Reading Room THE WALKING DEAD "Genesis of the Walking Dead"

Ever wonder how zombies are revived/reanimated?

Well, here's the explanation for the Walking Dead's undead!

Confused?

Oh, wait!

You thought it was the origin of the walkers/biters from this Walking Dead (whose TV version returns this Sunday) series?

Er...no!

This was the origin of the first b/w Walking Dead series!

Created by writer/artist Jim Somerville and published by Malibu/Aircel in 1989, it was vastly-different from the 2003-present series created by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore.

For collectors, there's good news and bad news...

Good news: There's only a four-issue mini series and a one-shot Special to collect!

Bad news: Because it didn't sell well, it's HTF (hard to find) and expensive!

Want to see more?

Let us know...

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the Original Walking Dead #1

Frankenstein Reading Room: ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN Spirit of Frankenstein "Dagget's Phantoms"

We Have Already Seen...

...disgruntled elderly Professor Lambert Pardway, working as an assistant to Doctor Daniel Warren, tricks Warren into implanting the dying Pardway's brain into an experimental android.

Before Pardway's brain can use the android body to destroy Warren and his girlfriend, it is "short circuited" by Warren...

Writer/editor Richard Hughes and artist Charles Sultan merrily combine science and the supernatural in this wild tale from ACG's Adventures into the Unknown #6 (1949), setting a tone that would countinue for the remainder of the series...

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Reading Room SPACE ADVENTURES "Imitation People" Part 1

Do androids have souls?

Can they feel "real" (not programmed) emotions?

What does this Don (the Con) Trump wannabe have in mind?

This never-reprinted story from Charlton's Space Adventures V2N4 (1968) will be continued at our "sister" RetroBlog; True Love Comics Tales...

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Charlton Arrow #4

Frankenstein Reading Room: NOT BRAND ECHH "Frankenstein Sicksty-Nine!"

As we said earlier...

...the Frankenstein Monster made a number of...untraditional...appearances in 1960s comics, including this saga from Marvel's Not Brand Echh #12 (1969)!

Let's see what lurks under this kool Marie Severin cover...

Almost always, the Monster's 1960s comic appearances were humorous rather than frightening due to the fact the Comics Code Authority limited how such creatures could be used!

(B/w magazines like this weren't affected by the Code!) 

We'll be presenting a couple more of the wilder ones before the month is over!

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Marvel Masterworks

Not Brand Echh

Reading Room: ROBOTMEN OF THE LOST PLANET "Chapter One: Massacre of Mankind!"

On Friday, We Showed You a 1970s Take on This Tale...

...now you'll see the original from the 1950s!

The art for this 1952 one-shot title from Avon Comics is by Gene Fawcette, an Avon mainstay who did everything from horror to Westerns to romance.
If you compare the two tales, you'll see the robots are totally different in this version.
They're based on a still-popular toy first marketed in the early 1950s... Obie the Popping Martian/Panic Pete/Bug-Out Bob!
Who came up with the idea is unknown, and there was no attempt at an actual tie-in between the toy and the comic...

But the most unusual aspect of this tale is the scripter...Walter Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant", the primary writer of the legendary pulp character, The Shadow!

Gibson, a trained magician-turned writer did very little "hard" sci-fi during his long career...except in 1951-54, where he edited (and wrote under several pseudonoms) most of the contents of Charlton's short-lived (2 issues) Fantastic Science Fiction pulp magazine, editing Charlton's Space Adventures comic for it's first 11 issues, as well as scripting several other one-shots for Avon Comics.

For the record, Gibson also wrote two volumes of adaptations of Twilight Zone TV episodes (with a couple of original tales mixed in), but none of those were sci-fi.
BTW, while this was the only tale adapted into b/w in the 1970s, there were two more chapters of the man vs funky robot saga!
You'll see them next Monday and the Monday after that...

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Panic Pete!