Monday, October 22, 2012

Reading Room: SPEED CARTER: SPACEMAN "Famous Explorers: Saturn"

In the future world of Speed Carter, women are not always treated as equals...
...but, when push comes to shove, the're as brave and as any men when facing the dangers of deep space exploration!
This story of a future fighting feminist from Speed Carter: SpaceMan #6 (1953) is written (like all the Speed Carter-related tales) by Hank Chapman, and illustrated by Bill Benulis, an artist who entered the comics field in 1949 and stayed only four years in the business.
He became a postman when the comics industry almost collapsed due to the "Seduction of the Innocent" witchhunt (that claimed comics caused juvenile delinquency) swept the country.
But, because he was so prolific, "new" material by him kept appearing in comics until 1957!
Support Small Business!

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Reading Room: WEIRD TALES OF THE FUTURE "Escape to Death"

Yeah, you read that correctly.
"To", not "From".
Don't worry, this s-o-b deserves what he gets in the end...
It's a kool story with superb Basil Wolverton story and art.
But, there's one problem...the coloring.
Basil went to the trouble of doing a number of different alien races, but they're all colored the same shade of green!
(There is one panel with the various aliens colored differently, but even there, the coloring is not consistent.
Members of the same species are colored dseveral different ways!)
I hope that, when this tale from Key's Weird Tales of the Future #2 was reprinted in Eclipse's Mr Monster's Super-Duper Special #8 in 1987, it was recolored to play up the various species' differences.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Astro-Zombies and much MORE...for Halloween!

Ah, Halloween...
One of our favorite times of the year here at Atomic Kommie Comics™!
What better time to promote our ghoulish goodies, including black hoodies, tote/trick-or-treat bags, and mugs at Seduction of the Innocent™?
SEE: the moody moonlit graveyard of the full-color Italian poster for the original Night of the Living Dead!
SEE: the kitchy graphics of the rarely-seen Astro Zombies poster (believe it or not, the film was PG)!
SEE: the koolest ghoul of all...Vincent Price, on the classic poster for the original House on Haunted Hill?
And let's not forget
The Green Slime!
Last Man on Earth AND Omega Man!
The ORIGINAL Demon Barber of Fleet Street!
I Married a Monster from Outer Space!
The ORIGINAL Little Shop of Horrors!
Occhio de Uccide!
They Came from Beyond Space!
AND (You knew we had to have this one) Plan 9 from Outer Space!
Make a kool-ghoul gift for your horrible hubby, wicked wife, boyfiend, or ghoulfriend with one of our collectibles!
Buy them! Trade them! Collect 'em all!

Friday, October 19, 2012

Classic War of the Worlds Movie Posters

Because Halloween makes me think of War of the Worlds, here's a link to a batch of 6 limited-edition posters from the first (and best) movie version of HG Wells' novel.


Photographed from the original posters (not from second-generation repros, tiny pix in books or low-rez internet files), the art has been lovingly-restored and digitally-remastered.
And, best of all, every one of the posters features those really-kool Martian war machines!
And there's even a couple of foreign versions...

Enjoy! ;-)

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Reading Room: SPEED CARTER: SPACEMAN "Sting of the Scorpeople"

What's cooler than dealing with an alien menace in deep space?
Why, dealing with two alien menaces (who are also fighting each other) in deep space, of course!
The names of the constellations Scorpio and Sagittarius are Earth culture-based and their shapes as scorpions and centaurs can only be discerned from Earth.
So, why did evolution produce species that resemble Earth-based creatures in those distant star-systems?
And, why do centaurs have wings?
Probably tight deadlines, because it's an inherently-silly premise.
(And I won't even go into why Johnny says they're crashing into a star, when it's obviously a planet...)

This story from Speed Carter: SpaceMan #6 (1954) was scripted (as were all Speed Carter tales) by Hank Chapman, and illustrated by Bob Forgione.
This was the final tale in Speed's final issue.
However it's not the last Speed story we'll present in RetroBlogs™!
There's one more Famous Explorers tale we'll run here next week.
And there's another Speed story from #6 that we'll present at our "sister" blog, True Love Comics Tales™ next Wednesday!
Why there instead of here?
Find out on Wednesday!
Support Small Business!