Thursday, March 31, 2016

Reading Room BUCCANEERS "Black Roger: Beware Treachery, Black Roger!!"

Remember the days when Muslims in comics looked like her?
There're no hijabs here, bunkie!
It's typical Arabian fantasy common to 1930s-50s movies!
This never-reprinted tale from Quality's Buccaneers #22 (1950) follows the tropes established in the Technicolor fantasy films of the period including Arabian Nights, Kismet, and Thief of Bagdad, along with the (at the time) still-popular pirate flicks which ran the gamut from big-budget "A" pics to movie serials.
Despite that, the era of pirate-themed comics like Mutiny, Piracy, Buccaneers, Captain Kidd, etc, was short-lived, beginning and ending in less than three years.
Both the writer and artist of this tale (and the entire Black Roger series) are lost to the mists of time.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

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?)

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

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

...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...

Monday, March 28, 2016

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

...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...

Sunday, March 27, 2016

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? ;-)