Reading Room TALES CALCULATED TO DRIVE YOU BATS "Ghost Town"

Every few years, Archie Comics attempts to expand their audience...

...by taking stabs at other genres besides teen humor.

In the case of the 1961-62 title, Tales Calculated to Drive You Bats, it was doing comedy versions of monsters and aliens.

But after six issues, the sales indicated that wasn't what the audience wanted.

So, #7 (1962) took a different approach, presenting four tales like the sci-fi/fantasy stories currently running in comic competitors' anthologies like Tales to Astonish and Strange Adventures...but using the same "house style" art as the rest of the Archie Comics line!

Did it work?

Well, there was no issue #8 of Tales Calculated to Drive You Bats...

(Note: there was a one-shot giant-sized reprint issue published during the "camp" craze in 1966.

It didn't sell any better...)

Archie tried the idea of serious stories with Archie-style art one more time with Chilling Adventures in Sorcery as Told by Sabrina in 1972.

After two issues, the title dropped Sabrina as narrator-host and became Chilling Adventures in Sorcery, then Sorcery and switched over to using artists like Gray Morrow and Alex Toth for the remainder of its' 11-issue run.

BTW, the artist of this tale, Joe Edwards, was one of the most prolific of all the Archie Comics illustrators, with several thousand (yes, you read that right, thousand) covers, single/two-page strips, and stories to his credit, including almost all the ones featuring his creation, L'il Jinx!

Holiday Reading Room: EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Buddy Bunny's Problem"

Here's a kool short story by Walt (Pogo) Kelly...

...about the Easter Bunny bringing his son into the family business!

This story from Dell's Four Color Comics #103: Easter with Mother Goose (1946) was written and illustrated by Walt Kelly, whose signature series Pogo wouldn't debut for another three years.
Trivia:
While Pogo as a stand-alone series began in 1949, various characters including Pogo himself and Albert the Alligator had appeared as supporting characters in other Walt Kelly-written and drawn strips since 1941.

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Reading Room STRANGE WORLDS "A Nation is Born"

As we mentioned yesterday, here's the Golden Age version...

..of a Bronze Age b/w magazine story we already ran HERE!

Illustrated by Golden Age journeyman Rafael Astarita, this tale appeared in Avon's Strange Worlds #4 (1951) and was reprinted in IW's Strange Planets #9 (1959).

It was then re-illustrated, with only minor changes to the script (including a re-titling), in Eerie Publications' Strange Galaxy V1N8 (1971) as shown HERE.

Reading Room STRANGE GALAXY "Moon is Red"

In the late 1960s-early 1970s, numerous b/w comic magazines popped up...

...to publish risque material the Comics Code Authority banned from color comic books!

This tale from Eerie Publications' Strange Galaxy #V1N8 (1971) has the "feel" of a 1950s comic, which makes sense, since the script is lifted almost verbatim from a story in Avon's Strange Planets #4 (1951) called "A Nation is Born", but redrawn!
That's odd, since the publisher had been taking color comic material from Avon and other defunct publishers and simply reprinting it with grey tones added!
You'll see the original version tomorrow!

BTW, this issue, despite being #8, was actually the first issue under that title.
What it was before then is unknown, since the publisher did numerous titles in various categories including astrology, romance, true crime, etc.

"Oswal" was the pen-name of Osvaldo Walter Viola, an Argentinean writer/artist who began his career in the early 1960s creating Argentine's first super-hero, Sónoman.

His only American comics work was for Eerie Publications' titles.

Reading Room BLACK CAT MYSTIC "Great Stone Face"

Despite the title, Black Cat Mystic was actually a sci-fi anthology...

...featuring the final work of the Simon & Kirby Studio!

NOTE: May be NSFW due to racial stereotypes common to the era.

Penciled, inked, and probably scripted by Jack Kirby, this tale from Harvey's Black Cat Mystic #59 (1957) is Jack's first look at what would become known as the "ancient astronauts" theory in the 1970s due to the interest generated by Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods.
At the same time, Kirby himself would expand the concept into The Eternals, (originally-titled Return of the Gods), which is now one of the lynchpins of the Marvel Universe.

Kirby would present a variation of the theme a couple of years after "Great Stone Face" in Race for the Moon's "Face on Mars" as shown HERE.

Note: Kirby and Stan Lee did a variation of the concept at Marvel in the 1960s with The Inhumans, who were created by Kree scientists visiting Earth in prehistoric times and genetically-manipulating humans to draw out dormant abilities.