover and illustrated by Alex Nino, this never-reprinted tome from 1986 was the seventh and final magazine-size graphic novel DC published before abandoning the concept due to low sales.

Reading Room BUZZY BEAN AND HIS FLYING SAUCER "Mystery of the Meteor"

Though it's been almost a year since we looked in on Buzzy Bean...

 ..it's been mere minutes for him and his sister...

This never-reprinted second tale in the all-too-brief series appeared in Good Comics' Johnny Law, Sky Marshal #2 (1955).

Written by publisher Edmond Good and illustrated by Robert Martinott, the story completes the "set-up" for further adventures, which we'll present in the next month or so.