Number 1561: Hidden people

Having had a close relative, now deceased, who “saw” invisible people I can tell you that those hallucinations can be very real to the person having them.

In this story from Strange Adventures #13 (1951), Scott, our main character, sees invisible people after an eye surgery. Really sees them. That’s because in fantasy and science fiction we accept as literal the extraordinary things happening to the characters. Yet when reality touches fiction, people would react to someone seeing invisible people as the extras do here, by assuming the person seeing said invisible aliens from Venus to be mentally ill. And how do we know they aren’t correct — perhaps Scott Fulton is hallucinating, and we are just seeing what he thinks he sees? Well, because this is a comic book, that’s why.

One thing bothers me, though. At the end of the story Scott is married to the invisible girl from Venus. So who conducted the ceremony? “I now pronounce you husband and, errrrr...uh...invisible wife.”

Story written by Edmond Hamilton using the pseudonym Hugh Davidson, pencils by Bob Oksner with inks by Bernard Sachs.

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Number 1276: “It's a woman's world!”

This is the fourth and final posting of our silly science” theme week. I've saved this one for last, because when I first read it I was slack-jawed with amazement. Yep, sixty years ago in these United States we had a whole different mindset about gender roles, did we not? I grew up in that era; my mom was a housewife and stuck to her “traditional female” role. It was how we saw the world, and role-reversal is the gimmick of this story, from Mystery in Space #8 (1952). Boys reading it in those days would think this would never happen! When Mrs. Pappy and I got married in 1969 the feminists (we called them “women's libbers”) were making headlines, and from my own spouse I could feel the change a-comin’!

In 1971 feminism was so threatening to some men that a book like this could be published.

This Mystery in Space story, written by John Broome under the pen-name John Osgood, and drawn by Bob Oksner and Bernard Sachs, had a publication history that straddled the feminist movement, before and after. It was reprinted the same year as The Feminists, in 1971 in From Beyond the Unknown #11 (where I first saw it), and in 1980 in the Simon and Schuster compilation, Mysteries in Space, the Best of DC’s Science Fiction Comics.

The last two panels of the story are howlers. You'll see when you read them. Talk about a male fantasy. “Okay, you chicks had your fun, now move on over and the boys are back in charge!” As all of us have noticed in our 2012 society that kind of talk may have worked in 1952, but not now.

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Number 1265: Sideways in Time!

The comparisons to Planet of the Apes jump out of this story. But it was published years before Pierre Boulle's 1963 novel was published in France, and adapted as an American movie in 1968. I'm not claiming any kind of plagiarism, but it’s an interesting coincidence. The idea of apes evolving as apes with human-like abilities wasn't a new idea even in 1951, when “Sideways in Time!” appeared in Strange Adventures #12. (And, of course, there's that whole thing of gorillas and DC Comics, told several times in this blog.)

The term “alternate universe” wasn't used in the story, but that’s what writers Jack Miller and John Braillard were describing.

The artwork is attributed by the Grand Comics Database, via editor Julius Schwartz's records, to Mel Keefer and Bernard Sachs.

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Number 1109


Heroes out of time


Consider this to be another story anti-comic book crusader Dr. Fredric Wertham might have trouble with, if he ever saw it. As I showed you in Pappy's #1039. Dr. Wertham was unduly exercised over Superboy going through time and interacting with historical figures. In "Heroes Out of Time," published in Mystery In Space #3 (1951), the historical figures are brought forward in time to combat a menace. Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon help defeat Dr. Indigo Maylor and his army of giant carrots. Besides misrepresenting real people in a comic book plot, maybe Wertham would also have a problem with walking carrots. (They remind me of Bob Burden's Flaming Carrot comics.)

Franklin and Napoleon were real people, Maylor is—to the best of my knowledge—not. "The last American hanged for black magic" is someone I couldn't find after exhaustive research (OK, I admit; I googled the name and didn't find an historical person.)

I love the first part of the story. The characters are lovers, fellow scientists working on two separate projects next door to each other. The man just can't get his experiment on plants to work, but his scientist girlfriend just happens to have invented a time machine to bring people from the past to help! Uh, fella...drop your stupid carrot project and get on board your squeeze's time machine thing. There's a lot of potential there.

The name of author Robert Starr is a pseudonym of Manly Wade Wellman. The artwork is by Bob Oksner and Bernard Sachs.

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Number 780


The long and short of Rackman


Rackman,* who appeared for a short time in Airboy Comics, had a tricky secret. He was a dwarf standing on a rack which he wore under his trouser legs. He could make the rack go up and down, increasing or decreasing his height. No elevator shoes for Rackman. The story doesn't explain that this rack system would be akin to walking on stilts, and trying to look taller while walking around would give one herky-jerky movements, at least. Perhaps Rackman, who shared this secret with his family, all dwarfs, had the trick down pretty well after years of practice.

The artwork is by Bernard Sachs and Carmine Infantino; it's from Airboy Comics Volume 4 Number 4, 1947:









*Yes, I'm aware of modern slang usage of the word "rack" and what a "rackman" would be.

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Number 728


The apes of Ape-ril


As you read in Pappy's #705, I've got some weird thing for simians in comic books. I'm apparently one of many ape fans, because as I've said more than once, DC Comics found out years ago that putting gorillas on the covers of comic books sold more comic books.

I have three stories for you today: From DC's Strange Adventures #8, 1951, a tale of evolution* by Gardner Fox, illustrated by Bob Oksner and Bernard Sachs. Moving forward along the evolutionary scale we have Nick Cardy's drawing on "Experiment 1000" from House of Secrets #6, 1957. We swing from the branches, away from the DC experimental lab to the Gold Key jungle and a 1964 Boris Karloff tale, starring the Great Man himself, Karloff! chasing after the great white ape in "The Mystagogue." The art is by Frank Thorne.

Chuck Wells' is joining in with his Comic Book Catacombs Going Apeshit jungle story here.




























*Yet another take on Edmond Hamilton's "The Man Who Evolved," here.

**********

Say...what?

And here's an extra, from Smash Comics #11, 1940:




By Jove, Captain Cook...a rare chimpanzee with transplanted owl eyes trained to steal green so he could eventually steal the royal emeralds would have been my choice for the culprit, too!

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