Monday Madness "Supreme Penalty" 1.0 & 2.0

Here's two radically-different versions of the same sci-fi comic tale...

...with changes in the reprint forced upon the publisher by the Comics Code Authority!

This version appeared in Harvey's Black Cat Mystery #47 (1953) during the height of the horror comics boom.

It was re-presented in Harvey's Race for the Moon #1 (1959) after the Comics Code went into effect.

Let's see how things have changed...

Almost every panel has a change from the original, either in art or balloons!

Panel 4 has an interesting change in dialogue indicating the condemned survive in space...

Only change is dialogue in the first panel, which indicates the exiled criminals are still alive, but in orbit.

The figure of Judge Krenk being murdered in Panel 6, and his corpse in Panel 7 have been removed!

Panel One: Judge Krenk is said to be wounded, not dead!

Panel Six: Frances' face redrawn to look less maniacal and his sentence altered to confine him to his lab!

Interesting to note the alterations inflicted by the Comics Code!

Art (and probably story) by Bob Powell.

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Bob Powell's
Terror
(Anthology of the best of his 1950s horror and sci-fi tales)

"President's Day" is Tomorrow...

...but before they combined Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays into a "floating" holiday...

...Washington's Birthday was celebrated each year on Feb 22nd...

...and Lincoln's Birthday was on February 12th!

These two features appeared in a 1956 comic called "Every Day's a Holly Day"

(No, it's not a typo...as you can see!)

Why was it called that instead of "Every Day's a Holiday"?

Because it was given away to kids by grocers who sold Holly Sugar!

Illustrated by John Rosenberger, it's a unique pamphlet covering a number of American holidays, including Mothers' Day (though not Fathers' Day), Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and a couple of holidays we've largely abandoned...Pan-American Day and American Indian Day!

We'll be presenting the other chapters on the dates they fall upon.

Watch for them!

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Cartoon History of the United States

Space Hero Saturdays BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25th CENTURY "...on the Moon of Madness!"

Buck's BACK!

Due to the launch of the Buck Rogers TV series in 1979, the newspaper strip (cancelled in 1967) was revived.

You'll note that it didn't follow the TV show's concepts, characters, designs, or plots, choosing to reboot/update with a more traditional "space opera" style with occasional nods to the original strip!

Written by Jim Lawrence and illustrated by Gray Morrow, this never-reprinted tale from Heavy Metal V3N5 (1979) appeared just before the strip debuted in newspapers in September '79.

It's believed to be a "proof of concept/pilot" tale, since there were differences (mostly in costume and ship designs) in the newspaper strip itself.
The strip continued until 1983, with Cary Bates replacing Lawrence and several artists including Gil Kane and Neal Adams doing brief fill-ins until Jack Sparling took over the art for the remainder of the run.

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Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

the Gray Morrow Years

Frigid Friday Fun PLANET COMICS "Norge Benson is Plummeting to Pluto!"

Cosmo Corrigan was apparently caught in a black hole...

...and immediately replaced in Planet Comics (like the very next issue) by this guy, who encountered a whole different group of Plutonians!

Illustrated by Al Walker, who spent his entire comics career at Fiction House, this debut tale from Planet Comics #12 (1941) presents a somewhat less snarky (though no less humorous) version of the "Earthman on Pluto" concept shown in Cosmo Corrigan., mixing alien versions of both Arctic and Antarctic animals with total disregard to anything even remotely resembling exobiology (or continuity)!

But it is fun, and that's all that matters!

And it managed to survive for 19 more issues, some of which you'll see here over the remaining winter months...

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Planet Comics

Volume 3

Reprinting issues 9-12

Reading Room STRANGE TALES "I Am the Abominable Snowman!"

We presented tales from pre-Marvel Atlas Comics of catching and finding "Abominable SnowMen" HERE and HERE!

So this never-reprinted Atlas Comics' story's title seems almost...inevitable!

This story from Atlas' Strange Tales #72 (1959) is the weakest of the three "Snowman" tales, both in terms of writing (by an unknown scripter) and art (by journeyman Paul Reinman).

The plot's too convoluted and illogical.
The art tells the story competently, but not dynamically.
And it's obvious Reinman was rushed while inking it, making it hard to make out details.

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Atlas-Era Marvel MasterWorks

Strange Tales

Volume 6

(The final volume, reprinting issues 49-57)