Reading Room LEFTY FLYNN "and the Diamond Death"

Take me OUT at the ball game...

Who knew baseball could be such a violent sport?

No, you won't!

This never-reprinted story from Doc Savage Comics V1N4 (1941) was Lefty's first, last, and only appearance anywhere!

Both the writer and artist of this one-shot strip are unknown.

You may ask why I decided to post this particular tale.

My two "home towns", Chicago and New York City are holding their annual intra-city "Crosstown Classics" over the next two weeks.

Chicago's White Sox and Cubs slug it out this week and NY's Mets and Yankees duel next week.

They're the only two cities left with both National League and American League teams, but until the 1950s, it was a far more common occurrence than present-day fans realize!

Besides Chi-Town and Gotham, the following cities had both AL and NL teams...

Boston had the Braves (NL) and Red Sox (AL). Braves moved to Milwaukee, then Atlanta.

St. Louis had the Browns (AL) and Cardinals (NL). Browns moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles!

Philadelphia had the Athletics (AL) and Phillies (NL). Athletics moved to Kansas City, then ended up in Oakland!

For a while, NY had three teams, The Giants (NL), Yankees (AL) and the Brooklyn Dodgers (NL) who were formed before Brooklyn merged with Manhattan and the Bronx (which were considered "New York City") along with Queens and Staten Island.

The Giants and Dodgers moved at the same time to California (San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively), and for several years there was no NL team in New York.

Then both the AL and NL expanded, adding two new teams in each league.

The NL got the Mets in NY and Astros in Houston.

The AL briefly put the Angels in LA, and Washington got a new Senators team. The Angels stayed in the general area, but adopted the name "California Angels", and evntually, "Angels of Aniheim".

But, wait! Didn't Washington already have a Senators team? They did, but that team moved to Minnesota and became the Twins!

And the second Senators team moved to Texas to become the Rangers!

I'm not even going to go into the second expansion that occured only seven years later and created the divisions within the leagues that now extend baseball season well into November!

Hope I made the history lecture fairly painless...

Reading Room CAPTAIN JOHNER AND THE ALIENS "Time-Distorters"

Commander Zartz and the Aliens have helped Johner and General Curso capture non-human impostors...

...but the extraterrestrials can't prove it!

So, not so much other aliens, but humans with some sort of time technology!

From the future?

From the past?

The last caption promises an explanation...

Plus, more cool, unique color-hold graphics from creator/writer/illustrator Russ Manning in this tale from Gold Key's Magnus, Robot Fighter #12 (1965)!

Be here next Monday as the mystery deepens...

Best of Reading Room UNUSUAL TALES "Night of the Red Snow"

As near-record heat grips most of the good ol' USA...

Art by Steve Ditko

...we re-present a chilly comics tale to take your minds off it, illustrated by the co-creator of Spider-Man, Steve Ditko!

Unfortunately, due to Charlton Comics' legendarily-bad printing, the "red" effect on the canvas is muted almost to uselessness, diminishing the ending's effectiveness!

BTW, did you note the sneaky "red herring" on the sides of the moving van on page 3?

Beautifully-rendered by Steve Ditko, this tale from Charlton's Unusual Tales #9 (1957) has no credited writer, but many researchers/historians believe the scripter is the prolific (and underrated) Joe Gill.

Join the Summer Fun on RetroBlogs!

This past week you may have missed these RetroBlogs Mini-Marathon entries...

This never=reprinted, John Buscema-illustrated, adaptation at Secret Sanctum of Captain Video!

This never-reprinted origin story at War: Past, Present & Future and Hero Histories!

Plus the explanation of how this female spy vs Nazis story...

...became this superheroine vs Commies tale at Heroines!

What's Next?

Watch this blog to find out!

Best of Reading Room: STRANGE TALES "When a Planet Dies!"

Hoo Boy! Is it HOT!
We need some cooling off!
But maybe not this much...

This splash page from Marvel's Weird Wonder Tales #22 (1973), was actually a reworking of this (literally) cool story from Strange Tales #97 (1962)!

While the art is credited to Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers, who wrote the tale is not entirely clear.

A number of people, myself included, think it's scripted by Kirby himself.

Bonus: Here's the cover from a previous issue of Weird Wonder Tales that supplied the Dr Druid figure on the reworked splash page...

Art by Jack Kirby, John Romita (Dr Druid's face) and Joe Sinnott

 ...and here's the original art for the splash page!

The production artist "flipped" a stat of the Dr Druid figure and fit it where the bearded aliens are on the original.
To paraphrase "the World's Most Interesting Man", stay cool, my friends!