Cover Gallery: STRANGE WORLDS Inside Front Covers featuring "Kenton of the Star Patrol"

Avon Comics often put their "contents page" on the inside front cover...

Issue #3 art by Wally Wood

...with an all-new illustration by the best artist available, instead of clip-art from the stories, as this gallery of the ifcs of Strange Worlds issues featuring Kenton of the Star Patrol shows!
(Note, BTW, that Kenton gets top billing, being the first image on each IFC!)

Issue #4 art by Wally Wood

Issue #5 art by Wally Wood

Issue #6 art by Everett Raymond Kinstler

Marvel, and several other publishers, now use the inside front cover to do a contents or synopsis page, but they usually use existing art from previous stories or from the current issue.

FYI, when stories from Avon Comics were reprinted by IW/Super Comics in the late 1950s-early '60s, the reprints usually left out the ifcs, since the film negatives and photostats for covers weren't stored with "repro" (as it's called by printers) for the interior pages.

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The Future WAS Fantastic!

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Design of the Week THE FIRST CHRISTMAS...in 3-D!

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another!

This week...it's a never-reprinted comic cover from the 1950, which not only offers a tasteful and beautiful painting of the Nativity scene by legendary sci-fi artist Kelly Freas, but also a kool, kitchy element with the fact it's the cover of a 3-D comic!

Available on mugs, buttins, t-shirts, tote bags, literally dozens of kool kollectibles that would make great stocking stuffers!

BTW, you can read the tale behind the cover HERE!

(Make sure you have your 3-D glasses!)

Reading Room TRAGG AND THE SKY GODS "Spawn of Yargon" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Prehistoric Protagonist...

...we learned that the women who would eventually be the mothers of Tragg and his mate-to-be Lorn had been genetically-altered by advanced aliens from Yargon, creating the next step in human evolution beyond Neanderthals!

After witnessing the birth and the first year of Tragg and Lorn's development, the aliens (whom the Neanderthals considered to be "gods") departed, planning to return a couple of decades later to see how the experiment worked out!

But, in the interim, many of the Neanderthals came to blame the departure of the "gods" on the births of Tragg and Lorn, and felt the way to compel the return of those they worshipped was to slay the "strange ones"!

The endangered pair evade their would-be killers and hide in the nearby mountains.

But events far across the universe were about to throw the proverbial monkey wrench into everybody's plans...

And thus the saga truly begins...after a couple of false starts as shown HERE and HERE!

Be here next Friday, as we present another chapter!

Bonus: When this tale was reprinted in the series' final issue, six years later, the cover was recomposed and recolored...

Though the flat color design definitely creates a better feeling of depth and separation between the foreground figures of Tragg and Lorn and the background where the Yargonians lurk, the wonderful textures of the original hand-colored version have been lost!

BTW, notice how, from 1976 to 1982, in only six years comics more than doubled in price, from 25¢ to 60¢ for a standard 36-page book!

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Friday Fun TRAGG AND THE SKY GODS "Spawn of Yargon" Part 1

After two tryouts (HERE and HERE) with different versions of the mileu...

...Gold Key leaped whole-heartedly into the world of Tragg with this premiere issue in 1976!

To Be Concluded...TOMORROW!

Co-creators Don Glut (writer) and Jesse Santos (illustrator) tweaked the concept a bit, and the publishers finally gave the go-ahead for an ongoing series.

Note Tragg is no longer using a silver-bladed ax as shown HERE!

Nor are there any magicians/voodoo practitioners as shown HERE!

Now, a previously-unmentioned brother, Jarn has been added.

Plus, a semi-legit explanation for how dinosaurs exist at this point in history is presented!

(Hey, it worked for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World!)

In addition, all the other people are now Neanderthals, while the previous tales presented a mix of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons!

And, we meet a race of busybody Chariots of the Gods-type aliens (who appear to be different from the aliens seen HERE) who are presented as the new ongoing antagonists.

Bonus: Here's the original art for page 4...

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Holiday Reading Room EVERY DAY IS A HOLLY DAY "Thanksgiving Day" & HUMBUG "Like How to Carve Turkey"

A look at Thanksgiving...including before it was Thanksgiving!

Note there is a historically-inaccurate aspect below...

Interestingly, this page from Brevity Inc's one-shot giveaway Every Day is a Holly Day (1956) plays up the fallacy that turkeys were served at the first Thanksgiving, when, in fact, the primary dish was eel!
In fact, Benjamin Franklin wanted the wild turkey to be America's official bird and you don't eat your official bird!

Why is this comic entitled "Every Day is a Holly Day" instead of "Every Day is a Holiday"?

Because it was given away to kids by grocers who sold Holly Sugar!

Illustrated by John Rosenberger, it's a unique pamphlet covering a number of American holidays, including both Lincoln and Washington's Birthdays (before they were combined into "Presidents' Day"), Mothers' Day (though not Fathers' Day), Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and a couple of holidays we've largely abandoned...Pan-American Day and American Indian Day!

We'll be presenting the other chapters on the dates they fall upon.

Watch for them!

Now, let's switch from reverence to sarcasm, with a never-reprinted one-pager by Arnold Roth from Humbug Publications' Humbug #5 (1957) covering a major culinary conundrum...

Happy Thanksgiving!