The Comic Book Trade Paperback You SHOULD have Bought...but DIDN'T!

Remember this spectacular wraparound cover?

This superb, never-reprinted Murphy Anderson illustration encapsulates what made DC's science fiction line in the 1950s and 60s so entertaining!

• Adam Strange and Alanna! (DC's premiere Silver Age space-going heroes!)
• Winged Apes! (DC was famous for using apes almost anywhere you could think of!)
• A ridiculous, physically-impossible image (giant arrow thrown by aforementioned winged [but normal-sized] ape through the Earth) that you just must know the story behind! (Though, sadly, in this case, there's no actual story behind this particular piece!)

Fireside's Mysteries in Space (1980), a $7.95 trade paperback reprint compiled from Strange Adventures, Mystery in Space, Tales of the Unexpected, and From Beyond the Unknown came and went quickly through bookstores.

Sadly, it didn't sell well, and many copies were returned to the publisher and pulped!

It's not available in e-book form, and a different 1999 trade paperback, Mystery in Space, doesn't reprint any of the stories featured in this compilation!

When you can find a copy now, it runs from $30 to $100, depending on condition!

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Mysteries in Space

The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics

Space Hero Saturdays AMAZING ADVENTURES OF BUSTER CRABBE "Dark of the Moon"

He was Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Tarzan, and Thun'da!

(And he would've been a helluva Doc Savage, if they had done a feature or serial in the 1940s!)

He was Larry "Buster" Crabbe, the first (and many say, the greatest) cinema action hero.

A two-time Olympian (with a swimming gold medal to his credit), Buster didn't even have to audition for Flash Gordon. (He came to support a friend who was auditioning, and the director, who had seen Crabbe's earlier work as Tarzan offered him the role on the spot!)

Art by Alex Toth

Like many other action-movie actors of the 1930s-1950s, Crabbe had his own comic book where he's shown as Buster Crabbe, not "Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon" or somesuch in the tale, and it's assumed that he's actually able to do anything he's been shown doing in his films.

Unlike most of the other matinee idols, Crabbe's comic adventures covered a variety of genres from Western to sci-fi, and even some cross-genre mashups.

(The others, except for John Wayne, were purely Western-themed series.

Wayne, because of his extensive war film work also had Korean War and present-day adventure comic stories in his comic series.)

Though the writer for this wild, never-reprinted tale from Lev Gleason's Amazing Adventures of Buster Crabbe #2 (1954) is unknown, the artists are Alex Toth (pencils), Mike Peppe (inks) and John Celardo (retouching on Buster's face in several panels).

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Thrilling Fantasy Tales

Friday Fun FROM HERE TO INSANITY "Century's Most Practical Inventions"

What could be a better way to end the week...

...than a never-reprinted Basil Wolverton story?

Charlton tried several times to match the success of EC's MAD, both as a color comic and a b/w magazine!

This particular book, From Here to Insanity V3N1 (1957), was comic-book sized, but tried to look like a b/w magazine with "spot color" elements!
The remaining seven issues in the series were the same b/w magazine format as MAD.

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Sincerest Form of Parody

Reading Room UNLIKELY TALES "Expedition"

Exploring jungles in "deepest, darkest Africa" was a common sci-fi/fantasy trope...

...even into 1968, when this never-reprinted story appeared in Charlton Premiere #4 an anthology under the banner Unlikely Tales.

All the stories in the issue were written by up-and-comer Steve Skeates with a different artist on each tale.

This particular one was rendered by another up-and-comer Pat Boyette with the rest of the tales illustrated by vets Steve Ditko, Rocke Mastroserio, along with another newcomer, Jim Aparo.

Trivia note: all the artists in this issue inked their own pencils, a rather uncommon occurrence in the deadline-driven comics business where the need for speed and high-volume output tended to preclude allowing artists to do both.

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder SPACE ACE "Yo, Bro!" Part 2

We Have Already Seen...

...I'll just add you'll discover why we titled this untitled tale as we did!

(It does make sense!
You'll see!)

See?

We told you the title made sense!

This was the first issue of a six-issue mini-series.

Unfortunately, publisher CrossGen went out of business after the third issue was published, leaving the story unfinished...in America!

With all six issues written and illustrated, first the series' Italian publisher Edizione Italy and then Canadian publisher Arcana eventually ran the entire storyline some years later!

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Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games