Reading Room LOST WORLDS "Man Who Didn't Know Venus"

Nedor/Better/Standard Comics produced several sci-fi anthologies...

...none of which lasted more than three issues.

But it certainly wasn't due to lack of quality.

With a contributor list that included Alex Toth, Ross Andru, Mike Sekowsky, Nick Cardy, and Jack Katz, you're talking some of the great and soon-to-be-great storytellers of comics history!

But, there was one other sci-fi creator who did a story for Lost Worlds, one of only four tales he did for comic books.

Jerome Bixby, novelist and short-story writer, as well as screenwriter whose credits include...

IT! the Terror from Beyond Space!

Fantastic Voyage

Star Trek "Mirror, Mirror"*, "By Any Other Name", "Requiem for Methuselah" and "Day of the Dove"

and the short story "It's a Good Life" which was adapted on both the original Twilight Zone tv series (by Rod Serling) and the 1983 feature film (by Richard Matheson).

BTW, around the time he wrote this, Bixby had just left his position as editor of the Planet Stories pulp magazine at Fiction House, where he also contributed a couple of text pieces to Planet Comics and Indians (his only non-genre text story)!

*The Mirror Universe created by Bixby in "Mirror, Mirror" has proven to be so popular that it has reappeared in almost all the spin-off series spanning almost all of Federation and StarFleet history!

And let's not get into the numerous (sometimes contradictory) novels and comics about the concept...

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Masters of Science Fiction Volume 2
Jerome Bixby
"One Way Street" and Other Tales
Note: "One Way Street's" concept of being transferred to another universe was the thematic basis for "Mirror, Mirror"!
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Wednesday Worlds of Wonder INVASION '55 "Something Strange on the Radar"

Square-Jawed, Heroic Aviators!
Wise-Ass Teen-Agers!
Terrified, Helpless Women!
Innocent, Annoying Kids!
ALIENS!!!

It's the 1950s...as seen from the 1990s, courtesy of writer Chuck Dixon and artist Lito Fernandez!

To Be Continued...

Next Wednesday!

Though both the original Apple Press miniseries and IDW trade paperback reprint (available below) are in b/w, a Spanish-language reprint book was fully-colored...

I don't know if it was because Dixon & Fernandez wanted to retain the "b/w B-movie feel" in the IDW reprint or not, but the Spanish book's coloring is muted and very effective!
And if they wanted the "b/w B-movie feel", why didn't they add grey tones to the b/w art?

You'll note the Spanish version adds a "Fin" (end) at this point.

It's not in the American version.
Nor is there a title for the story itself!
We added one translated from the one in the Spanish edition!

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Invasion '55

Trade Paperback

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Reading Room (and Bonus Video) STAR*REACH "Why Viking Lander/Mars?" by Ray Bradbury

A very kool, never-reprinted adaptation of a Ray Bradbury poem...

...first performed by the legendary author at the 1976 San Diego Comic-Con the week after the Viking probe landed on Mars!
Sadly, there's no extant video or audio recording of the event, but we did find a more recent reading by Robert Picardo ("The Doctor" on Star Trek: Voyager)

AFAIK, the poem's never been reprinted in any of the Bradbury anthologies, or anywhere else, for that matter!

It's only appearance was in Star*Reach #6 (1976), illustrated with absolutely beautiful art by Alex Nino!

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Star*Reach
Greatest Hits

Monday Mecha Madness SHOGUN WARRIORS "Raydeen!" Part 1

We're Going Mecha at Monday Madness...

...as we feature robots big and small, some sentient, some controled by humans and/or aliens!

You'll have to wait until next Monday to learn the backstory created by writer Doug Moench, penciler Herb Trimpe and inker Dan Green in this never-reprinted tale from Marvel's Shogun Warriors #1 (1979)!
(They ignored all the backstory and plotlines used in the Japanese animated series and packaging info for the toys.)

But we're not totally-heartless!

Here's a kool video about how the Shogun Warriors were assembled by Mattel out of three totally-unrelated robots, all with their own animated series from different Japanese TV studios, but all the toys were from the same Japanese toy company, Popy!

You'll note the TV commercials have the robots interacting with Godzilla, also from Mattel, but the characters never met up in the comics, although both the Godzilla and Shogun Warriors series were drawn by Herb Trimpe!
In fact, Mattel utilized Herb's artwork in some of their advertising!

Errol Flynn's Captain Blood...by the creator of Flash Gordon!

How many of you have seen this classic movie poster...

...and knew it was the work of Alex Raymond, of Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim, and Secret Agent X-9 fame?

Yep!

Since Captain Blood and Arabella Bishop do not look like Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, it's a reasonable bet that this was done as an advance promo piece before casting, but it was so good, the studio still used it as their half-sheet poster for both the initial release and re-releases!

If you look at the original Flash Gordon strip, you'll see Raymond incorporated a lot of pirate/swashbuckler costume, weapon, and design motifs into Flash's adventures on other worlds!