Friday Fun REX DEXTER "Giant of the Cone Planet"

Who do you call when something weird (like a non-globe-shaped planet) appears?

Why, Rex Dexter of Mars, of course!

Boy, people are fickle!

Just because a giant monster you bring back from another planet tears up the city, everybody forgets all the good stuff you did before that!

Talk about "what have you done for us lately?"

OTOH, it does free up the character to wander the universe in search of adventure...

This 6-pager from Fox's Mystery Men Comics #3 (1939) has enough wild concepts and action from Dick Briefer's fertile imagination to fill an entire issue (if not a mini-series) today!

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Comics About Cartoonists

Stories About the World's Oddest Profession

Reading Room FLYING SAUCERS "First Contact"

We Have Already Seen...

...well, between the kool inside front cover (with art by Wally Wood and an unknown inker) above, and the first paragraph below, you have all you need to follow the tale, so dive right in...

Saturday:

Final Objective!

Inspired by the flying saucer craze of the late 1940s-early 1950s, this 1950 Wally Wood-illustrated book was one of many one-shot titles from Avon Comics during their short, but prolific existence.

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Life and Legend of Wallace Wood

Volume One

and

Life and Legend of Wallace Wood

Volume Two

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder CARSON OF VENUS "Mutiny at Sea"

We Have Already Seen...

BTW, I find it strange an American would take the side of a monarch against rebels.

Note also, the re-drawing of a couple of heads by editor Joe Kubert in the first panel below...

The adaptation of Pirates on Venus races along with this action-packed chapter from DC's Korak: Son of Tarzan #51 (1973).

Considering this was a bi-monthly series, writer Len Wein and artist Mike Kaluta felt the pressure to deliver a serialized tale that would hold the audience's interest for two months at a time...and they always delivered...as you'll see next Wednesday!

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Pirates of Venus & Lost on Venus

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Reading Room FLYING SAUCERS "Spawn of Terror"

Was Erich Von Däniken the first to tie flying saucers to ancient civilizations?

Nope!

The idea of aliens visiting us in ancient times had been popular for as long as fantasy and science fiction have been around.

Thursday:

First Contact!

Inspired by the flying saucer craze of the late 1940s-early 1950s, this 1950 Wally Wood-illustrated book was one of many one-shot titles from Avon Comics during their short, but prolific existence.

Another one-shot (though it probably wasn't intended to be such), was Fawcett's Vic Torry and His Flying Saucer (1950).

Flying saucers also popped-up in almost every already-running comic book from funny animals to mysteries.

They even appeared in Charlton's Cowboy Western Comics, which changed it's name for a year to Space Western Comics to play up the connection!

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Life and Legend of Wallace Wood

Volume One

and

Life and Legend of Wallace Wood

Volume Two

Reading Room FANTASTIC COMICS "Space Smith and the Leopard Women of Venus"

Weird we have two stories featuring both the planet Venus and evil women two days in a row, eh?

BTW, if you want to understand what's going on, read HERE and HERE before continuing.

Some call Fletcher Hanks the "Ed Wood of comics", but there's no mistaking the sheer imagination behind the primitive art.

When comic books featuring new material (they were initially comic strip reprints) first appeared in the late 1930s, it was an "anything goes" market as publishers would run whatever they could lay their hands on from comic strip and pulp magazine professionals as well as talented (read "cheap") amateurs.

Some, like Siegel & Shuster, Simon & Kirby, and Finger & Kane created what would become American icons.

Others. like Hanks, were like mayflies, briefly appearing...then disappearing, leaving little behind.

Even comics geeks had forgotten about Hanks' material, which sat un-reprinted for over half a century, until Fantagraphics produced a couple of books collecting his work from the various anthology titles it appeared in!

We're now running the entire Space Smith series every Monday, including Hanks' work and the later, more conventional tales by others (including a few surprise contributors).

Watch for them...

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I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets!

by

Fletcher Hanks