Reading Room SPACE PATROL "Pirates of Mercury"

Now here's a series I'd love to see a live-action version of...

...using state-of-the-art CGI for the SFX and aliens!

The multi-talented Basil Wolverton wrote, illustrated, lettered, and probably colored, this never-reprinted tale from Amazing Mystery Funnies #19 (1940).

It's one of the first of the "law enforcement in space" sub-genre that prospered in pulp and comic sci-fi in the 1930s and 40s, and carried over to TV in the 1950s.

Note: the 1950s TV/radio series Space Patrol was not based on Wolverton's strip.

(Could you imagine them trying to do Wolverton's aliens using 1950s-level makeup techniques?)

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Reading Room 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY "Inter-Galactica" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Hero...

...astronaut/fanboy/nerd Harvey Norton and an alien he calls "Princess" are fleeing from hostiles in her spacecraft...

We never learn who the aliens are or what becomes of the transformed Norton.
(The next story details a different astronaut "upgraded" to a cosmic fetus.)
Was this never-reprinted tale from Marvel's 2001: A Space Odyssey #6 (1977) by writer/artist Jack Kirby and inker Mike Royer a "love letter" to comics fans or a snide rip at them?
Considering readers (and many staffers at Marvel) were vocal in their unhappiness at Kirby's work after his return to the "House of Ideas" in 1975, it would be understandable if "The King" chose to vent a bit via his storytelling...

Reading Room 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY "Inter-Galactica" Part 1

We Have Already Seen...

...fanboy/nerd Harvey Norton, influenced by the Monolith, joins the space program and ends up on a research flight to Neptune, where he and his crewmates find an alien space capsule with a passenger inside.
Then a group of unfriendly aliens show up to claim it and the passenger...

Have they run out of space and time?
Tune in tomorrow to find out!

This never-reprinted tale from #6 of Marvel's 2001: A Space Odyssey sequel series took some strange turns I'm sure Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke never envisioned.

But ya gotta admit writer/penciler Jack Kirby and inker Mike Royer made it interesting...

Happy Easter

Our thanks to all of you who ordered goodies from Atomic Kommie Comics™ line of retro-design collectibles in our Exciting Easter section!
BTW, this was our #1 selling-design!
Cute, ain't it? ;-)

Reading Room: SPACEHAWK "Moon Justice"

Basil Wolverton really enjoyed doing SpaceHawk...

...and even took a crack at writing a short text story starring the character, as seen in this tale from Target Comics #15 (1941)

The same issue this prose piece appeared, the SpaceHawk strip's format was changed in a direction Wolverton was not happy about; moving the hero from outer space to Earth to use his advanced technology to battle threats from thinly-disguised surrogates of the Axis powers.

(This was pre-Pearl Harbor, and we weren't at war at the time, so the stories were still set in the future!)

Once America entered the war, SpaceHawk was actually transported thru time to the "present day" (1942) to fight the real Hitler, Hirohito, Mussolini, and their minions.

So you might consider this text story to be Wolverton's last try to convince the editor to keep the strip in deep space.

It didn't work.

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