Best of Reading Room RACE FOR THE MOON "Space Garbage"

Here's a tale that could be considered a "Space Western"...

...though it's actually from Harvey's Race to the Moon #3 in 1958, several years after Space Western Comics folded.

Prospectors, claim jumpers, gunmen, fist-fights, a "frontier" town...
Seems like a Western in space to me...
Art by two legends in the field; Jack Kirby and Al Williamson.
Script probably by Jack Kirby himself or Joe Simon.

Best of Reading Room RACE FOR THE MOON "Saucer Man"

From the era when actual space travel was brand new...

 ...and flying saucers were probably real.  from Race for the Moon #3 (1958).

Pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Al Williamson, an absolutely magnificent combo, rivaling Kirby's pairings with Wally Wood and Joe Sinnott!

Science fiction was in a state of flux as real-world science began catching up with our imaginations.
Instead of far-future sagas with warp-drive ships, tales of "the day after tomorrow", when we would make our first landings on the Moon and Mars came into vogue.
That didn't mean that visitors from beyond our Solar System were left out, but the technology we used to respond to them (friendly or not) was much closer to "present-day" (1950s) tech than ray-guns and photon drives.
It's sad that, now that we're actually in the era shown in these tales, we haven't done anything close to what they show...

Best of Reading Room RACE FOR THE MOON "Lunar Trap"

The 1950s, when we thought we'd be fighting with the Soviet Union over the Moon...

 

Pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Al Williamson (who, along with fellow EC alumnus Reed Crandall, was doing a lot of work for Harvey at the time)!
Not sure who wrote it, but speculation is that Kirby himself scripted it.
Either way, a decent story with solid storytelling and magnificent rendering!

Design of the Week Redux: EASTER SURPRISE!

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another, unless, like this one, it's proven very popular!

Since Easter is coming, we thought we'd present an absolutely adorable piece by the legendary Walt (Pogo) Kelly featuring a kid, bunny, mouse, and chick as the Easter Egg in their basket hatches, producing yet another cutie...a baby duck!

You just don't see stuff like this anymore!
So, why not order some kidswear, or even holiday greeting cards with this one-week-only graphic?
Everyone who sees it will go "Awwww."
But hurry, the window for ordering without rush charges ends on Tuesday!

Reading Room SPACE ADVENTURES "Jealousy on Kano"

One of comics legend Bernie Krigstein's few non-EC art jobs...

...which was probably unused material that Charlton purchased when they bought out Ziff-Davis' inventory.

Note Panel 3 from the last page.
Though there's a ZZZAAAAB! sound effect, and Dr Lexikon slumps over, there's no ray from the gun or impact on his body.
This was not an uncommon edit on material produced before the Comics Code went into effect, but published after companies complied with its' rules.
Though not explicitly-stated in the very generic regulations, one request the Code made to publishers was to not show a gun or bow being fired and the victim of the shot in the same panel.
This was relaxed a couple of years later for ray guns, but not for bows, crossbows, and guns.
The rule of thumb was, if a kid could imitate it using a real-world weapon, don't show it.
From Charlton's Space Adventures #16 (1955), it has the same look as Krigstein's SpaceBusters or Space Patrol material from the early 1950s, not his EC work from this period a couple of years later.
It's also his only work published by Charlton.