Sunday, May 11, 2025

Holiday Reading Room EVERY DAY IS A HOLLY DAY "Mother's Day"

Ever wonder why Mother's Day is when it is...or even why it is?
Oddly, there's no entry in this comic for Father's Day!
(Perhaps because Father's Day wasn't made an official American holiday until 1972, decades after this comic was published in 1956!)
Why is this 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"), 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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Saturday, May 10, 2025

Space Hero Saturdays SPACE MOUSE "Atomic Attack!"

Before the Space Mouse We've Already Re-Presented HERE and HERE...
...there was an earlier one whose adventures ran for several years!
And this is as close as you'll get to an origin for him featuring the introduction of equipment and plot elements that'll pop up over time in the series!
Oddly, this Frank Cairn-written and illustrated story was neither the lead nor the cover-featured tale in Avon's Space Mouse #1 (1953)!
Go figure!
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Friday, May 9, 2025

NO Fun Friday with the Return of the Revenge of the Ants!

 

Due to the unusually-warm and dry winter Chicago had (the least-snowy in 88 years), the Formicidae have returned...in force!
They've been contained and almost eliminated, but we're not going to do the usual post today.
Wish I had Hank Pym's Cybernetic Helmet!

Thursday, May 8, 2025

Reading Room STRANGE TALES "Beware of Meeks Bringing Gifts!"

...but, while it has never been reprinted, that doesn't mean the story wasn't reused...this time with an oddly-contemporary aspect...
WTF???
Newspeople have a responsibility to uncover and tell the truth objectively and honestly?
Please don't tell FoxNews that...
We do know that Jack Kirby penciled this (also) never-reprinted story from Atlas' Strange Tales #86 (1961).
However, everything else is pure speculation.
It's thought Sol Brodsky inked the story (though it has aspects of Dick Ayers' style as well).
And, since it's not signed "Stan Lee" (as most confirmed Lee-scripted tales were),  the consensus is that Stan's brother Larry Lieber penned the story.

Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder SUPERNATURAL THRILLERS "Valley of the Worm!" Part 1

We've Spent a Month in A Futuristic Dimension...

...now let's go the other way, to a world where technology is non-existent and only a strong sword arm will keep you alive!







To Be Concluded Next Wednesday!
Based on a short story by Robert E (Conan the Barbarian) Howard, Adaptors Roy Thomas & Gerry Conway and penciler Gil Kane & inker Ernie Chua/Chan turned in an absolutely magnificent version of the tale using a lot of Howard's own prose in captions and dialogue!
Though meant as a stand-alone story in it's initial publication in the pulp Weird Tales and subsequent reprintings as well as this adaptation in Marvel's Supernatural Tales #3 (1973), it has since been incorporated into both the Conan Mythos and the Marvel Comics Universe in the 2020 Marvel mini-series Conan: Serpent War! which included Conan and other Howard characters as well as Moon Knight and Khonshu!
Trivia: There was another REH tale featuring James Allison (the dying protagonist in this story) called "Garden of Fear".
It was adapted by Roy Thomas, Barry Smith & Sal Buscema as a Conan story in Marvel's Conan the Barbarian V1N9 (1971), eliminating any references to Allison in the present day!
Allison's ancient incarnation in this story was Hunwolf the Wanderer and the tale was first published in the second issue of the pulp Marvel Tales, published by Martin Goodman, the first publisher of Timely/Atlas/Marvel Comics!
There were seven James Allison tales.
Who sez comics ain't educational?