Thursday, March 9, 2023

Reading Room OUT OF THIS WORLD "Man-Eating Lizards!"

It's fun to see early work by a talent who would become one of the all-time greats...
...like this rarely-seen work by a then-teenaged Joe Kubert!
Note: may be NSFW due to racial stereotypes common to the era.
Oddly, the Pacific Islanders are colored green in this tale from Avon's Out of This World (1950) one-shot.
But when this story appeared several years earlier in Avon's Eerie Comics #1 (1947), they were various shades of brown and tan...
There's no explanation for the change to the coloring, especially since all the other color elements remained the same in both versions!
While artist Joe Kubert went on to become one of the icons of graphic storytelling, writer Edward Bellin disappeared from comics after scripting just this and one other story...which also appeared in that issue of Eerie Comics.
But that's not the end of the story!
Bellin (actually "Edward J Bellin") was an early pen-name for a writer already well-established in science-fiction/fantasy...Cyril M. Kornbluth...who was looking to expand beyond the prose market into other media, including comics, radio, and television.
Kornbluth had used the name on one of his earliest short stories, "No Place to Go", and decided to reuse it years later for his comics work.
Who sez comics ain't educational?
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Wednesday, March 8, 2023

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder SPACE MAN "Out Into Space" Part 3

Hey, we're in the middle of a war here!
Check out Part 1 and Part 2, when you have a chance.
In the meantime, dive in...
Think this is the end of the story?
Heck, it's not even the end of the issue!
Be here next Wednesday...
...when our heroes face the world, and lie through their teeth to almost everyone!
Illustrated by Jack Sparling, and probably written by Joe Gill, this story from Dell's Four Color #1253 (1962) was the kickoff to a series that would continue for seven more issues in the early 1960s, then disappear from view...until now!
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Tuesday, March 7, 2023

Reading Room ALIEN ENCOUNTERS "Invasion!"

Hostile, technologically-advanced aliens are coming our way!
Can we defeat them in only two pages?
The "menacing aliens are no threat because they're too small" trope is an old one, going back to golden-age comics.
My personal favorite, because of its' simple, effective storytelling by one of my all-time favorites, can be found HERE!
This never-reprinted Tim Truman written/illustrated "sci-fi Western" tale is from Eclipse's Alien Encounters #4 (1986).
There's a wealth of material from 1980s anthologies that has not seen the light of day since publication, and we will dip into this treasure trove of material as we find/acquire them!
BTW, "Fer SRB" on page 1 refers to fellow writer/artist Stephen R Bissette, presumably because the aliens resemble his creature designs.
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Monday, March 6, 2023

Monday Madness BASEBALL COMICS "Rube Rooky Heads Down the Home Stretch"

...under coach Pop Flye's guidance, Rube has developed into a top-notch pitcher.
But even a first-rate hurler needs a great team behind him!
Fortunately, the formerly-mediocre Badgers are inspired by the pitching prodigy and...
Regrettably, there was no "next issue" of Baseball Comics, so no World Series appearance for Rube Rooky.
But we still have this one-shot wonder from 1949 by writer/penciler Will Eisner and inker Tex Blaisdell to remember.
And, after Kitchen Sink Press reprinted this issue in 1991, there was a second issue  in 1992 reprinting a horror comics baseball story and a Will Eisner Spirit story about baseball, but without The Spirit!
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(A follow-up published decades later)