Reading Room NORGE BENSON "Ghoulish Gooleys"

Norge Benson was "meta" long before the phrase was even coined!

Note the references to Planet Comics or the fact they're in a comic on the second page!

More Norge Benson nuttiness TOMORROW!

Yeah, Norge definitely wasn't the typical square-jawed, all-American space hero, as this tale from Fiction House's Planet Stories #17 (1942) proves!

Artist Al Walker was one of the few creatives to spend his entire comic book career at only one company, Fiction House!

We'll go into his other artistic endeavors tomorrow!

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Planet Comics
Volume 4

The Return of Norge Benson and the Penguins of Pluto!

Yep, you read that right...

Pluto's inhabited by intelligent, talking penguins.

Lots of them!

Some are "hoodlums" who wear sweatshirts and newsboy caps and talk with thick Brooklyn accents, and some are "pirates" with eyepatches and peg-legs!

Didn't know that, did you?

The Cosmo Corrigan strip proved to be less than a smash hit, so the editors retooled the concept, adding even more juvenile humor (plus a talking polar bear and penguins), dropping the sexual innuendo and frat-boy antics, while renaming the lead "Norge Benson" and having him crash-land on Pluto, rather than simply being assigned there to get him out of his superiors' hair!

The new character was still what we politely call a "doofus", but Norge proved to be far more popular than Cosmo, lasting for almost two dozen appearances!

We've already run five of his never-reprinted tales HERE, and, inspired by the cold wave currently sweeping the US, we'll be presenting two more tomorrow and Thursday...as well as a couple more next week!

Happy New Year 1918!

Will we soon be at war again?

I hope not...but with the current loonie in the White House...

Holiday Reading Room SPACE ADVENTURES "Mummers from Mercury"

Over 6 decades ago, the world almost ended on New Year's Day...

...but it was saved by the participants of the annual Mummers Parade!

This never-reprinted story from Charlton's Space Adventures #1 (1953) was illustrated by Albert Tyler and Dick Giordano.
The writer (who was probably from Philadelphia) is unknown.

The Mummers Parade is held every New Years Day in Philadelphia.
Mummers tradition dates back to 400 BC and the Roman Festival of Saturnalias where Latin laborers marched in masks throughout the day of satire and gift exchange.
This included Celtic variations of “trick-or-treat” and Druidic noise-making to drive away demons for the new year.

Reports of rowdy groups “parading” on New Years day in Philadelphia date back before the revolution.
Prizes were offered by merchants in the late 1800s.
January 1, 1901 was the first “official” parade offered about $1,725 in prize money from the city.

Reading Room TRAGG AND THE SKY GODS "Attack of the Man-Apes" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

...seeking allies against the alien "sky gods", Tragg and Lorn encounter a group of sentient man-apes...who blame them for the inadvertent loss of the one source of fire they had!

Escaping from the man-apes, the duo proceed further into a cave...

Writer Don Glut and artist Dan Spiegle present potential future allies in the war against the alien "sky gods" in the never-reprinted Gold Key's Tragg and the Sky Gods #5 (1976)!
But what of their already-existing ally, the Yargonian Keera?
Will she be put to death for betraying her commander to save Tragg?
The interstellar soap opera continues...Next Week!

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Thundarr the Barbarian

the Complete Series