Hank Garvin, Man of Steel

The “Golden Age” UK/Australian Atlas/K.G.Murray Superman No 29 published in August 1952 reprinted the cover story from Superman 73 dated Nov/Dec 1951. No sideways comics this time.

I like this exchange between Lois and Superman from the backup story “The Anti-Superman Club” (originally found in Superman 71).

Superman No 29 UK version

Sideways comics

The “Golden Age” UK/Australian Atlas/K.G.Murray Superman No 24 published in March 1952 reprinted the cover story from Action Comics 155 from a year earlier. The rest of the comic was made up of DC material from other places such as the Johnny Quick story that was originally found in Adventure 150.

Apart from the missing gun on the cover the oddest thing about this comic, (and presumably other comics issued by Kenneth G.Murray at the time) was that half of the comic consisted of two DC pages reduced and printed sideways. Not something you see every day.

Superman No 24 UK version

Red Comet revisited

Gosh, he certainly does look red on the cover. The muddy black and white interior artwork isn’t that marvelous either but I’ve scanned it anyway. It was difficult to read in the comic also, with the last story looking particularly washed out as if they were running out of ink in the printing press. I suffer for my art. Now it’s your turn.

Red Comet – The Interplanetary Marvel No 3 Atlas Comics UK

I never liked Judge Dredd (or 2000AD for that matter). That comic began during a period when I had little interest in comics and was perhaps buying just a couple of Warrens each month. I wouldn’t return to purchasing UK comics on a regular basis until the 1980s and Warrior. I’d buy an issue of 2000AD perhaps once a year just out of curiosity. At the risk of enraging Tharg and his supporters, I don’t see that Mr Dredd has any personality to engage the reader. I wouldn’t care if he got blown up or not. I’m sure that was the idea. He’s just a cypher. Like in the Astro City comics that came much later it is the characters both good and bad inhabiting the Megacity that drive the plots. A couple of years ago I purchased a random issue of 2000AD which contained what I consider to be one of the better Judge Dredd stories. So to contrast and compare here is a UK SF comic strip from almost 50 years after the Red Comet. If nothing else it shows how the printing processes have improved immeasurably. Splundig Vur Thrigg. 

Judge Dredd story – 2000AD

PS: These comics below appeared in a forum earlier this year as jpg images. I decided to convert them into cbz files for my own convenience.  As you seldom see copies of Miller and Atlas comics these days, let alone scans of them I thought they were worth putting back out to the Interweb again…….

Diamond Adventure Comics No 11 Atlas Comics UK

Captain Tornado No 86 Miller Comics UK

Marvelman No 328 Miller Comics UK

 

PPS: The Marvelman comic is from 1959. The back cover has this advert for the Magic Tricks/Novelties Mail Order Company (and shop) Ellisdons. They were still going strong in the 1960s when I would send off for a variety of fab gear/tat that usually required a Postal Order of around 1/6d not forgetting the 6d post and packing. Do you remember the strange “throw your voice” device you had to hold in your mouth and be careful not to swallow !! Or the wonderfully named “Seebackroscope” ??

More Book of Space Adventures

The first of the four Atlas “Space” Annuals was the most comicy (is that even a word?) of the lot. Plenty of Space Ace stories and even a smattering (is that a word either?) of half page humour strips along with the photos and articles.

Luckily it is only 64 pages short, and a small amount of bribery has resulted in acceptable scans of all pages. Just scroll down and click on the link. Simples.

The Boy’s Book of Space Adventures 1963

Book of Space Adventures

Before my thoughts wander back to more sensible subjects (?!?) like crap 1970s pop music or offshore radio there is one more series by the Atlas Publishing and Distributing Company Ltd (to give them their full title) from the 1960s that at least deserves a mention.

In 1963, 1964, 1965 and 1966 Atlas published a book presumably for teenagers and presumably on sale in time for Xmas (sorry I’m supposed to say “Christmas”) titled “The Book of Space Adventures” and subtitled “The latest developments in the world space programmes” which was quite a lofty claim !!

The 1963 edition must have been published in late 1962. It contained a number of factual articles and photographs of rockets and jet planes along with “Space Ace” adventure strips. The 1964 and 1965 editions followed a similar format only with “Ace Jordan” strips. Actually, thinking about it, these were probably Space Ace stories too. I don’t own a copy of the final 1966 book but I have found a picture of the striking and quite modern-looking cover.

As was usual for the times half the strips were in duo-colour (an odd yellow/blue in the case of the 1965 No 3 Annual) and the other half were “fully coloured”. Now their idea of colour and mine doesn’t quite correspond. They could well have been coloured by an infant class in school at break time using a combination of spit and blunt crayons such is the strange finished results !! This page is perhaps the best of the bunch. The rest have “scribble” backgrounds.

More Red Comet

The more adventurous Newsagents shop in the UK of 50 years ago may have contained a few copies of the flimsy monthly comics from the smaller companies like Miller and Atlas along with the usual Fleetway and D.C Thompson weeklies. The more adventurous comic buyer of 50 years ago may well have purchased the odd issue of “Red Comet”. I wonder if they would have realised then that the material contained within was already 20 years old.

Red Comet appeared in approximately the first 20 issues of Fiction House’s famous Science Fiction anthology title “Planet Comics” circa 1941. It was only here in the UK 20 years later however that he got his own comic. The UK Atlas Publishing (no relation to the Timely/Marvel Atlas) produced at least 9 monthly issues in 1961/1962. They contained 28 pages of black and white reprints featuring Fiction House characters such as Red Comet, Auro Lord of Jupiter and Gale Allen at 6d a throw. (Although oddly, issue No 5 doesn’t contain a single Red Comet story despite him being the title character !). The covers are unique to the UK even though the original American Planet Comics covers were usually far better, often showing mini-skirted girls of the future (with 1940s hairstyles) being carried away by gruesome aliens. Looking at the back page advert there were at least six different Atlas monthly comics still being published in early 1962. Space Ace continued until 1963 and may have been their final comic although books continued to be published by Atlas later into the 1960s. I have a few copies of Space Ace and some of the Westerns along with the more well-known Superman/Superboy/Batman/SuperAdventure comics and Annuals I have mentioned in previous blogs. Space Ace was an interesting title as it was one of the few UK Atlas comics that wasn’t full of reprints from the USA. Although it began with UK sourced stories and art after a dozen issues it transformed into an english language version of the Spanish Johnny Galaxia. See here. I’ve never seen a copy of Atlas’ Planet Stories but I presume it would have been similar in appearance and content to the Red Comet ones containing Planet Comics reprints but who knows, it was all before my time. The best (nay, the only) book on this subject is Denis Gifford’s “Space Aces” from 1991. I may have to drag it out and re-read it to remind myself about this forgotten era.