Reading Room UNUSUAL TALES "Look into the Future"

One of Charlton Comics' defining traits was...

...using montages of interior art as their covers.

Usually, the cover would utilize several different stories' art, but in this case, they played up the final story in the issue!

A morality play in a sci-fi/fantasy context.
Rod Serling was a master of this concept, as he displayed weekly on the original Twilight Zone.
This never-reprinted story from Charlton's Unusual Tales #27 (1961) illustrated by Steve Ditko and probably written by Charlton mainstay Joe Gill follows the concept to a "T", within the limitations established by the Comics Code Authority.
If it had been done pre-Code, Simms would've come to a horrific (and graphic) end...

Reading Room: SPACE CLUSTERS Part 1

In the mid-1980s, DC published a line of graphic novels...

...that featured original tales created for the series!

To be continued...

Next Week!

Written by sci-fi novelist Arthur Byron Cover and illustrated by Alex Nino, this never-reprinted tome from 1986 was the seventh and final magazine-size graphic novel DC published before abandoning the concept due to low sales.

Reading Room VENUS COMICS "Escape from Death"

We recently presented "Escape to Death"...

...so here's the counterpoint (at least in title)...

So Kallam ends up escaping to death...

This never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Venus Comics #15 (1951) was mild compared to the really intense horror-themed stuff some of the other publishers were running!

While the writer is unknown, the artist was Sol Brodsky, who was originally a journeyman artist during the Golden Age and the first editor of Cracked magazine, but is best known as Marvel's overworked production manager during the Silver Age before founding the short-lived, but rather entertaining, Skywald comic and magazine line in 1970.

He returned to Marvel in 1974, where he took on the dual roles of Vice President of Operations and Vice President Special Projects before passing on in 1984.

Reading Room CAPTAIN JOHNER AND THE ALIENS "First Contact"

Gold Key used 4-5 page "filler" series in their Silver Age comics...

...some of which proved popular enough to receive their own titles!

Based on concepts used in Murray Leinster's Hugo Award-winning story "First Contact" which premiered in Astounding Science Fiction May, 1945, this Russ Manning-written and illustrated series debuted with this tale in the back of Gold Key's Magnus: Robot Fighter #1 (1963), which Manning also scripted and drew.

The series continued until #29 (1971), when Gold Key increased the amount of advertising pages, eliminating the need for the shot backup stories in their books.

Gold Key tried the strip in it's own title with two one-shots reprinting some of the stories, but neither sold well.

When Valiant/Acclaim acquired rights to most of the Gold Key characters in the 1990s, they did a two-issue reprint of the first 14 stories in the hope of leading into doing new material based on the strip, but again, the books didn't sell.

We'll be re-presenting not only the already reprinted material, but the entire second half of the strip's run which hasn't seen the light of day since the Silver Age!

Watch for it!

Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet: the ORIGINAL Graphic Novel

Celebrate the 400th Anniversary of the Death of the Bard of Avon...

...by reading the first graphic novel based on his most famous play!

It's, appropriately enough, on our sister RetroBlog, True Love Comics Tales.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3