Showing posts with label Joe Certa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe Certa. Show all posts

05 June 2018

LOOK! Up In The Sky! It's... What IS That?


While prepping this weekend's presentation of Vic Torry And His Flying Saucer, some related comics were piled off to the side, as is often the case around here.

Vic came from the dawn of the modern UFO era and many more followed over the years, gaining greater cultural presence in the late '60s and through the '70s. At the height of the Groovy Age, Gold Key published UFO Flying Saucers. The title lasted for at least seven issues (based on my pile here) between 1968 and 1975.
(Nope. Deeper investigation reveals there are six more issues not in the current pile. UFO ran for 13 issues, through 1977. And another 5 issue series followed from Whitman.)

The book establishes their editorial tone on the inside of the front cover with a short essay on the subject. The basic attitude is covered in the opening three sentences:

WHAT IS A UFO?
UFO simply means Unidentified Flying Object. A UFO is a phenomenon, usually a bright light in the sky, which has been observed but cannot be explained.

A brief overview follows, with this paragraph concluding the piece:

UFOs are nothing new. Sightings were made thousands of years ago. Still they defy all efforts to discover what they really are, where they come from and whether they amount to anything more than an interesting curiosity. In short, UFOs remain one of our most intriguing and persistent mysteries.
Now, don't fret. I didn't just blithely skip the middle. Much of what it had to say was more interestingly presented in some greater detail throughout the book in comic format. Let's go to the introduction, written by Leo Dorfman, along with everything else in the issue, and illustrated by Jet Dream's Joe Certa -


After that rather abrupt stop, the book shifts to short accounts of more modern encounters. Mixed in with those were various speculative pieces, usually 2-pagers like these:

LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS (art by Luiz Dominguez)


WHO FLIES THE SAUCERS? (art by Rocco Mastroserio)


EARTH'S OWN FLYING SAUCERS (art by Luiz Dominguez(?))


Oddly enough, this all links back to my favorite caveman comic...

page art from UFO Flying Saucers #1 (1968)

02 June 2018

3-Day Weekend Matinee: Day The Second

Continuing our weekend matinee, we have part 2, of course, of our main feature - Vic Torry And His Flying Saucer from Bob Powell, and chapter 2 of our serial - Twin Earths, from Oskar Lebeck and Alden McWilliams. Today's extra feature is a couple of shorts from our old Fly Girl friends - Jet Dream And Her Stunt-Girl Counterspies.
If you missed yesterday's matinee and want to catch up, here's the quick link.

First up, our serial feature. In chapter one, we met Vana - an agent from Terra, another human inhabited world that exists in an opposite orbital position from our Earth. Vana is attempting to convince our government of her story and the FBI has assigned agent Garry Verth to investigate her tale...

Twin Earths - Chapter 2:

To Be Continued...


If you haven't met Jet Dream's team before these two posts should give you a fair introduction, though there have been a few more here. The team's adventures only run 4 pages apiece, so we've got two for you today -



Refill the popcorn & drinks - it's time for the main feature: part two of Vic Torry And His Flying Saucer -


Join us tomorrow for the concluding chapter of Vic Torry, as well as more Twin Earths and ...?
(And maybe a movie tonight? We'll see how the connection holds up)

Twin Earths by Oskar Lebeck and Alden McWilliams for United Features,  Jet Dream drawn by Joe Certa for Man From UNCLE #s 11 & 12, Vic Torry by Roy  Ald and Bob Powell for Vic Torry And His Flying Saucer #1 (1947, 1950, 1952)

15 April 2018

Sunday Matinee Triple-Feature-In-One

Welcome back to our weekend visit with old friends. We've got something special for the main feature on today's matinee - a triple team-up with Supersnipe, Ulysses Q. Wacky and Herlock Domes.in a full length adventure; 25 full pages from back when other heroes were only getting 8-12 for their stories. Or less.

First up though - Jet Dream and her Stunt-Girl Coutnerspies!
For our bracketing tales this time, let's focus on the newest S-GC, Ting, whom we met yesterday. First, a two-spy mission with just Jet & Ting -



We've seen before how Supersnipe has crossed paths with other superheroes like Doc Savage and The Shadow. This time our heroic trio (no, not the ladies) teams up with a hero of a different kind...



And, finally - the penultimate episode of Jet Dream - The Terror Of Ting-A-Ling


We've covered about half of the Stunt-Girl Counterspies' adventures this past week. I'm sure the other half will show up before too long. (After all - the artwork is already prepped & ready to go.)

Jet Dream by ?? and Joe Certa for The Man From UNCLE #s 14 & 21, Supersnipe by Ed Gruskin & George Marcoux for Supersnipe v3 #3 (1967, 1968, 1946)