Reading Room NORGE BENSON "Plummeting to Pluto"

Cosmo Corrigan was apparently caught in a Polar Vortex...

...and immediately replaced in Planet Comics by this guy, who encounted a whole different group of Plutonians!

Illustrated by Al Walker, who spent his entire comics career at Fiction House, this debut tale from Planet Comics #12 (1941) presents a somewhat less snarky (though no less humorous) version of the "Earthman on Pluto" concept shown in Cosmo Corrigan., mixing alien versions of both Arctic and Antarctic animals with total disregard to anything even remotely resembling exobiology!

But it is fun, and that's all that matters!

And it managed to survive for 19 more issues, some of which you'll see here over the winter months...

RetroBlogs' "Polar Vortex" Posts!

Besides the ongoing Polar Vortex posts on this blog...

...every RetroBlog has featured a post with a winter/Arctic/extreme cold theme!

Here's the list (with links)...

Crime & Punishment

NORTHWEST MOUNTIES

"Mountie Guns Break the Snow Siren's Secret!"

Hero Histories

DOC SAVAGE

"Polar Treasure"

Heroines

NELVANA OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS

"Attack from Etheria"

Secret Sanctum of Captain Video

WINKY DINK

"at the Arctic"

Seduction of the Innocent

Adventures into Darkness

"Frozen Death"

True Love Comics Tales

Lovelorn

"World's Most Dangerous Game"

War: Past, Present & Future

CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED

"Battle of the Bulge"

Western Comics Adventures

Original Ghost Rider

"Coffin of Snow"

Read them in front of a roaring fire with a mug of hot chocolate!

Reading Room COSMO CORRIGAN "and the Space ShowGirls!"

What do you do when you want to heat up a planet that's colder than the Polar Vortex?

Cosmo Corrigan has the answer...cosmic chorus girls!

Sady, Cosmo never got back to Pluto.

He wasn't in the next issue of Planet Comics, nor would he reappear anywhere else in the known universe.

His fate remains a mystery...

Written and illustrated by Seymour Reit (who co-created Casper the Friendly Ghost), Cosmo's final tale appeared in Fiction House's Planet Comics #11 (1941).
But don't think that's the end of our Polar Vortex-inspired posts!
There's more frigid fun to come!

Reading Room COSMO CORRIGAN "Martians, Mercurians and Money!"

Yeah, I know the logo says "Cosmic", not "Cosmo"...

...but he's called "Cosmo" in the story itself, as well as the next (and final) tale, so I conder the logo to be a typo!

Now, back to Pluto, the world that makes the Polar Vortex look like a balmy summer day!

Be here tomorrow for Cosmo's frigid final adventure!
Illustrated by George Tuska (who would handle the Buck Rogers newspaper strip in the 1950s, as well as become Iron Man's illustrator when he received his own book in the 1960s) the scripter for this tale from Fiction House's Planet Comics #10 (1941) is, regrettably, unknown.

("Ray Alexander" was a Fiction House pseudonom.)

Reading Room COSMO CORRIGAN "Exiled to Pluto"

Like Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and many other space heroes...

...Cosmo Corrigan had a weird first name.

Unlike them, he was a bit of a screw-up and wise-ass...

...so he was sent to the Solar System's equivalent of Siberia...the frozen planet Pluto, thereby qualifying his strip for inclusion during our week of Polar Vortex-related posts!

Planet Comics was noted for its...well...lack of scientific accuracy, being much more "science fantasy" than hard science fiction (which at least tried to apply known scientific facts to the storytelling).

But this series seems almost like a space opera sit-com, featuring a slacker as the hero!

Sadly, it only ran for three installments...which you'll see tomorrow and Saturday!

Illustrated by George Tuska (who would handle the Buck Rogers newspaper strip in the 1950s, as well as become Iron Man's illustrator when he received his own book in the 1960s) the scripter for this tale from Fiction House's Planet Comics #9 (1940) is, regrettably, unknown.

("Ray Alexander" was a Fiction House pseudonom.)