Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Reading Room: EXPLORERS IN THE UNKNOWN "GraveYard of Space"

Space, the Final Frontier!
These are the voyages of the starship Hunter I...
...as it travels interstellar space in the early 1970s!
Be here tomorrow for the astounding continuation!
The concept of a space junkyard or "Sargosso Sea of Space" is something of a cliche.
Various books, comics, movies, and tv series have used the concept, usually to good effect.
My particular favorite was the Space: 1999 episode "Dragon's Domain"...

You might want to FastForward to 14:00, when the derelict spaceships are first detected...

This tale from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea #9 (1967) was written by Dick Wood (who wrote the entire series) and illustrated by Nevio Zaccara (who remained the strip's artist until the final chapter).

Support Small Business!

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Reading Room: ROCKET REX

Take a handsome hero, a helpless heroine, a sinister villain, add spaceships and ray guns...
...and, you've got classic 1940s-50s sci-fi action!
Oh, did we mention they were anthropomorphic animals?
This never-reprinted story from Vic Verity Magazine #7 (1946) was obviously the first episode of a projected series.
Unfortunately, it appeared in the last magazine the short-lived Don Fortune Publishing ever produced!
Both the writer and artist are, at this point, unknown.
But the other stories in the comic were the work of CC Beck, Otto Binder, and others who worked on the Fawcett Comics line, so the odds are that the writer and artist for Rocket Rex are also from that ensenble.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Earth Attacks!

We've landed on Mars...
...or at least a laser-armed nuclear-powered robot vehicle has landed on Mars!
Really!
 What would happen if Martians sent laser-armed, nuclear-powered vehicles to Earth?
Much MORE Fun Bunny action HERE!
Oh...

(before those guys from the Red Planet show up!)

Sunday, August 5, 2012

We Interrupt our RetroBlogs™ Marathons...

...to announce a schedule change.
Originally we were going to present...
But a server failure resulted in the loss of the files for that week's features.
(Luckily, we have a backup set, so we'll be presenting the complete HellRider saga next week.)
But fear not, faithful one!
We're moving up one of the most anticipated features of all to this week...
...the only (never-reprinted) book-length adventure of Jet Dream and her Stunt-Girl CounterSpies starting tomorrow in Heroines™!
It's "Jet-a-Reeno" Kool!

Saturday, August 4, 2012

FANTOMAS by Louis Feuillade

Finally got to see the first great movie series/serial...
...binging on the five films that comprise the 1913-14 Fantomas series...and I'm absolutely blown away!
Yes, they're almost a century old b/w silent films, but these are wonderfully-pulpish over-the-top mystery-action flicks that beat the pants off most of the over-CGIed crap that passes for cinema today!
If you've never read the books (and I haven't), there are some wild twists and turns, and a series finale that places the evil protagonist, Fantomas on a level with Doctor Doom or The Joker as THE villain who can never be caught/killed!