Reading Room HOME RUN "LIttle Leagues"

With the return of the National Pastime (despite the cold weather)...

...we thought we'd look at the origin of how many of us (myself included) first experienced organized baseball!

As we mentioned yeterday, there was a short-lived surge in sports-themed comics from 1949 to 1952.

This particular one-shot from Magazine Enterprises, produced in '52 (but publshed in '53), was the last gasp of that cycle.

Produced/packaged by writer/artist Bob Powell's studio, this historical piece was typical of the high-quality material he supplied to numerous publishers including ME, Street & Smith, and Harvey Comics, from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s.

Reading Room BASEBALL COMICS "Rube Rooky"

Is there anything Will Eisner hadn't done during his long career?

He took chances with experiments like this baseball-themed 1949 comic book...

...which predated a rush of sports-themed comics from various publishers the next year.

Unfortunately, the big problem with being first is that, often, the world isn't quite ready for you, and Baseball Comics lasted only one issue.

But it certainly wasn't for lack of quality, as this Eisner-written and penciled tale, inked by Tex Blaisdell, proves.

There's more to Rube Rooky's one shot at stardom, and we'll be running it each weekend for the next few weeks, so don't miss it!

Reading Room WEIRD TALES OF THE MACABRE "Bog Beast"

Combining sci-fi and horror well is no easy task...

...but this series from the short-lived Atlas Comics of the 1970s was one of the better attempts.

Note that the Los Angeles cop wears a British constable's uniform.

That's because the artist is Spanish and had been illustrating material for the British market for most of his career, and was unfamiliar with American police uniforms.

"Badia Romero" is a pen-name for Enrique Romero, best-known for his work on Modesty Blaise and co-creating the Axa series.

His brother, Jorge Romero had been illustrating for Warren Magazines under the pen-name Jorge Galvez since 1971 and Enrique hoped to join him in the American markets, but this and two Santana tales for Marvel's b/w Haunt of Horror anthology were Enrique's only assignments working directly for American publishers (not counting Modesty Blaise and Axa reprints).

Debuting in Atlas' b/w anthology magazine Weird Tales of the Macabre #2 (1975), the strip moved into the color comic anthology Tales of Evil for the remainder of its' short run.

When it was reprinted in Australia, a previously-unpublished tale finally saw print.

You'll be seeing all of them here, so keep an eye out for them...

Charlton Fools Day in the Reading Room UNLIKELY TALES "Time Machine"

When two Steves, a long-established pro and eager young up-and-comer, collaborate...

...you get this time-travel tale with a twist, set only 21 years from now!

It's amazing what the comics creators of 1967 thought 70 years later would look like.

Considering that we Baby Boomers thought by 2000 we'd have bases on the Moon and flying cars, it's not unreasonable...

Written by up-and-comer Steve Skeates and illustrated by Spider-Man and Dr Strange co-creator Steve Ditko, this never-reprinted story from the Unlikely Tales anthology collection in Charlton Premiere #4 (1968) offers a surprise twist on the usual "time-traveler from the future may change history" concept.

Two notes:

Skeates wrote all the stories in this issue, a rarity for someone just starting out in the industry.

All the stories were both penciled and inked by their respective artists, also a rarity in a business where, in order to meet deadlines, creators usually either penciled or inked, but not both.

And the list of creators in this issue included Ditko, as well as Pat Boyette, Jim Aparo, and Charlton mainstay Rocke Mastroserio.

This post is part of an informal blogathon entitled

Charlton Fools Day

conceived and organized by Kracalactaka to bring attention to Charlton Comics, often considered the "runt" of the comic book litter.

Visit his blog HERE and see a list of other participants as well as his own contributions

Also check out

ComicBook+
 a website featuring thousands (and I do mean thousands) of free, downloadable, public domain Golden Age and Silver Age comics with a HUGE Charlton Comics section!

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.