Wednesday Worlds of Wonder SILVER STARR "Operation Space Disc" Part 1

A blond space adventurer with a hot girlfriend and bearded scientist...

 ...you were expecting, maybe, Flash Gordon?

To be continued...
NEXT WEDNESDAY!

An illustrator in the classic Alex Raymond/Austin Briggs vein, Australian Stanley Pitt worked on a number of beautifully-rendered, commercially-successful strips that could charitably be called "carbon copies" of previous series.

Ironically, his most innovative strip, Gully Foyle (based on Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination, failed to make it to market. (Read why HERE.)

Written by Frank Ashley, illustrated by Pitt for Silver Starr #1 (1952)

BTW, note that, in an era where most Australian comic books were b/w or two-color, Silver Starr got the more-expensive full color treatment!

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Sci-Fi Art: a Graphic History

Reading Room BLACK TERROR COMICS "Space Speedsters and the End of the World"

Combine When Worlds Collide, Damon Runyon's Broadway tales, Flash Gordon, and Front Page...

...and you get this really-weird one-shot tale!

So, we got...Armageddon, gangsters, intrepid spacemen (and women) and spaceships, newspaper reporters, and comedy relief.

Did I miss anything?

This never-reprinted tale from Nedor's Black Terror Comics #23 (1948) seems like part of an ongoing series, but I can't find any other stories featuring the lead characters!

Illustrator (and possible writer) Stan Asch was one of the steadily-working artists who were the backbone of the comics industry in the Golden Age.

With over 300 stories and covers to his credit, he co-created Johnny Thunder and Dr Mid-Nite for DC Comics, and later assisted both Milton Caniff (on Terry and the Pirates) and Al Capp (on Lil' Abner).

Was this a try-out for an ongoing strip that didn't sell?

We'll never know...

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Sci-Fi Art: a Graphic History

Holiday Reading Room: EVERY DAY IS A HOLLY DAY: "Independence Day"

From 1956, here's a never-reprinted tale from a unique comic...

...produced to promote, of all things, sugar!

Why is the Brevity, Inc comic entitled "Every Day is a Holly Day" instead of "Every Day is 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 both Lincoln and Washington's Birthdays (before they were combined into "Presidents' Day"), Mothers' Day (though not Fathers' Day), Flag Day, Labor Day, Columbus 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!
BTW, Monday Madness will return next week!

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Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century

by

Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons

Verily, the RetroBlogs Summer Blogathons Cometh...

...this Wednesday, as, tying into the new Marvel movie Thor: Love and Thunder...
...we simultaneously present two (sorta) related comics about the God of Thunder...

...a double-feature of the conclusion of Thor and Jane Foster's long-running soap opera-style Silver Age romance in

True Love Comics Tales

...along with Jane Foster's first time wielding Thor's hammer in

Heroines!

Be at both blogs on Wednesday, or face the wrath of Odin the All-Father!

SO IT IS WRITTEN!

SO IT SHALL BE!

Space Hero Saturdays TARGET COMICS "SpaceHawk Answers Uncle Sam's Call!"

Pretty appropriate for the 4th of July weekend, eh?
...as the realities of pre-Pearl Harbor America interrupt Spacehawk's fictional far-future exploits!
The story's about to take a sharp turn for SpaceHawk as things get multiversal, kiddies!
Oddly, the 1861 image, showing the Civil War, doesn't show a cavalryman wearing either Union blue or Confederate gray...but green, which wasn't an official uniform color during that period in American history!

In 1940, with World War II underway, most Americans accepted it was only a matter of time until we were drawn into the war.

As the government began to scale up military preparations, the entertainment media started turning their characters towards dealing with the potential threats from across both oceans!
Comic book and pulp heroes began encountering thinly-disguised surrogates for German, Japanese, and Italian spies and soldiers.
In perhaps the best-known of these stories, Superman invaded Germany and Russia, grabbing Hitler and Stalin, and brought them to trial!
(And this was in 1940!)
As for this tale from Novelty Press' Target Comics V2N1 [13] (1941), though the writer is unknown, it may be editor David Adams.
Illustrator Ben Thompson likely was assigned the cover and short feature because he wasn't the artist on any of the series, but made an effort to deliberately match the various styles of the other artists on their respective characters.
SpaceHawk didn't begin his assignment immediately, as he was finishing up a two-part story on Neptune, as we showed HERE!
With the next issue, though, he jumped into the fray!
But, due to racial stereotypes common to World War II entertainment media, we can't show it to you on this blog!
You'll have to go HERE to see it!