The Six Three Rocketeers

Three Rocketeers - Count 'Em!

1...2...3...

...4...5...6!

Hmm...

This trio got there first, back in 1952 -

But that was all there was.

A half dozen years later, a new Trio claimed the title with a tolerably awesome support trio - Jack Kirby and Al Williamson, with Joe Simon running Mission Control -

Unfortunately, they debuted in the final issue of Race For The Moon. It would be another 7 years before their adventures continued in Blast-Off -

(By the way - you can also find a couple tales from Larry Ivie in Blast-Off #1, illustrated by Al Williamson and Reed Crandall.)

However, Blast-Off lasted only a single issue, so it was another year before we saw them again in Unearthly Spectaculars as Otto Binder tells us how they got together, with Mike Sekowsky on pencils -

Amazingly, at this point, that was not Unearthly Spectacular's final issue. 

They lasted one more...

And so, apparently they parked the ship in the garage and never went speeding again.

page art by Vic for Atom Age Combat #3 and Jack Kirby, Al Williamson, Mike Sekowsky, and Bill Draut for Race For The Moon #3, Blast-Off #1, and Unearthly Spectaculars #s 2 & 3 (1952, 1958, 1965, 1966, 1967)

Xmas Eve(n)? Xmas Odd!

7

The holiday is upon us...

...and hopefully my brain will be back with more words later.

page art by Bernie Mireault, Ty Templeton, Steve Rude & Al Williamson, and Matt Smigiel for Comico Christmas Special, DCU Holiday Bash and Boo! Holiday Special (1988, 1998, 1999, 2014)

Space Age Kirby (King Kirby 086)

Back before the Space Race triggered a cosmic ray incident, Jack Kirby was already involved in the action.

Joe Simon launched Race For The Moon in 1958 at Harvey Comics with the help of Bob Powell. Kirby provided "5" stories each for issues two and three. Besides the fun of seeing Kirby drawing space race era science fiction, this title also marked the first time that Al Williamson worked with The King. Williamson's inks are particularly well suited to the genre, though his style seems to lightly conflict with the pencils at times - inevitable with two distinctive styles finding their best blend.
You may have noted the quotes around the above number of stories that appear in these two issues. That's because i don't quite agree with the official story count. If one actually looks at the books, you'll find that two of those ten stories look like this:

The more astute among you may have already discerned that this is not a story, but rather a table of contents. Nonetheless, it's usually credited as a one page 'story'.  The first story is the intriguingly titled...

Next up was...

Lunar Trap took place on a moon with both American & Soviet space colonies, a basic can't-we-all-get-along tale that left me thinking of Moon Zero Two.
That was followed by the cover story - the cover being just a rework of the first panel...

It turns out that poor old Bill had a thing about the red spot on Jupiter.... always felt it was watching him. The cover, as you may have noticed, rather obscures the whole notion of Jupiter and the red spot.Odd since that's the story focus.
For our fourth & final tale, we get one of the first pop culture mentions of a phenomenon that would get culturally noticed decades later -

Kirby & Williamson drew one more issue, and then the book was cancelled. Harvey turned its attentions fully to the Funny Animal market and Simon & Kirby moved on.

all pages by Jack Kirby and Al Williamson from Race For The Moon #2 (1958)