Sunday, November 4, 2012

Relive the CountDown to Halloween 2012 at Secret Sanctum of Captain Video!

Our "brother", Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™, participated in this blogathon...
...with several entries, each from a different movie studio!
First up was Quatermass 2 aka Enemy from Space, from Britain's legendary Hammer Studios!
Next was the never-reprinted 1940s adaptation of Universal Studios' Son of Frankenstein!
Then, a week-long mini-blogathon of the never-reprinted graphic novel based on the movie inspired by 1950s horror comics...Laurel Entertainment/Warner Brothers' CreepShow!
Then...the first, never reprinted, American comic book appearance of Toho Studios' Godzilla!
(Note: it's NOT the Marvel Comics series from the late 1970s!)
Finally, the rarely-seen, one-time team-up of terror-titans Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Lon Chaney from 50 years ago on Route 66!
It's not too late to join in the fun!
Just click on any of the links above for monsterous thrills!

Friday, November 2, 2012

Reading Room: STRANGE WORLDS "Weapon Out of Time"

Barbarians, advanced technology, and beautiful, half-clad women...
...so we're obviously back in the retro-cool era of the Golden Age of science fiction!
So, if the fountain was "Old Faithful", where would nearby Anthor be located?
And, what happened to Anthor and it's inhabitants, who obviously weren't around when Paleoindians first migrated across the Beringia land bridge between Asia and North America around 12,000 years ago (or earlier)?
Yeah, I know it's "just a comic book story", but I can speculate, can't I?
Was this meant to be the first in an ongoing series about Prof Chalmers and his time-viewer/matter analyzer?
Art for this wild story from Avon's Strange Worlds #2 (1951) is by Wally Wood.
The writer is unknown, but it's theorized to be Gardner Fox, who created comics' first barbarian, Crom, for Avon the previous year.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Reading Room: CAPTAIN SCIENCE "Tracking the Flying Saucers"

A dying alien gives an human without fear the ability to defend Earth...
...nope, it ain't the Silver Age Green Lantern!
It's Captain Science!
Appearing full-blown in the first issue of his own title in 1950, Captain Science was a bold attempt at a Captain Video-type comics hero, one more dependent on brains and technology than brawn.
Unlike Captain Video, who created advanced technology simply because he was really smart,  Gordon Dane was shown to be smart and had the advantage of possessing alien knowledge he could use in adapting and improving present-day tech to serve new uses as the situation required.
Visually, the art on his never-reprinted premiere appearance by Gustav Schrotter is adequate, but hardly distinctive.
We'll be presenting the complete Captain Science series over the next couple of months.
Watch for it.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Reading Room: WORLDS BEYOND "Twice Alive"

Instead of the usual vampires or werewolves or zombies, here's a horror story...
Art by Sheldon Moldoff
...with a different, more "science fiction", approach to terror, from the HTF Worlds Beyond #1 (1951) from Fawcett.
Did the writers of the movie Fantastic Voyage read this tale when they were younger?
The art is by comics legend Bob Powell, but the writer is unknown.
The cover, by Sheldon Moldoff, shows a cavern (with bats!) instead of the inside of a human being, and probably was meant for another story, but it conveys the mood of "Twice Alive", if not the plot points.
Worlds Beyond was retitled Worlds of Fear with #2 and ran for another nine issues.