Holiday Reading Room EVERY DAY IS A HOLLY DAY "Mother's Day"

Ever wonder why Mother's Day is when it is...or even why it is?

Oddly, there's no entry in this comic for Father's Day!

(Perhaps because Father's Day wasn't made an official American holiday until 1972, decades after this comic was published in 1956!)

Why is this comic entitled "Every Day is a Holly Day" instead of "Every Day is a Holiday"?

Because it was given away to kids by grocers who sold Holly Sugar!

Illustrated by John Rosenberger, it's a unique pamphlet covering a number of American holidays, including both Lincoln and Washington's Birthdays (before they were combined into "Presidents' Day"), Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and a couple of holidays we've largely abandoned...Pan-American Day and American Indian Day!

We'll be presenting the other chapters on the dates they fall upon.

Watch for them!

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Cartoon History of the United States

Space Force Saturdays SPEED CARTER "Slaughter in Space!"

We meet a new alien race, the Vegans...

...who, it turns out, are no more trustworthy than most other alien species.

(We humans are scrupulously honest, of course!)

Don't ya just love a happy ending?

What I want to know is why Speed is suddenly wearing shorts?
Thankfully, it's the only story in the series where he does so.

This story from Speed Carter: SpaceMan #5 (1954) was scripted (as were all Speed Carter tales) by Hank Chapman!

Illustrator George Tuska later became the final artist on the original Buck Rogers comic strip (1959-67) and then assumed the art duties for almost a decade on Marvel's Invincible Iron Man!

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Mysteries in Space

The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics

Friday Fun RIOT "Mother Goosepimple's Nursery Rhymes" 2

The second, final , never-reprinted installment in this series features...

,,,an artist who already had a rep doing humor, John Severin, best known for his serious Western and War comics work at Harvey and EC!

He was also brother of EC Comics colorist Marie Severin, who later became Marvel's resident caricaturist (among her many other talents)!
I suspect this was going to be an ongoing series featuring rotating illustrators, but since Atlas' MAD-clone Riot was cancelled as of this issue (6) in 1956, we'll never know!
BTW, if the writing style feels "familiar", that's because it was by Stan (the Man) Lee!

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Sincerest Form of Parody

Reading Room AMAZING ADVENTURES "Cosmic Brain"

Here's a cool, never-reprinted tale about a nuclear energy-created mutant...

...linked to the bombing of Hirsohima in 1945.

Look carefully at the artwork, because someone you might not realize apparently contributed to it...

The Grand Comics Database lists Leonard Starr as the artist for this story from Ziff-Davis' Amazing Adventures #3 (1951).

But many of the "camera angles" and figures don't look like his work from the period. as seen HERE and HERE!

IMHO, some of the layouts were done by none other than Jack Kirby!

Everything fits Kirby's layout and figure-posing style and Starr was doing occasional work for the Simon & Kirby studio at the time.

Starr might have been unfamiliar with the genre and asked Kirby to do layouts to help him, paying Kirby in cash from his own pocket (If Kirby even took money for the work. I've heard he helped other artists out without renumeration on a number of occasions.)

Either way, I believe this is a "lost" Kirby Klassic!

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Mysteries in Space

The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder LOST WORLD "Power of Panduro"

We told you last time that big changes were coming to this series...

...and here's the first one...a new illustrator takes over for the remainder of the run!

Though this story is set in the NYC area, the United Nations didn't begin construction of their East Side headquarters until 1948...a year after this tale was created and published in Fiction House's Planet Comics #50 (1947)!

From 1947 until the Manhattan complex was finished in 1952, their meetings were held in London!

George Evans assumes the artistic reins for the strip in this issue and will remain until the final chapter in Planet Comics #64..

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Planet Comics

Volume 11

(contains issues 48-53)