Friday Fun ZANY "TV or Not TV?"

With schoolrooms closed and the Internet streaming education to homebound students...

...let's see how they thought we would handle this sort of situation in 1958!

According to this somewhat prophetic feature from Candar's Zany #1 (1958), their supposition looks pretty accurate!

The art's by Carl (Human Torch) Burgos, who shows an amazing knack for humor!

Zany, one of dozens of MAD magazine imitators, lasted only four (never reprinted) issues.

But within those few pages lurked a number of top-notch Golden and Silver Age artists, including Burgos, Paul Reinman, Don Orehek, Joe Sinnott, Stan Goldberg, Dick Briefer, Pete Costanza, John Forte, and Bill Everett (who painted all four issues' covers)!

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Sincerest Form of Parody

The Changing Face of Life on Venus...in Planet Comics!

 You'd think a sci-fi magazine featuring "shared universes" would be the first place you'd see...

...a consistent presentation of the Solar System!

And you would be wrong, as this one-pager by an unknown writer and artist from Fiction House's Planet Comics #51 (1947) will demonstrate!

A couple of years earlier, in Planet Comics #34 (1945)...

...a decidedly-different Venus with different inhabitants was shown by an unknown writer and future Buck Rogers/Superman artist Murphy Anderson!

But only a few issues before that, in Planet Comics #30 (1944)...

...a text feature by an unknown writer using the Fiction House pen-name "Montague Truex PhD" and artist Fran Hopper about Venus featured another race of aquatic aliens inhabiting the cloudy planet!

This doesn't even count the various versions of Venus that appeared in Planet's ongoing strips like Gale Allen and Her Girl Squadron and Lost World!

BTW, we've previously-presented two "scientific romance" versions of Venus...

Earth Man on Venus by Ralph Milne Farley...

and Carson of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs!

They're kool retro fun!

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Pirates of Venus & Lost on Venus

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder HARSH REALM "Crucible" Part 2

 We Have Already Seen...

Detective Dexter Green, thrust into the virtual world of "Harsh Realm", has found the person he seeks, Dan Crawford...who has apparently been driven insane after acquiring almost unlimited power!

To complicate matters, one of Dex's companions, real-world person Moira, is near death...in a computer-generated universe where "death" there kills your body in the real world...

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, anyone?

Be Here...

Next Wednesday!

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Harsh Realm

Trade Paperback

Before Trump's Space Force... PERIMETER PATROL SERVICE "Space Pirates on Xarpot"

Space military/police organizations were ubiquitous in 1950s sci-fi...

...and this story was the second one featuring the short-lived Perimeter Patrol Service.

BTW, note the painted cover is by the story's illustrator, Bernie Krigstein, who rarely did painted covers!

Considering the three tales were done by the artists who also did SpaceBusters, we wonder if this was intended as a backup series for that title.

This never-reprinted story from Ziff-Davis' Amazing Adventures #6 (1952) is a superb example of pulp/comic space opera of the era with all the classic elements:
Scantly-clad women.
Square-jawed heroes.
Rockets & ray-guns.
And, instead of bug-eyed monsters...space pirates!
Next Tuesday, the premiere appearance (and last of our stories) about the Perimeter Patrol Service!

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Trump's Space Force

(either for yourself, or as a gift for a con friend/relative)

Monday Madness VIDEO JACK "Pilot Error" Part 1

You know it's a story from the 1980s...

...when the book's editor deliberately looks like, and mentions, Max Headroom!

With that context, let's time-travel back to that era, when MTV dominated the airwaves with actual music videos, the internet was in its' infancy (no streaming video), video tapes were state-of-the-art to watch movies/tv shows, and a 27" TV screen was considered HUGE...

On the contrary, from the 1960s to the present, some kids have been all-but reared by television!

To be continued...

NEXT MONDAY!

Plotted and penciled by Keith Giffen, scripted by Cary Bates, and inked by Dave Hunt, the never-reprinted Epic's Video Jack #1 (1987) is truly a product of its' time!

Note that, unlike today, pop-culture aficionados were scorned as geeks and nerds (What a great name for a movie or tv series!) and considered social outcasts!

How times have changed...

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Max Headroom's Guide to Life