Friday, January 3, 2025

Friday Fun MODNIKS "Noel Talent: the Most Unkindest Cut"

By the early 1970s, Jack Davis was an established, successful, and busy, commercial artist...
...so when was this weird filler piece, published in 1970, created?
Written by Gary Poole and illustrated by Davis, this one-off tale appeared in the second (and final) issue of Gold Key's Modniks in 1970.
But here's the weird part...
The previous issue of this title appeared three years earlier...in 1967!
That's a loooonnng time between issues!
Plus, Davis had never done any work for Gold Key, and it had been years since Jack had done any work for Dell (which Gold Key split off from)!
And, Poole didn't start working in comics until the mid-1960s, after GK had split from Dell, so this wasn't inventory from that period!
Did Davis know Poole (who had been a radio/tv writer for years before coming to comics) and illustrated this as a favor for a friend entering the field?
We'll never know...
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Thursday, January 2, 2025

Reading Room OUT OF THIS WORLD "What Happened?"

It's a question I've groggily-asked on more than one New Year's Day...
...but here it's the title of an example of classic Ditko storytelling!
Most likely scripted by Joe Gill, this taut tale from Charlton's Out of This World #3 (1957) is one of those fun "gotcha" shorts in the vein of both EC Comics' sci-fi line and, later, TV's The Twilight Zone.
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Tuesday, December 31, 2024

Reading Room SPACE ADVENTURES "You Are the Jury"

We Close Out 2024 with a Trial...

...unlike any we've ever seen...with the stakes being the survival of the planet Earth, itself!
What would you decide, considering the state of the planet (and the USA) as of December 31, 2024?
Illustrated by Steve Ditko and scripted by an unknown writer, this tale from Charlton's Space Adventures V1N11 (1954) presents an interesting dilemma.
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Monday, December 30, 2024

Monday Madness STUART TAYLOR IN WEIRD STORIES OF THE SUPERNATURAL "Faustus"

Despite the title, the series is actually sci-fi about a time traveler and his machine...
...who occasionally run into mystical menaces.
IIRC, The Time Tunnel TV series did the same thing, encountering Merlin, the ghost of Nero, and others along with the usual silver-skinned Irwin Allen aliens...
This series started in Jumbo Comics #1 (1939) as Diary of Dr Hayward, illustrated by Jack Kirby under the house pseudonym "Curt Davis" (which was used for every story in the series).
With #5, Lou Fine assumed the art chores, and several issues later the title changed to Weird Stories of the Supernatural as lab assistant Stuart Taylor took center stage and old Doc Hayward became a supporting character.
(In fact, the series title sometimes listed "Stuart Taylor" above the "Weird Stories..." logo, playing up the action-hero aspect, as it does here.)
As of #15, a rotating lineup of artists contributed art but no other "big names" worked on the series which continued for almost the entire run of Jumbo, ending at #140 (1950).
This particular never-reprinted story is from Jumbo Comics #111 (1948) and was produced by the Iger Studio, which supplied almost all of Fiction House's comic material during this period!