Reading Room SPACE WAR "Comeback"

What's cooler than re-presenting an over six decade-old never-reprinted Steve Ditko story?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

I love what I do!

And, as they say, if you love what you do, it ain't work!

Written by Joe Gill and illustrated by Steve Ditko, this story from Charlton's Space War #10 (1961) has some weird "echoes" of the origin of Captain Atom II in Charlton's Space Adventures #33 (1960)...by the same creatives!

(We showed it HERE!)

Could this story have been created before "Introducing Captain Atom" and held in inventory until a slot opened up?
We'll never know...

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Unexplored Worlds

Steve Ditko Archives, Vol 2

Friday Fun BLAST-OFF "Danger! Atoms!"

Some stories need little extrapolation...

...such as this never-reprinted short by writer/artist Howard Nostrand from Harvey's Blast-Off! #1 (1965)

Cute, eh?

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Chilling Archives of Horror Comics Volume 7

Howard Nostrand's Nightmares

Space Hero Saturdays SPACE MOUSE II "Secret Weapon"

Space Heroes take many forms...not all of them human!

 ...as shown in this never-reprinted introductory tale from Dell's Four Color Comics: Space Mouse #1132 (1960).

Writer Carl Fallberg and artist John Carey did such an amazing job on this intro to the character, that when it was adapted in 1963 into a cartoon short (May be NSFW/NSFS due to racial stereotyping of Siamese cats using "Asian" accents) directed by Alex Lovy shown HERE, most (but not all) of the plot, script, and visuals were kept intact!
Though the cartoon didn't result in a Space Mouse TV series (or even additional cartoon shorts featuring the character), it did spawn a number of additional comic book stories as well as a five-issue Space Mouse comic!

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Woody Woodpecker and Friends
Volume 2
(Which has the Space Mouse "Secret Weapon" cartoon!)
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It's Palm Sunday! Did You Know the Very First Captain of the USS Enterprise...

...was Jesus Christ?

Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus Christ in King of Kings (1961)

 Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike with Leonard Nimoy as Mr Spock in Star Trek "The Cage" (1964)

Here's"six degrees of separation" trivia in only five degrees:

• John Huston, who later did a prequel movie, The Bible: In the Beginning, directed Moby Dick, using a screenplay adapted by Ray Bradbury from the Herman Melville novel.
• Ray Bradbury wrote the voiceovers in King of Kings spoken by Orson Welles.
• Welles' The Shadow and Mercury Theatre radio series co-star Agnes Moorehead served as dialogue coach to  Jeffrey Hunter (Jesus Christ) in King of Kings.
• Jeffrey Hunter later played Christopher Pike, the first captain of the Starship Enterprise in the pilot episode of Star Trek, "The Cage".
• Star Trek did an episode, "Bread and Circuses", about a planet where parallel evolution produced a society that resembled a 20th Century version of the Roman Empire, complete with it's own "Christians" and Jesus Christ (who doesn't appear on-camera, but is mentioned in dialogue)!

Reading Room UFO FLYING SAUCERS "Life on Other Worlds"

Specifically-themed anthologies are difficult to keep going for more than a few issues at a time...

...but Gold Key's UFO Flying Saucers / UFOs and Outer Space managed an impressive 25-issue run!

The series combined stories using documented UFO sightings with features based on reasonable speculation and tales that were flights of sheer fantasy,

Written by Leo Dorfman and illustrated by Luis Dominguez, this short from  UFO Flying Saucers #1 (1968) falls into the "reasonable speculation" category...albeit with aliens who look like refugees from a Golden Age (1920s-1940s) pulp magazine!

BTW, Gold Key's former publishing partner Dell, had their own 1960s anthology, Flying Saucers, which began before UFO Flying Saucers, but only managed five issues!

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Flying Saucers from Outer Space

by Major Donald E Keyhoe

Reading Room TWILIGHT ZONE "Calling..." & "Journeys into..."

Though the original Twilight Zone comic never adapted any of the TV episodes...

