100 Years Ago Today...

...The Great War began!

Read this never-reprinted tale from 1964 (the 50th Anniversary) to discover how (and why) the entire planet was plunged into conflict for the first time!

Reading Room: LARS OF MARS "Terror from the Sky"

Commies and atomic weapons!

As the song says, "They go together like Love and Marriage..."

...as the guy who doesn't just play a Martian on TV, but is a Martian playing an actor playing a Martian on TV while fighting crime in real life (got that?) discovers...

Could this be an attempt to set up an ongoing Lex Luthor-esque arch-enemy (but with lots of hair) for our hero in this final story from Ziff-Davis' Lars of Mars #10 (1951)?

Consider the fact that this Lars tale was produced by the duo who created the short-lived character, writer Jerry (Superman) Siegel and and artist Murphy (Buck Rogers) Anderson (who also did a lot of work on Superman during the Silver and Bronze Ages) and you'll see a lot of Man of Steel-style elements.
And, yes, Raskov returned the next issue with new super-scientific weapons...

Trivia:

The cover paintings for both issues of Lars of Mars were painted by Allen Anderson, who was not related to interior artist Murphy Anderson!

Here's a "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon"-style fact (done in four degrees)...

1) Ziff-Davis also published a short-lived adaptation of an actual sci-fi tv series, Space Patrol, illustrated by Bernie Krigstein.

2) Krigstein illustrated the first issue of another Ziff-Davis sci-fi series: Space Busters!

3) Bernie was replaced on interior art for the second (and final) issue of Space Busters by...Murphy Anderson!

4) Allen Anderson did the painted cover for the Space Busters issue illustrated by Murphy! (Norm Saunders had painted the first issue's cover!)

Visit our

MARTIANS! MARTIANS! MARTIANS!

Comic Collectibles Shop

featuring the covers of both issues of Lars of Mars!

Reading Room OUT OF THIS WORLD "Spymaster"

With a cover by Dick Giordano...

...and interiors by Matt Baker, this never-reprinted tale from 1959 has a moral that'll be lost on most of the readers of 2014!

If retold in the cynical, dog-eat-dog world of 2014, the "big chain" drugstore would be welcomed with open arms since its' prices would be lower, the little drugstore would be driven out of business, and the Earth would fall under alien control...

An ironic lesson in lost morality originally-published in Charlton's Out of This World #14 (1959) by writer Joe Gill, penciler Matt Baker and inker Vince Colletta.

Reading Room BLAZE BARTON "Bat Men of Venus"

The World of the Future ain't exactly a fun place...

...but will the Venusians be friends...or foes?

Oddly, Earth seems to have moved backwards in time since the previous story was set in 50,017, not 3000!

The writer of this tale from Quality's Hit Comics #2 (1940) is unknown (and may not even be the first story's scripter), but the artist was Henry Kiefer, a craftsman with over 400 comics stories and covers from 1935 to 1954 including numerous Classics Illustrated adaptations.

Reading Room OUT OF THIS WORLD "Antique Collectors"

What's "antique" really depends on your point of view...

...as this tiny tale (from 1959) demonstrates!

Cars from 1959 are extremely collectible now, and it's only 55 years later!

Both the writer and artist of this story from Charlton's Out of This World #13 (1959) are, sadly, unknown.