Thursday, January 9, 2020

Reading Room TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED "Who is Mr Ashtar?"

We usually don't run stories that have been reprinted...
...but this one is so kool, we just couldn't resist!
Penciled and inked by Jack Kirby, shortly before his return to Marvel, the writer of this story from DC's Tales of the Unexpected #17 (1957) is unknown (but could be Kirby himself)!
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...which includes this story!

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder SEEKER 3000 "Mind Bomb" Part 1

 ...OK, so let's just jump right into the mayhem,,,
What does Jason know that we don't?
Keep in mind Marvel's Seeker 3000 #4 (1998) is the final issue of the miniseries...and that there haven't been any stories (not even reprints) about the ship and it's crew since then!
To Be Concluded...
...Next Wednesday!

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(the first appearance of the series)

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

Reading Room OUTER SPACE "His Own Little World"

After co-creating Spider-Man and Dr Strange, Steve Ditko left Marvel in 1967...
...for reasons still unknown to all but the parties involved.
For the next few years, he went on to work for everyone but Marvel, including Charlton, where he returned to Captain Atom, created a new Blue Beetle, and did a plethora of one-off tales like this one!
Is this device a matter-creator (which would create items from scratch) or a teleporter (which would move already-existing things from their origin point to Rudd's location)?
If it created things purely from his brain-patterns, it would look exactly like the photograph, no matter how old the pic was!
Maybe I'm just over-thinking the whole thing.
At any rate, this story from Charlton's one-shot Outer Space #1 (1968) was penciled and inked by the extremely-busy Ditko, but the writer is unknown.
BTW, the printing on this particular issue was pretty bad.
In fact, Charlton was noted for the poor quality of it's printing,  since they used old printing presses that were designed to print boxes and other packaging that used cardboard and plastic, not newsprint!
When the story was reprinted over a decade later, it came out somewhat cleaner, as you can see HERE.

Monday, January 6, 2020

Monday Madness MARVIN MOUSE "Not-So-'Honest John' "

The creator of the Sub-Mariner, Bill Everett, was an amazing writer/artist...
 ...who could do almost anything he was asked to do.
Unfortunately, funny animals, weren't exactly his "cup of tea"!
This never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Marvin the Mouse #1 (1957) was scripted by Stan Lee and illustrated by the aforementioned Bill Everett.
I believe Everett was instructed to make the characters as different as possible from other cartoon mice such as Mickey and Mighty, which resulted in rodents who looked more like rats than mice!
Bill had shown a knack for humor as shown HERE and HERE, but this was a major disappointment!
A caption at the end of the book read "And remember, every issue Marvin Mouse magazine brings you the best in laughs, adventure, and fun ... don't miss a single issue!"
No problem!
The book ended up a one-shot and the already-completed stories intended for #2 became filler in the backs of other humor titles.
(Editor Stan Lee was very frugal and didn't let anything go to waste!)
Note, for the forseeable future, we'll be running a variety of tales here with the only criteria being that they're extremely weird, and, hopefully, funny!

Sunday, January 5, 2020

Mister Mouse Meets Peter Max

Maybe it's just the depressing, gray weather, but I want something colorful...
This HTF short story illustrated by the late, great, Wally Wood should fill the bill. Enjoy!
Wow! How "Age of Aquarius" can you get?  ;-)