Reading Room: BLAST-OFF! 3 Rocketeers "Lunar Goliaths"

On his 96th birthday, we see that Jack Kirby could produce astounding work on a daily basis...

...that other artists would take weeks to conceive and create!

This was literally a day's work (two if Kirby was doing full pencils) for the King.

Can you name any other artist who could do quality art like this, five to six days a week?

Intended for the never-published Race for the Moon #4 (1960), this Jack Kirby/Al Williamson collaboration finally saw print in Harvey's Blast-Off #1 (1965), long after Kirby, along with Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and others began the amazing resurrection of the almost-defunct Atlas Comics line into Marvel Comics!

Happy Birthday, Jack!

And thanks for the memories!

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Technical Difficulties...

Since today was the hottest day of the year, we had a blackout...

...until power was restored about a half-hour ago.

The feature for today, The 3 Rocketeers, has been postponed, but only until tomorrow!

Reading Room:: BLAST-OFF! "Danger! Atoms!"

Some stories need little extrapolation...

...such as this never-reprinted short by writer/artist Howard Nostrand from Harvey's Blast-Off! #1 (1965)

Cute, eh?

Happy Birthday, Mr Bond! Now Die...

It's Sean Connery's 83rd Birthday...

Inside cover of Showcase #43

...so why not celebrate by visiting our "brother" blog Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™ where you can read the never-reprinted DC Comics adaptation of Sean's 007 debut in Doctor No!

Before you say "But, that's a reprint of the Classics Illustrated version available only in England!", I'll point out that numerous changes (which are compared in the blog posts) were made by DC in both text and art!

And, while the Classics Illustrated version has been translated and printed all over the world, the DC version has never been reprinted!

Because Showcase #43 came out months before the movie debuted in America, it sold poorly, and DC didn't exercise their 10-year option to do more James Bond tie-ins!

Ironically, in 1972, DC realized they were about to lose the rights to do 007 comics and considered doing an entire series of one-shot movie adaptations up to, and including, the current film, but Sean Connery's announcement that Diamonds are Forever would be his last film in Bondage (ouch) put the kibosh on those plans!

That's why there were no comic adaptations from Gold Key or Dell (who were doing comics based on every movie and TV show they could get their hands on) during the height of '60s Bond-mania!

Reading Room: Space Voyagers "Hot Spot"

Every few years in comics, there's a short-lived never-reprinted sci-fi space adventure series...

In the 1960s it was Gold Key's Explorers in the Unknown.

In the 1970s, it was DC's Space Voyagers, appearing in the back of Rima the Jungle Girl.

Though this is the origin tale, it appeared in Rima the Jungle Girl #3 (1974), after a two-parter (set after the events of this tale) ran in #1 & #2!

(Oddly, the pilot episode of the Classic Star Trek tv series, "Where No Man has Gone Before", aired as the third episode of that series.)

Scripted by Robert Kanigher and illustrated by Alex Nino, the series ran thru the first five issues of Rima before disappearing.

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