Reading Room KIDNAPPED BY A SPACE SHIP "Part 1 - Off to the Stars!"

In pop culture, lots of kids besides comics' Buzzy Bean went into space...

...as early as 1970, according to this tale from Treasure Chest V14N11 (1959)

Oops!

We'll find out how this liftoff happened when the story continues next Monday!

Writer Frances Crandall followed the accepted concepts of space travel postulated by scientist Wener Von Braun and, illustrated by Chesley Bonestell in various books and magazines like Conquest of Space, and popularized in numerous 1950s movies like Destination Moon and Angry Red Planet!

Artist Fran Matera was also the art director/art editor for Treasure Chest, but is best known for his long run on the Steve Roper and Mike Nomad newspaper strip.

Design of the Week: Love on the Beach!

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another.

This week, it's romance on the sands and under the Moon in this vintage 1970s romance comic book cover by Nick Cardy.
Available on all sorts of kool kollectibles from t-shirts and pajamas to mugs and beach blankets HERE.

Nichelle Nichols is Still Going Strong!

Heard that our favorite communications officer/space chantuse is under the weather...

...but, according to Entertainment Weekly, it was a mild stroke and she's recovering with just a little imparement to movement on her right side.

Hey, she's 82 and in better shape than a lot of women decades younger than her!

Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Alien on Earth"

Yesterday, we told the tale of a misunderstood alien...

...here's an earlier rendition of the oft-used concept, with one of the weirdest-looking Jack Kirby aliens I've ever seen!

Jack Kirby and Christopher Rule, who did the cover of the re-do, illustrated this never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Journey into Mystery #51 (1959).

As for who wrote it, the consensus on various sites, including the Grand Comics Database, is that it's the work of Kirby himself.

For those clever readers who noted both this story and the reworking in World of Fantasy were both published in 1959, this one came out six months earlier, and the "job number" for "Alien" (T-165) is earlier than the one on "Gargoyle" (T-345).

Usually, Stan Lee (either as editor or writer) made sure that such similar plots or reworkings were a couple of years apart.

Reading Room WORLD OF FANTASY "Gargoyle From the 5th Galaxy!"

Is this a kool cover, or what?

But, this sandals-wearing Jack Kirby-Christopher Rule scarlet alien isn't inside the comic!

Instead, we get a more humanoid, less "traditional" gargoyle-looking green alien!

To be fair, he does breathe fire, like the guy on the cover...

Plotted by Stan Lee, scripted by Larry Lieber and superbly-rendered by Don Heck, this tale from Atlas' World of Fantasy #19 (1959) was acutally a re-do of an earlier story (by Jack Kirby, no less), which we'll present tomorrow!

BTW, though the story was reprinted in the 1970s, the cover has never seen republication!

Pity...