Monday, February 29, 2016

Reading Room UNKNOWN WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION GIANT-SIZE SPECIAL "Threads"

An alien invasion may not be in the form of hulking monsters and heavily-armed spacecraft...
...but something subtle and unseen...
This special, published in 1976 after Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction was cancelled, ran unseen material like this story, except for the tales "Arena" which had appeared in the color Worlds Unknown title (You can read it HERE and HERE.), and "Sinner", previously-published in the pro-zine witzend.
The writer of this tale, listed here as "Mat Warrick", may be the same person as "Mal Warrick" and "Mal Warwick", as stories under all three names appeared during the mid-1970s in various titles from Marvel, Star-Reach, DC, Red Circle, and Charlton.
Artist Adrian Gonzales was part of the wave of Philippine artists who contributed work to American comics from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s.
In 1985, he turned from print comics to doing character design and storyboards for animation studios until his passing in 1998.

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Best of Reading Room: GULLIVAR JONES "Two Worlds to Win!"

Art by Jim Steranko
...as we present, from Marvel's Creatures on the Loose #21 (1973), the sixth (and final) chapter of the short-lived, never-reprinted, comic adaptation of his only novel...
People did write, and though Gullivar Jones' four-color adventures were at an end, he returned in new graphic adventures in a Marvel title only a year later!
But that's a story for another time...

Friday, February 26, 2016

Best of Reading Room: GULLIVAR JONES "What Price Victory?"

Art by Gil Kane
...as menace after menace assaults him!
Has Gullivar been reunited with Heru only to die on the red Martian sands?
(Remember, there was only one Gullivar Jones novel!
No sequel!)
Note: Gray Morrow assumes the art chores (pencils and inks) for the final two issues of Gullivar's never-reprinted run.
But the writer of Gullivar's penultimate adventure from Marvel's Creatures on the Loose #20 (1972) is still George Alec Effinger.

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Best of Reading Room: GULLIVAR JONES "Long Road to Nowhere"

Art by Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia
...we'll let the protagonist of this interplanetary saga fill us in...
The artist round-robin continues as long-time Superman artist Wayne Boring steps in for Creatures on the Loose #19 (1972), the fourth chapter of the short-lived, never-reprinted, comic adaptation, inked by long-time Supergirl artist Jim Mooney!
(Oddly, Wayne and Jim never worked together at DC!)
At this time, Boring also did the first three issues (#22-24) of the 1972 revival of Captain Marvel.
BTW, you'll note the splash page is partially-penciled by Gil Kane.
George Alec Effinger goes solo on the scripting and continues to the end of the series in Creatures on the Loose #21.