Atomic Kommie Comics

Monday, February 19, 2018

Reading Room NORGE BENSON "Interplanetary Olympics"

With Earth's Winter Olympics coming to a close this week...

...it's appropriate we present the future interplanetary version held on, where else, Pluto!

Despite the fact almost all the Planet Comics series have episodes involving aliens from the Solar System, none of the Martians from the various strips match any of the others!

As you may have guessed, continuity was not a strong point in Fiction House's editorial policies!

In addition, though promised in the "next issue" blurb for the Norge Benson story at the end of Planet Comics #24, this story didn't appear until Fiction House's Planet Comics #26 (1943)!

We're restoring it to its' proper place in the story order!

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics!

Visit Amazon and Order...

Planet Comics

Volume 7

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Reading Room WEIRD TALES OF THE FUTURE "Beginning or the End!"

Let's start with ACTION and LOTS and LOTS of SPACESHIPS...

Is that an opening splash page or what?
The rest of the story isn't quite so frantic, but it is interesting...

Oops!

The writer of this never-reprinted story from Key's Weird Tales of the Future #6 (1953) is unknown, but the artist is Eugene E Hughes, who had a brief career in comics working exclusively for Key Publications, then disappeared from the art world (comic books/strips/commercial art) entirely!

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics

Visit Amazon and Order...

Mysteries in Space

The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics

Saturday, February 17, 2018

Reading Room WORLDS UNKNOWN "Day After the Day the Martians Came!"

What does this cover have to do with Black History Month?

Art by Ross Andru & John Romita

Quite a lot, as you'll see when you read the tale that hid behind it...

The short story this comic tale is based upon first appeared in the ground-breaking 1960s anthology Dangerous Visions, a collection of original novelettes and novellas conceived and edited by Harlan Ellison, which should be on any science fiction fan's bookshelf or eReader.

Several of the stories in the anthology, in particular this one and "Riders of the Purple Wage" by Phillip Jose Farmer, explored the subject of racial prejudice.

The comic adaptation from the first issue of Marvel's short-lived anthology Worlds Unknown, is scripted by Gerry Conway and illustrated by Ralph Reese, who began in 1966 as an assistant to Wally Wood and went solo within a couple of years, first as an inker, and later as a penciler/inker.

He's done work for all the major comics companies (usually on their anthology titles), as well as stints on the Flash Gordon newspaper strip and licensing art for Childrens' Television Workshop!

BTW, the Grand Comics Database lists John Romita as sole artist of the cover, but, IMHO, the figure poses are clearly Ross Andru, not Romita.

(And the GCD originally listed Marie Severin and Sal Buscema as the artists!)

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics!

Visit Amazon and Order...

Dangerous Visions

(where the prose version of this tale first appeared!)

Friday, February 16, 2018

Friday Fun JETTA OF THE 21st CENTURY "Atom and Evil"

Dan DeCarlo defined the look of teen humor comics for half a century...

...which is an appropriate point to make as we re-present a series from the 1950s that looks at teen life in the early 2000s!

Written and penciled by Dan DeCarlo and inked by Fred Eng, this story from Standard's Jetta of the 21st Century #7 (1953) has the "feel", both in writing and art, of an Archie tale!

At this point, Dan was freelancing, working for Standard, Atlas (later Marvel) and Archie!

Archie co-creator Bob Montana's version still set the visual standard for the company's flagship character, but DeCarlo was given leeway to adapt the characters to his art style, which would become the defining "look" for the entire line by the late 1950s, and remain so until the mid-1990s!

Ironically, Archie Comics published a series about Archie and his gang set in the far future...