...it did use a stellar lineup of talent to craft some really good new stories as well as science featurettes like this George Evans-illustrated one from Dell's Four Color #1288 (1962)...

...and this Evans-penciled/Reed Crandall-inked piece from Dell's Four Color #1173 (1961).

Besides these talented guys, other artists on the early issues included Frank Frazetta, Mike Sekowsky, Frank Giacoia, Alex Toth, Frank Thorne, Don Heck, and Angelo Torres!

Though neither Dell nor Gold Key followed the Comics Code, they didn't allow the creatives to go back to the relatively-unrestrained horror material most of the artists (especially the EC alumni) had done previously!

Sadly, trademark and licensing constraints have prevented these stories from being reprinted, but you'll be seeing them re-pesented here and at our fellow RetroBlogs!

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Boris Karloff's

Tales of Mystery Archives

Volume 1

(which is available in reprint, and features many of the same artists as the Twilight Zone comic)

Friday Fun THE VIDEO VERSIONS OF "ARENA"

"Arena" by Fredric Brown (See HERE and HERE) was adapted (sort of) twice for TV...

...first, in 1964, on The Outer Limits as "Fun and Games", starring Nick Adams.

There are a number of differences between the story and the episode, including a pair of new characters, a woman with a hidden past who works with the hero and a mate for the alien...whom the alien himself kills!
(Talk about "battle of the sexes)!

A year later the story was reused, on Classic Star Trek as "Arena"...

...except it wasn't...exactly.

Gene Roddenberry's right hand man, producer Gene Coon, had submitted a story about Capt. Kirk fighting an alien starship's commander in hand-to-claw combat to see whose ship would survive.

When the story was fact-checked, it was discovered that Coon had inadvertently-used numerous elements from Brown's story, which Gene had probably read years earlier!
Since the episode was already in the production cycle, "Arena" author Fredric Brown was contacted, and he agreed to allow "Arena" to be adapted again...not knowing the episode was already written.
Since the OL and ST episodes are sufficiently-different (and titled differently), many in the 1960s never realized...or noticed...the "Based on a story by Fredric Brown" credit!

Friday Fun Extra: Kirk (William Shatner) and the Gorn (not the stuntman from the 1960s!) meet again in hand-to-claw combat...

...to promote a video game based on the reboot Kelvin Universe Star Trek!

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Outer Limits

Complete Original Series DVDs

and/or

Star Trek

Complete Original Series BluRays

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Reading Room STRANGE SUSPENSE STORIES "One Last Chance"

A never-reprinted, Ditko-rendered, Silver Age tale...

...is the sort of thing we delight in presenting to our blog's loyal fans!

I rather like the idea that the protaganists will never know if they succeeded in saving the future...or inadvertently destroyed it!

Charlton's Strange Suspense Stories V3#2 (1968) was written entirely by Steve Skeates, though the stories in the anthology were illustrated by different artists.

Apparently editor Dick Giordano had planned to allow a single writer to carry each issue, with Denny O'Neil penning all the stories in the first issue and Skeates scripting the the tales in the second one.

Giordano's departure to DC scuttled the concept, and from the third issue onward, a variety of writers would fill the pages.

BTW, though the tale was never reprinted, the cover was...

...to represent a different Ditko-illustrated story reprint in Charlton's Space War #31 (1978)!

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Unexplored Worlds

Steve Ditko Archives, Vol 2

Trump Reading Room "Sinner"

If you wonder what sort of mindset would allow "God-fearing" evangelicals...

...to support a proven heathen like Don da Con, as The Chosen of the Lord, perhaps this over half-century old tale will offer some insight...

In case you have trouble reading the marker, here it is...enlarged...

Originally published in the wonderful Silver Age prozine, Witzend #1, in 1966, this Archie Goodwin-scripted and illustrated tale has also appeared in Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction Special #1 (1976) and Epic Illustrated #2 (1980), never losing it's impact!

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Best of Witzend