Atomic Kommie Comics

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Reading Room: LANCE LEWIS: SPACE DETECTIVE "Amoeba Men of Saturn"

Yet another Golden Age interstellar law enforcer joins our blog...

...as he meets the first of two alien races who will become his arch-foes, and rescues the woman who will become his constant...(ahem)...friend and companion!

Referred to as both "Saturnians" and "Amoeba Men", these aliens would return to wage a full-scale interplanetary war with Earth.

This story from Nedor/Standard's Mystery Comics #4 (1944) was Lance's second appearance ever.

Both the writer and artist are currently unknown, even to the Grand Comic Database.

Since Mystery Comics was cancelled as of #4, Lance moved over to Startling Comics, where he became the cover feature from his premiere in #44 to the book's demise as of #53.

Several years after this series ended, an unrelated Space Detective series with art by Wally Wood and Joe Orlando ran in its own title at Avon Comics.

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Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Reading Room: DAN HASTINGS "Radium Raiders from Earth's Core"

Originally a Flash Gordon clone, even using Alex Raymond art swipes....

...by the time the wandering strip took up residence in Scoop Comics, it had gotten away from interplanetary adventures to intraplanetary tales!

I suspect this tale from Dynamic's Scoop Comics #1 (1941) was meant to be an interplanetary adventure with several panels redrawn/relettered to make it a "civilization at the earth's center" story.

Both writer and artist(s) are unknown.

Originally proposed as a newspaper strip packaged by the Harry A Chesler Studio in 1937, Dan Hastings was reworked into comic book format when comics using new material instread of strip reprints took off in 1939!

The series went thru several different publishers, starting at Chesler/Dynamic, moving to Centaur, then MLJ (later Archie), finally back to Chesler/Dynamic, with minor modifications to cast and premise at each company.

This tale was the first of his final run at Chesler/Dynamic, where he faced more Earth-bound foes, including thinly-disguised Axis surrogates (with more advanced tech than the real-life Germany and Japan).

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Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Reading Room: JETTA OF THE 21st CENTURY "Pardon My Power!"

It's January 1st, 2013, so it's time for FOOTBALL!

...or football as shown in the "future" (our present), as presented in 1952!

If the art style of this tale from Standard's Jetta of the 21st Century #6 (1953) looks familiar, it's the work of Dan DeCarlo, who helped establish the iconic "look" of Archie Comics!
Dan actually started at Atlas Comics (the 1940s-50s predecessor to Marvel Comics) doing a variety of humor strips before beginning a long-term run on various Archie titles in 1951.
Even then, he continued to work for a number of other publishers, including Standard Comics, who asked him to create, write, and illustrate a teen-humor series.
(Every publisher had at least one of them!)
Exactly whose idea it was to set it in the "far future" of the 21st Century is unknown, but the resultant strip, though extremely derivative of Archie, was unique in the teen-humor genre for it's Jetsons-style setting and "futuristic" slang.
To see more of Jetta go HERE!

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