16 October 2019

Jack Of If

It's been a goodly while since we ran any Un-Comics. Long enough that i feel the need to explain them once again.

Un-Comics is what we call comics that didn't appear in typical comics. Sometimes that means special promotional comics. Other times, like today, it means comics that came from magazines that featured text stories. They might come from books or other places. 
Today, they come from the '30s & '40s editions of Thrilling Wonder Stories.

One thing that often tweaks my attention is things that force a little perception shift. Most are likely familiar with at least the Otto half of EandO Binder - one of the great Old Men of the industry and a leading voice of Science Fiction in the comics back in the day.

But, did you know that Earl and Otto had a big brother who led the way? (Okay, if you know the name Eando, you probably did) It skews my brain a bit thinking of back when a venerable old man of the industry was the punk kid brother breaking in.

Jack Binder both wrote and drew a science fiction strip for the magazine for a few years called IF. In later decades it likely would have been What If-?, but i guess we were saving that name. 

These were short pieces, only one or two pages each, so here are a dozen and a half of them for you to check out the series -



















There was at least one other Un-Comic from Thrilling Wonder Stories, and a bunch of interesting connections to comics yet to come.

We'll definitely be back to look deeper into the magazine.

page art by Jack Binder for Thrilling Wonder Stories (see file names for individual months) (1937-1940)

13 October 2019

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)