Baker Reading Room OUTER SPACE "Incredible Giants"

Here's another never-reprinted sci-fi tale...

...by renowned Black artist Matt Baker, who penciled, but didn't ink, the story!

Inker Vince Colletta employed a number of excellent, detailed pencilers like Matt Baker and Joe Sinnott to work for his studio, which "packaged" stories, series, and even book-length tales for publishers.

Unfortunately, when dealing with smaller publishers like Charlton (who didn't pay as much as DC, Marvel, Harvey, etc) to save cash, Vince inked most of the work himself, usually rushing it to meet deadlines!
Compare with another story, inked by long-time Baker collaborator Ray Osrin, and you see the difference inkers can make!
The same level of page layout and storytelling is obvious in both tales...but the rendering...hoo boy!
BTW, Joe Gill wrote this story from Charlton's Outer Space #23 (1959).

One important plot point was that the giant children thought the scout ship was a seed pod due to it's design...

...an element cover artists Charles Nicholas and Rocke Mastroserio didn't follow though on with their re-do of the story's splash panel!

Were they not informed, or did the editor deliberately insist on a more traditional ship design?

We'll never know the answer!

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Matt Baker

Art of Glamour

Monday Madness FAST WILLIE JACKSON "Introduction" & "Jabar in The One and Only"

In the 1970s, there was an Archie-style comic aimed at Black audiences...

...and though it used artists who worked for Archie Comics, it wasn't published by Archie Comics!

Fast Willie Jackson was published  by Black-owned publisher Fitzgerald Publications who had previously published the Golden Legacy non-fiction comic series about Black history.

Fast Willie was their entry into the mass-market comics market.

Though not Comics Code-approved, it received newsstand distribution, and sales were climbing for each successive issue.

Unfortunately, it reached break-even only with the seventh (and final) issue, when other matters caused Fitzgerald Publications to cease producing new material for an extended period. When Fitzgerald briefly resumed publishing, Fast Willie was not among the titles.

Written by publisher/editor Bertram Fitzgerald, illustrated by "Gus LeMoine".

Note: There's no record of Gus LeMoine outside of a brief comics career for Archie and Fitzgerald which coincidentally ends with superb Dan DeCarlo mimic Henry Scarpelli leaving his staff position at DC and becoming a full-time staff artist at Archie...at which point Lemoine's credits disappear!

Most artists in the comics field do other (fine or commercial art) work before and/or after their stint in comics.

There's no trace of LeMoine's work anywhere else!

If anybody can provide a link to his pre/post-comics work or some sort of biography I've missed, I'd be extremely grateful for the info!

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Black Comics

Politics of Race and Representation

Reading Room LOST WORLDS "Worlds Apart"

"Submitted for your approval, a romantic triangle with unequal sides..."

"...because one point of this scalene triangle is firmly entrenched...in the Twilight Zone!"

(It works if you read it in a Rod Serlingesque voice.)

Cue Twilight Zone theme music...

While the writer for this story from Standard's sci-fi anthology title Lost Worlds #5 (1952) is unknown, the art is by Nick Cardy, who began his career in the Golden Age and kept working up until he passed in 2013!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Space Force Saturdays SPACE SQUADRON "World of No Return!"

Buckle up your jetpacks...

...as we hurtle back to the year 2000 (as seen from the year 1951!)...

This never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Space Squadron #2 (1951) is typical of the early 1950s, when sci-fi was dominated by various military and police organizations patrolling and controlling the universe, much as America was patrolling and controlling the non-Commie-controlled parts of Earth.

As in many ongoing series (no matter what the genre), the evil progeny (Edgar Revere) of a great man (Blast Revere) was never revealed as the schemer behind most of their problems!
The illustrator (pencils and inks) is future X-Men artist Werner Roth, but the writer is unknown.

Keep watching, as we finish our re-presentation of this time-lost series in Space Force Saturdays!

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Complete Adventures of Lucky Starr

by Isaac Asimov
(under the pen-name "Paul French")
Omnibus of ALL Six Space-Opera Sagas!
David Starr: Space Ranger, Pirates of the Asteroids, Oceans of Venus, Big Sun of Mercury, Moons of Jupiter, Rings of Saturn

Friday Fun AMAZING ADVENTURES "Adonis 2-PX-89"

This week's Valentine's Day-oriented entry is a weird combo of sci-fi and humor...

Art by Allen Anderson

...which was probably written by the man who created the Clark Kent/Superman/Lois Lane love/hate triangle...

This cover story from Ziff-Davis' Amazing Adventures #4 (1951) was illustrated by Henry Sharp who, during his decade in comics, illustrated only sci-fi or war stories!

Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel was the editor of the Ziff-Davis comics line, and wrote many of the stories that appeared in it, so it's not unreasonable to assume this tale, which contains many plot aspects common to those tales of Superman and Lois Lane, was scripted by the same writer!

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Secret Wars Secret Love