When Flint Met Reef

Well, that was exciting!

We nearly lost the wild, wandering brain as it hunted through the deep wilds of Planet Comics, but we managed to catch up to it again - and we learned what it was stalking! 

We saw it rooting around Flint Baker and Reef Ryan -  now we know what it was actually hunting: Space Rangers:

With issue #26 of Planet Comics, the two series merged into one with art from Lee Elias, who was already drawing Reef Ryan at that point. (Hugh Fitzhugh remains anonymous)

I was going to run the first three episodes as introduction to the series, but i just liked Lee's splash to #4 too much, so we're skipping ahead - 

The duo remained as the Space Rangers team for about 40 issues or so, until the waning days of the title. Both returned to their solo strips for a few issues in the last days, but those were reprint stories. For most of their adventures, they were teamed together.

Could they be the Planet's Finest team if they're usually off-planet?

Somehow, we still have not gotten to the first strip I thought we'd look at from Planet Comics, even though it's been mentioned once or twice (in this same context, i believe).

Maybe soon...

page art by Lee Elias for Planet Comics #s 26, 27, & 29 (1943, 1944)

Planetary Reef

If you were with us last time, you may recall that we were stalking the wild wandering brain as it hunted through some old familiar territory and looking at Flint Baker.

It still seems to be digging in Planet Comics, but something else now has its attentions...

Let us pause to ask "Reef"? Isn't that a rather Aquatic name for an outer space character? Not to mention the avian adversary.

This all seems rather strange. 

Tracking back to the spawning point in #13, we find that Reef Ryan's adventures take place on Neptune. 
Well, that makes sense for the name.

Here's how he got started...

Hugh Fitzhugh is a pseudonym, and we don't know who was using it. That premiere episode may have been drawn by Al Gabriele. It's more certain that he drew the follow up tale -

Reef took care of Sarku in the next couple stories, but stuck around on Neptune for the next dozen issues. His final solo strip appeared in #25, unless one counts a reprint or two in the final days of Planet Comics.

But why has the wandering brain focused on this series? What has it got to do with the path it started with Flint Baker?

Perhaps if we keep following it we will learn what it's up to...

page art by Al Gabriele from Planet Comics #s 13 & 14 (1941)

Leaving Mars

Shhh!

My brain has gone wandering back to one of our previous topics. Let's try not to scare it and maybe it will lead us somewhere interesting.

It seems to have taken an interest in Flint Baker. We saw Flint when our topic was Dick Briefer, who wrote and drew the first episode (and created the series? Unknown and likely unknowable) for Planet Comics #1. Briefer moved on after that, and so did we.

If you missed it, here was the first episode. After Briefer's departure, Herman Bolstein takes over the writing chores, and Arthur Peddy , whom you may recall from posts on Red Panther or Captain Thunder, is our new artist. Dick and his ginchy stylings may be gone from the strip, but we get four-armed martian ape, a brutal kill, and a very early use of pogo platforms -

A few issues later, things got interesting as they decided to take the series out of the Solar system and into unknown space ...

...but the very next issue they were back in-system, and working it sequentially. Mercury, then Venus, then Mars again. (Home doesn't count)

So far we've managed to not spook the wandering brain. Maybe if we don't disturb it, we can follow it further...

page art by Arthur Peddy for Planet Comics #s 2 & 5 (1940)